Anger!

I am finding myself continuing to be angry with a couple of students from one of my classes. First, I often find myself unhappy when a couple of "best buddies" enroll in one of my courses because I know they'll chat during class and irritate me because other students will be distracted. Second, these two have had this superior attitude all semester--the only word to describe it is "snarky." I later discovered that their snarky attitude is closely related to their holier-than-thou belief system. And last, I have worked my ass off to have a terminal degree in my field. I don't appreciate being second-guessed on the assignments I use.

So I lashed out, at entirely the wrong person. There's a third roommate also enrolled in my class, and she's not the smart-aleck the other two are. Not only is she not a strong student, but she doesn't "match" the other two. The other two are WASPs to the core. The third roommate is not really a friend of theirs. I think she imagines herself to be their friend, but they have complained about her behind her back. I assume it's this third girl they're complaining about. They "delicately" refer to another roommate as being dirty and messy, which in their superiority, they dislike. Maybe there is a fourth roommate. I don't know. But since they don't sit near this third girl and make no attempt to communicate with her in class or get assignments for her if she's absent--well, it's easy to see that they don't consider her to be "one of them." I told her today that she should make every effort to be as unlike the two of them as she could be. However, I suspect that she admires them and would like to be like them. They are both tall, fair, athletic, and Dean's List. She is short, dark, of mixed race, and barely able to maintain a C average.

She was, of course, surprised that I expressed my anger about the other two to her. It was wrong of me, but I so much want her to separate herself from these hypocrites.

It kept me awake for a while last night because I really wanted to grab these two superior holier-than-thou bitches by their lily-white skinny throats and squeeze until their frosty eyes clouded over.

I really don't often get so angry with students, but I hate it when they wait until the last minute of class to complain about things they feel I've done wrong. Both of these women (in age, at least) are in medical fields, but they lack the human essence that medical personnel need to have. I suspect they would be like that nurse who came in when Daddy died and started turning off the equipment, saying to us, "He's gone." Her voice was matter-of-fact. We were in her way, and she wanted to get my father's corpse out of her care as quickly as possible. They won't be like my cousin Ricky's daughter-in-law, a nurse where my father-in-law died. She was so compassionate and caring. Nurses like she is are so rare and precious.

I'm exhausted. I want this semester to be over, but I dread next semester. Three sections of Advanced Comp for Pharmacy majors. Groan. I told my department chair that I did not really want to teach that class, but since no one else wants it either, I'm stuck with it. I'm in my fourth year at Ferris, but no one new has been hired, so I remain at the bottom of the list for seniority. I do what I'm told, which means I don't get to teach what I want to teach, not without jumping through hoops.

My Esteemed Spouse will be celebrating his birthday soon. Four days. I haven't even bought him a card yet. He's giving a final this evening and another tomorrow evening. Then he'll be done. If only I were so close.