A job is like a person. If you are only with it for the money, don’t expect it to give you real love in return.

I don’t think that pursuing money is a worthy life goal and I don’t think that a good job means a job that lets you make a lot of money. I’ve never been more miserable and my life has never felt more meaningless than when I made tons of money at the age of 20.

Studying improves one’s quality of life irrespective of whether it leads to a well-paying job because it allows one to grow as a human being and develop needs, sensibilities and ways of enjoying reality that one would have never suspected existed. Of course, it’s impossible to explain any of this to people who never developed said sensibilities.

Whenever people start saying ““There are no hot (cool, intelligent, nice, worthy, etc.) girls/guys here””, this has nothing to do with the place they are describing and everything to do with their own issues.

I should know. I used to be one of those people.

N. asks why I agreed to accept the final exam after the deadline. It isn’t out of kindness or anything like that, to be honest. I just figure that grading the final and changing the grade online will allow me to be done with this entire issue today. Otherwise, I will be stuck dealing with this for the next few weeks. The student will keep sending whiny emails to everybody in sight, I will have to give explanations, old emails will have to be resuscitated and compared. No, people, life is too short for that. I’m not this student’s Mommy and I’m not willing to sacrifice my time to teach him any life lessons.

A waiter who served us at a restaurant tonight told me he used to study history at my university. And now he’s a waiter.

We have very high dropout rates, unfortunately. And I have no idea what can be done to impress upon our students how absolutely crucial it is for them to take their studies seriously. There are so many among them who plagiarize, cheat, copy-paste and so few who do extra readings and abstain from asking “will this be on the test?”

Our university serves mostly students from very humble backgrounds. Coming to us is a real opportunity for them, yet many don’t seem to understand it.

P.S. I cut my night short, left my coffee unfinished and rushed home because a student emailed me the final exam 27 hours after the due date and is inundating me with hysterical messages about all the reasons why that is my fault. So now I have to grade the exam and change the student’s final grade online.

I’m sorry, people, I’m grading final exams like crazy here, and I need to vent. The course is over today, so bear with me.

“The national identity of the US is that of the President. Every citizen identifies with the President and adopts his worldview.”

“Basing your actions on the US Constitution is the only way to live an enjoyable life.”

“All Latin America and Spain have got to do to make the world a better place is get over their petty differences and unite.”

“The Black Death plagued many Europeans.”

“This resulted in a killing of Jews but for no reason whatsoever. Throughout history, Jews have never been killed for a good reason.”

“Spain was experiencing the Golden Age of Spain where Protestantism had occurred.”

“The US has only managed to become so prosperous through manipulation and dishonesty.”

“Latin America wants to become more progressive and more civilized in society.”

“All American’s are proud of our country’s independence.”

“Latin America was viewed as backwards by many external nations.”

“More often than not, Latin American reality seems ever so hopeless.”

“The Great Mosque of Cordoba was built by the Visigoths. They didn’t contribute much to the Spanish civilization except the word “guerra” and this beautiful mosque.”

“Franco promoted intolerance, racism, fascism, and Semitism.”

And my absolute favorite: “The identity of the US is that we are a country that is pro-choice (meaning, we respect the rights of women.)”