I know it’s only the third day of the semester but there are already students that I hate. For instance:
Overeager girl, who's hand shot up in the air every time I asked a question in class. True, she did have relevant input. She also had to say it three times before I was able to move on.
Overeager girl Jr., who also has valid points. But she also liked to interrupt other students to make them. Several times.
Nervous guy, who is terrified of public speaking (lucky for me he's in my Public Speaking course), and has to tell me every chance he gets that he really, really thinks that he is going to puke when he gets up in front of the class to introduce his classmate Friday. And every other time that he has to speak. Awesome.
Vacation girl, who just emailed to say that she would be missing Friday's class because she was going on vacation for the holiday (didn't she just have three and a half months vacation? And a three-day weekend isn't enough to recuperate after the first four days of class?). Oh, but she said I shouldn't worry because everything was all taken care of (if it wasn't she would be in class). Whew, that makes me feel better. She then demanded to know when she could make up the quiz she would miss (even though it explicitly states in the syllabus that the quizzes can't be made up).
And finally, the student that I'm dreading the most…
Repeat guy, who has already taken the course, but for some reason is taking it again this semester. His previous professor, a friend of mine, emailed me last week, asking if he was in my class. When I told him RG was in my class, she responded that RG was an "interesting"student. Shit, I know what that means. My friend later tells me that RG had stayed after class one day, closed the classroom door and proceeded to cuss her out when he got an F on an assignment. Later, he had also sent an F-bomb laced email about the same assignment to reinforce how unhappy he was. She said she dealt with him after this, and he managed to scrape by with a D+.
He missed the first day of class so I was optimistic that he would drop, but he showed up today. He got a syllabus and seemed nice enough, so I went about my lecture. As we were talking about dealing with nervousness (the first thing I address in a Public Speaking course) he raised his hand and asked, "I'm not nervous about giving my speeches. Do I need to take notes on this?" Later (since he obviously didn't need to know how to deal with nervousness and was looking at the syllabus instead of listening) he asked a completely irrelevant question about an assignment that isn't due until the 10th week of class. In the middle of the lecture. I told him we would talk about it later and moved on. The whole time he had one earbud in his right ear, and I noticed a PSP sitting on his desk. After class was over, he came up to ask another question. After answering, I told him he needed to take his earbud out of his ear when he was in class. The conversation went as follows:
Me: You need to take the earbud out when in class.
RG: No. It helps me learn.
Me: How?
RG: You know, um, musical learning.
Me: (completely blown away by this response) I don't think so. It's my policy that all iPods, mp3 players or other music players are turned off and put away during class.
RG: But…
Me: We're not going to argue about this in class. If you would really like to plead your case, come see me in my office hours.
RG: But…
He didn't come by during office hours today. Now I have to wait until Friday to see if he is going to try to use his earbud again.
Did I mention that all of these students are in the same class?!?
