Suddenly, everybody is submitting very honest essays to me. Another student writes:

The last thing I care about at this moment is how other countries are doing. All that matters to me is when the domestic economy will improve and I don’t care what price other countries will have to pay for this improvement.

I guess this is somebody who didn’t tune into the last presidential debate on the foreign policy. But that’s OK since both candidates barely tuned in to this topic.

Note that the students are submitting this to me, a professor who is very obviously a foreigner. I think this is a good sign. They must feel very comfortable around me.

P.S. I don’t know if I need to mention yet again that I don’t grade people on their opinions. I grade their grammar, vocabulary, style of writing, and the way their argument is structured. So there is no need to worry about the students. I’m only sharing these quotes because I’m human and nihil humanum mihi alienum est.

P.P.S. The absolute majority of the students improved their writing dramatically since our first written assignment in late August. Today, I showed them a really badly written paragraph I created and they all recognized that it was bad and could point out what was so bad about it. All of my hard work is paying off.

Brace yourselves, people. I have a lot of grading to do this semester so you will be inundated with quotes. I need to share this stuff or I will burst.

A student writes:

People often blame Americans for being too arrogant. I believe, however, that patriotism is always accompanied by arrogance. Since a country is an imagined and imaginary space, where else could one’s love for it conceivably come from? I love my country and do not feel any shame over the arrogant nature of that love.

My job can be anything but it is never boring.

While I was trying to figure out what to do about the bus driver who reeked of alcohol, passengers who had entered the bus before me were calling the authorities. The bus driver received a command to stop over the radio. We were approached by a van that took everybody where they needed to go, leaving the drunken driver behind.

This was a very well-organized rescue. I arrived at work only 7 minutes later than usual. The public transportation in this area is very good.

OK, if the bus driver who is driving me to work smells of alcohol, what should I do about this?

Trying to psychoanalyze people on the basis of the books they read is always pretty stupid. But the following attempt to do so is even more idiotic than I expected:

Have you ever read Ayn Rand?
Sure.

What do you think Paul Ryan’s obsession with her work would mean if he were vice president?
Well, you’d have to ask Paul Ryan what that means to him. Ayn Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we’d pick up. Then, as we get older, we realize that a world in which we’re only thinking about ourselves and not thinking about anybody else, in which we’re considering the entire project of developing ourselves as more important than our relationships to other people and making sure that everybody else has opportunity – that that’s a pretty narrow vision. It’s not one that, I think, describes what’s best in America. Unfortunately, it does seem as if sometimes that vision of a “you’re on your own” society has consumed a big chunk of the Republican Party.

I had no idea anybody in their right mind considered “the entire project of developing ourselves” as less important than “relationships to other people.” I understand, of course, that this is said within the context of a political campaign for a very specific reason, but still, the statement bothers me. Choosing relationships over one’s own development, over the core of one’s self sounds hugely problematic in absolutely any context.

This is my candidate speaking, for lack of anybody better, but his philosophy, in this instance, could not be further from mine. Relationships first, self-development later? I can only imagine what kind of relationships a person who has betrayed her or his own development for the sake of having as many people around as possible can end up having.

I made the mistake of not stepping away from the homework assignments. And here is what I found:

“In the Southern states of the US, people are nicer and more polite than everywhere else in the country. They are known for their great values and good manners. They are racist and anti-women rights.”

It is especially curious that this black female student is not seeing any contradictions in her own statement.

Another student writes:

“I find it hard to describe the people of the West Coast because I don’t know how to say “surfer dude” in Spanish and my dictionary offers no translation.”

From a student’s homework assignment:

“This area is called the Bible Belt because many Protestants and Christians live here.”

I need to stop grading and step away from the desk. I’ve been grading so much that I feel like any student response can tip the delicate balance of my psyche.

From a student’s essay:

“Gender roles are completely reversed in the film. Ana becomes very masculine because she has a job and pays the bills. Amador, in the meantime, becomes feminized. He turns into a weak woman as he spends his days getting drunk in a bar.”

Two more students produced the same “analysis” with slight variations.

I deserve those course releases, people, because there is nothing harder than teaching students how to write academic essays. For weeks, I’ve been begging students to be careful with terminology and they still refer to a film as a novel and a novel as a short story.

So do you, folks, want to guess how many days a week your favorite blogger will have to teach in the spring semester?

The answer is ONE. I will only have to teach from 5 to 7:50 pm on Tuesdays.

This happens because I have course releases earned through working like a dog this semester but who cares? The important thing is that I will have a sabbatical of sorts from December 2012 to September of 2013. I do good research while teaching 3 courses per semester, so imagine what I will accomplish on this unofficial sabbatical.

Oh, I love my job, and I love my university that doesn’t exploit junior faculty members. Oh joy, oh happiness!

The most important things should be done during work hours. The less important things should be done in your free time. And everything else should be done whenever you can but as soon as possible.