A few bad choices on your part do not constitute an emergency on mine.

Students who do not one lick of work after the first week, but e-mail once or twice begging me to tell them what to do to not fail can fuck off. Especially when I answered the first time (turn in the papers, do the blogs, and don't fall behind again), and the second time was the last fucking week of class.

Some people aren't suited to college. And some aren't suited to taking online classes.

Specialists

I've noticed in both the academic field and the medical field that there is a bias against generalists. In the small university where I teach, most of the newer faculty in my department are not only specialists, but really narrow specialists that pat me on the head (figuratively--if they did it literally, they'd lose a hand), and tell me to run along because I can't be as smart as they are because I'm a generalist.

Umm...I'm not the one that limits my students' writing topics to my narrow interests because "nobody can understand every topic a student might write about." I may not understand the sports stuff, but I can Google it. As for all of the other possible topics, well, I've got a good, solid, basic understanding of everything else my students have ever written about.

Enough of that though: the real irritation I've got this week is with doctors. My prenatal caregiver is a nurse midwife. She's competent, and I like her quite a bit. But when my blood tests came back with my thyroid abnormally low--like .15 points lower than the bottom of the scale low--she didn't feel comfortable prescribing me anything for it, or sending me anywhere but to a specialist.

Said specialist said I was okay to wait until November.

Look. I'm one of the dream(or nightmare) patients that look up and research everything about their own health. I know that a low thyroid can cause problems for me while I'm pregnant (beyond just being so tired my hair hurts), AND WORSE ONES FOR MY UNBORN BABY. It is unacceptable to not fix that NOW.

So, I called my GP (who my midwife was uncomfortable sending me to, because she's a generalist) at 4:30 on Tuesday. And told her receptionist what was wrong, and that I felt awful. My generalist got me in the next morning, and gave me a prescription that I could feel clearing my foggy brain as early as an hour after I took my first dose.

I won't say specialists can fuck off, but I will say their attitude that generalists aren't as smart or as good for most purposes can.

Unprepared students

I've been teaching a composition class this summer. I usually don't teach during the summer, but I've come to a realization that there's a sharp dichotomy between the types of students that have signed up for my class: some are really good, and some are really not.

When I say really not, I mean they're so computer illiterate that they don't know how to double-space their papers in Microsoft Word. They create a new blog for each assigned blog post. They don't understand how to use the class platform website. They don't read the textbook I put together for them that explains how to do all of that, and don't read the instructions on any of the assignments.

And they whine to me about being unable to meet even my minimal expectations when they get an F.

I'm not saying my students can fuck off (even though I'd love to tell some of them that). It's not entirely their fault that they're so stupid. No, the ones that ought to fuck off are the ones that told them that they're capable of college level work when they're obviously not smart enough to do college level work.

The flo9r is yours.

I got nothin'.

This weekend is looking pretty good. Yes, I still have papers to grade, but I refuse to think about them. My other half and I will be getting some range time this weekend to celebrate being married for six years.

The floor is yours.

The administration

For the sake of the country, the economy, and our future generations, the current administration and most congresscritters can fuck off.

That is all.