An English instructor from Wisconsin sends in our rating of the week!
I thought that, like a partner in an arranged marriage, I could learn to like, or at least tolerate, a well-paid, secure, unionized teaching position with excellent benefits. But no, not here. At the Wisconsin college where I teach, the collective density of our students creates an intellectual black hole where anything resembling brains is sucked away through a rip in space-time. By summer, I feel dumber. And to those who’ve contributed to my malaise (since I got a late start, some past transgressors included):
To E:
As an English teacher, I’m not sure of the precise clinical term. You’re nutso. Barmy, daft, dotty, bats, loony, loopy, spooky-crazy, crackers, or bananas. Take your pick. If caught with you in my class again, I would chew my leg off to escape.
Density: Uranium.
Hotness: -20 (you could scare the maggots off a gut-wagon).
Your opinion of your abilities: 3 (to write a novel, you should first read one).
To N:
An objective test where the class average was 82 and you scored 63 doesn’t evince racism. Your choice, after numerous examples of introductory techniques and discussion of these, to begin your speech “Mines is on alcohol” was truly doltish.
Density: 5 fence posts.
Hotness: 0.
Your opinion of your abilities: 5
To M:
The C+ you received on your essays was a gift. You’ve attended only half the classes, haven’t cracked a book at all, don’t follow the guidelines for the assignment, and are as familiar with an English sentence as you are with the insides of your own kidneys.
Density: 4 fence posts.
Hotness: 2.
Your opinion of your abilities: 5.
To G:
My pity. I truly doubt that you could read this. In fact, I truly doubt that you have opposable thumbs.
Density: Off-scale; skull has its own gravitational field.
Hotness: -2.
Your opinion of your abilities: 1.
To B:
You dispel the notion that a radio personality must have an actual personality. Well, maybe, if asshole is a personality . . . I lied when I told you it was okay to repeat my class after you flunked it the first time. Who would actually do that?
Density: 2.
Hotness: 2
Your opinion of yourself: Off-scale.
