Dearest Whitney,
Duh. Yes. I know some of you just kiss up for grades. Did you think we didn't notice? Okay, I give you that some male teachers can't control their hormones, etc. but it is not that kind of friend I have been talking about. I actually enjoy playing a bit with the sucker-uppers. They can sit up front and raise their hand and quote my papers as much as they like and sit beside me in the cafeteria all they want, asking vapid questions. I grade hard, no favorites here. And dear sweet Belinda from Bellows, heavens, no, I don't want the entire class in my home. Not all of them are house-broken yet. It doesn't happen often, but there is the *occasional* student who is intelligent enough and interesting enough for me to want to know more about them. This is usually not your average 19-year-old snowflake.
I'm sorry, Whitney, that you were a stupid, insecure freshman. I'm glad you have found happiness, which is not necessarily the goal of a college education, I've heard. But yes, dear, I know that my influence on students is often not felt to be positive *at the time they are studying with the old bitch*. I love it when they come back, years later, and thank me. Even then, they don't necessarily end up being friends. A quick count shows that I have enough fingers to count up my friends among former students and have fingers left over. In 16 years of teaching I have had a good many more in my classes.
So can we calm down and get on with our lives? There's a nice bottle of merlot on the counter, brought by a former student who is visiting with me and my husband.
