Aliens are real.

One of the reasons I love teaching is that it's different every day. Unfortunately, that typically means "different ways in which my mind is blown, and not in a good way, every day."

A good deal of my friends are teachers, so they might not find any of this all that surprising. If you don't typically interact with the next generation, allow me to shed some light on what they're like. You already know they think it's ok to walk into professor's offices barefoot. Here are a few additional notes from the field that, at least from my perspective as an instructor, seem highly representative--

1/ Yesterday in class someone's phone cheerily prompted the whole class to "Say a command!" I said, "please do not say a command. Please just put your phone away." This was after I had already asked them to stop texting in class. (This, or some version of this, pretty much happens every single day.)

2/ Last week a student asked me to download a word processing program to his computer for him. When I explained that I can't do that because I am his teacher and not his personal secretary, his face displayed utter befuddlement. (It had clearly not occurred to him that this was a totally inappropriate request, or that I would say no for any reason.)

This is the same student who does not have the book for the class because "he does not want to walk to the bookstore." 

3/ Yesterday 4 students did not bring their books to class. These students had no idea how to solve the problem of me asking them to answer questions out of their books which they did not have. "What should I do?" I am not joking. I had to tell them to look on with a classmate.

Several minutes after, I saw another student who did not have the book just staring off into space. I guess he thought it would be a good idea to do that for 15 minutes straight. (Remember the Seinfeld episode where Puddy and Elaine are on a plane and he just stares into the seat in front of him? It was like that, except I did not yell "That's it! I cannot take this anymore!" But I really, really wanted to.)

4/ This morning a student emailed to ask whether she's still in danger of not passing the class. The withdraw date, which I reminded them of more than once, was two weeks ago.

5/ Also this morning I had to explain to someone why Nutcase Kent Hovind is not a viable source for a research essay. I think I wrote something like "A conspiracy theorist and convicted felon does not count as a reliable source." I actually had to tell someone that. It reminded me of the time I came across this Onion article treated with total seriousness in a student essay.

If I had more of a green thumb, I'd look for a career in gardening. Plants make a lot more sense to me than people...

On a positive note, I'm really looking forward to taking off next semester to clean up spit up and baby poop. At this point, compared to dealing with any of the aforementioned insanity, changing the ooziest, foulest, most pungent diaper known to man sounds like a truly delightful treat.