Sorry, no TKT this week unless I somehow manage to churn one out later tonight. I’ve got piles of papers and tests to grade and I’m just going to get more tomorrow after one of my classes takes their exam. I figure I have time enough to post, but I don’t have the hour or so it takes to write up a TKT (sometimes even more). Besides that, I really didn’t have a topic in mind anyway beyond maybe putting something up about regional lexicons or language divergence or the language of slurs and slander… Meh. At any rate, I’d rather rant about this past week anyway.

Keri (the other French teacher here) was just in and we were talking about how the students in our classes have all just hit a slump. They’re tired, they’re whiny, they don’t want to do anything, and they’re all just being pains in the asses at the moment. It’ll clear up after Thanksgiving break once they’ve all gotten a chance to run this idiocy out of their systems and come back only to realize they barely have any time left and need to get their butts in gear. But this week (and last), they’ve just been grating on my nerves. My introductory classes, for example. I told them Monday we were having a test on Wednesday and they all started crying, “Oh, but I have another test on Wednesday!” or “Can’t it wait until Friday?” or “But I’ve got projects due Wednesday!” and blah blah blah. You know what? I DON’T CARE. 1) This is college; get used to it and quit your bitching, 2) I have absolutely no control over what their other teachers do or assign so it’s not my fault if my test lands on the same day as theirs, so quit your bitching, 3) why not whine to those other teachers to change their test dates? Is French class any less of a class than your Psych 101 or Business 202? NO. You’re still getting a grade, you’re still expected to learn and participate, and you’re still going to take the goddamned tests when I say so!!! So quit your bitching!

Children. Seriously. Then there’s the next level class. The chapter we’re working on right now is difficult because we’re learning two new verb tenses, the imperfect (imparfait) and the immediate past (passé immédiat) in addition to having to review the past tense (passé composé) because they refuse to review it on their own. We spent a lot of time last week going over these verb tenses and yesterday we had a review session to go over them all over again before their test tomorrow. You’d think that they’d try and participate more because they’re about to be tested over this or you’d think they’d be more appreciative of the fact that I’m bothering to go back over all of this at all, but no. Whine moan complain bitch gripe. I know that this is hard, but if you’d shut up for two seconds I’ll explain it to you! I had this problem all of last week. Rather than being quiet and taking notes or waiting for me to explain it, I got interrupted time and again with questions that had they waited a minute for they would have gotten the answers soon enough. I’m just going to have to tell them to keep their traps shut until I’m done talking before they start asking a million and one questions. It wouldn’t be all that bad that they ask questions if it didn’t start the rest of the class talking and chit-chatting while I’m answering the first person’s question. If the rest of the class would just shut up during the question and answer, then they wouldn’t feel obligated (and be retarded enough) to ask the same question again two minutes later. No wonder they’re doing horribly on so much of this grammar information! It’s enough to make me want to start yelling at them from time to time.

I really don’t have any problems with my advanced class, mostly because they don’t talk a whole lot. I do sometimes have the problem of students getting off topic, but sometimes it makes for good class discussion, so I don’t get too annoyed so long as we get things done. Of course, there are only six of them, so they’re generally easier to manage.

Lessee, what else sucked ass this week. Oh yeah, there’s the earache in my left ear that popped up two days ago. Like I’m not already hard-of-hearing, this is making it even more difficult to hear on my left side so I’ve been turning my right ear to people and getting funny looks for it. Today my ear seems to be feeling better though there’s a high-pitched whine coming from a control box just fifteen feet away down the hallway that has been going all morning which is driving me crazy because it’s on my right and I can hear it. I can’t help but hear it, really. Actually, it sounds kind of like some of my students, come to think of it.

I hit a cat on Tuesday. Or was it yesterday. I don’t remember. I think it was Tuesday. I went out to get in the Mom-mobile that morning to drive to work and when I pulled out and turned around to leave the alley, I noticed it twitching where the van had been. Dippy. There’s no way I could have seen it for lots of reasons (It was early and raining and therefore dark, it was a black cat and therefore hard to see in the dark, and it was friggin’ underneath the damn van!), but I still feel bad. Ian was kind enough to remove its body from the driveway. That necrophobia of mine would keep me from being able to do much with it beyond freaking out and hiding in a closet away from the zombie cat that would come back to life to tear out my eyeballs. Damn, my phobias are lame.

I guess what else doesn’t help this week is the near-constant headaches I’ve been getting not to mention the general lack of sleep because I keep having all these long, crazy, drawn-out, complicated dreams that either wake me up constantly or keep me from relaxing and getting any rest. Stupid brain. The whole thing’s miswired, let me tell you. Actually, you all know me. You already know it’s miswired. See above about the zombie cat if you’re not convinced my brain’s miswired.

I dunno. At least the sun is out right now. It’s shining brightly on all my cute Halloween decorations sitting in my window well. Keri said I should leave the two undead hands out all year because it looks neat walking up to the building and seeing a skeleton and a mummy hand sitting on the ledge. I just might do that. I’ll stick a plastic turkey or something in between them for Thanksgiving. And a Santa for Christmas. I still have Tootsie Rolls in my little pumpkins here on my desk, so I think I’ll snack on those while grading this giant pile of papers for tomorrow. Tootsie Rolls roxor.