Some things various student assistants have asked or said to me this year that filled me with dismay:
10) "Like, what is a Fahrenheit? I didn't know there was more than one temperature. What's the point?" This from a biochem major?!?!?!?
09) "What is the UK?" I responded that Great Britain, Ireland, and Scotland formed the major part of the United Kingdom, but this answer was unsatisfactory, so I showed her the UK on her map. "That's England, so it can't be the UK," she said. I explained that UK meant England and all of her possessions united, to which she replied "You said it was Great Britain before! How can it be England now?"
08) "Is the current president of the United States a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent?"
07) "How many US Senators are there?" Me: "There are two per state." "How many does that make?"
06) "Genetics is hard. I don't understand it at all." Me: "What's your major?" "Biochemistry."
05) "I thought Christoper Columbus was a Pilgrim."
04) "Your parents live all the way in Pennsylvania? Isn't that next to New York?"
03) "While listening to .50 Cent's new album today, I was struck by his classist view that other rappers designate him as nouveau rich and somewhat vulgar. He ridicules them for believing his street cred a mere social construct designed to sell more thug albums to white suburbanites."
02) "I'm writing a big Kierkegaard paper."
01) [Not a student assistant, but a patron who interrupted me as I typed this] "Where are the periodicals?" Me, gesturing: "Over there..." She: "I was just over there and it's only magazines and newspapers."
6 comments:
GOD DAMN
About #3 - chainwide, Borders ordered around 43,000 of the new 50cent CD
04) "Your parents live all the way in Pennsylvania? Isn't that next to New York?"
02) "I'm writing a big Kierkegaard paper."
Am I missing something with these?
A student from MD thought PA was very far away because it was up near NY. It's also next to MD.
02) is just weird. Kierkegaard is the philosopher of dismay, and this was a list of comments which filled me with dismay, oh, never mind.
It could be far away if they've never left the state--but that is dismal if true!!! I grew up with a guy who had never set foot outside of MD/Del Mar va penninsula until we went to Gatlinsburg TN for a HS band trip! And after that I don't think he went any where else...
Someone here had given me a Kierkegaard piece to read and I just wanted to make sure it wasn't harmful or something, ha!
I think it's a combination of not having been out of MD and not knowing anything about geography--I used to get that from people at McD's all the time: "You drive here from Pennsylvania! That's crazy! That's so far away!" Their bus commute from Baltimore to Hunt Valley was longer than my drive from Red Lion!
My paternal grandparents never left the county they were born in (except for a couple Orioles games).
Shit--I forgot to mention that guy had a scar on his upper lip that made it look like he always had a runny nose!! And speaking of abuse his dad put his brother's head through the wall in their living room...Haw!
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