He was troubled...and needed to graduate... and I am not even a professor, just a lab instructor. And since my class is a costume lab, there is basically only my word against a student's as to whether or not they did the work to the best of their abilities.

Wow. Way to devalue your work.

shakes fists at stupid thoughtless administration.

I'm getting flack because I'm about helping students, but only if they help themselves. If a student calls and says 'I have this problem", I say "what have you done about it?" if they say nothing, then I say "then you need to do _______. If that doesn't work, come back to me." They have apparently complained that I am not helpful.

I was close to many students and they would often come to me for advice. Whenever they had screwed up in a class, I would always tell them to come up with a reasonable solution ahead of time that they could propose to the prof rather than the usual "I did/didn't do X, please help me."

I was born in 1961 and don't feel any connection to Boomers.

It's the goddamned tweens with their Bratz dolls and thong underwear

Two things I am going to try my damndest to not let Emeline have.

I'm a Gen X'er who lives with her parents (special circs, though! and we clean all the time and do our own laundry and pitch in for bills and groceries now that I'm working!!). Yay slackers!

I don't know that I just haven't encountered it since we've been back to Michigan, but it seems thus far that the entitlement was far, FAR worse in Los Angeles. Also, the respect for anyone older has dwindled to being almost non-existant. I feel so old sometimes cause I look at teenager's behavior in the mall and I just want to slap the crap out of them for being such assholes. And there's no other word for it. They just act like assholes.

I blame HFCS and the gerund.

However, watching and reading the X'ers here bitch about it and vow to not be "that kind of parent", it gives me a bit of hope that we will raise children who are terrified of us, as we were our own parents. At least, I was. Still am, in some cases.

What's making me cranky about the Gen X/Gen Y thing is all the articles saying how special Y is and how they need to be managed with kid gloves and how they're the one who grew up surrounded by the internet, blah blah blah. What about X? We're the ones who grew up *with* the bloody internet (we didn't invent it, though). I remember using an insanely low baud rate to connect to CompuServe (uphill! in the snow! both ways!). joins the cane-shaking chorus

And in serious news- Sue, I'm so very sorry.

articles saying how special Y is and how they need to be managed with kid gloves

To which I say, what-the-fuck-ever, ya know? Seriously. X'ers grew up SURROUNDED by MTV and hair bands. I don't see anyone offering me a good grade in my college classes or a big fat raise because I owned a Warrant album.

Then again, my boss is Gen Y and probably has never *heard* of Warrant.

I was on CompuServe briefly in '94. It was awesome. None of my friends had email back then, but CompuServe would let you send email to snailmail addresses. So if I needed to send a letter to friends in San Francisco from Minneapolis, I'd write a letter on CompuServe and they'd print and mail it in San Francisco so it would get there the next day.

so sleepy. too much good food. last night my dad made risotto. I bet no one else's dad did that.

t lapses into food coma

This is awesome. And trippy. [link] You watch this weird video for a minute and then you end up hallucinating for a 10 or 20 seconds.