I need a stressball
Mar. 28th, 2004 11:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xaaraYou know, one of those little foam rubber shapes that you squeeze while reciting "I do not hate my English teacher, I do not hate my English teacher." Except the thing is, I do hate my English teacher. I think he's the rudest, meanest, most chauvinistic, racist, sexist, and biased person I've ever met. And I've resisted thinking about him in terms of the idea that I'm a white female and he's a black male, but my mom has pointed the facts out to me from the beginning and I'm now beginning to acknowledge them. He dislikes me for whatever reason - maybe I'm threatening or just not his kind of person - and he's grading me accordingly. I don't think I would mind having him openly contemptuous of me, or even openly spiteful - that sort of relationship I could just shrug off as unimportant. The concealed spite that leads him to give me grades I don't deserve just screws me over, though. He has the ability to kill my class rank, especially if my current B slips any more. I don't know what to do. Essentially, I have two options: (a) confront him about it, or (b) work as hard as I can and make sure he doesn't give me anything lower than a B. At the moment, I'm leaning toward the former. I'm sick of the false compliments he gives me, sick of the fact that he praises my work and tells me I'll be a good English teacher while giving me marks I don't deserve. I'm sick of the fact that he calculates everything so I get a 8/9, 7/9, 6/9 on three successive papers and then when I ask him what I'm doing wrong he says "Nothing, just keep it simple." So on the next paper I do a horribly shoddy job and he gives me another 8 and the process starts over again. I'm torn between screaming at him and throwing him out the window.
The only tolerable part of that course is the student body. I don't think I dislike anyone in the class, and I know most of them have at least a vague respect for me, so we have meaningful discussions about the material. They all have interesting and insightful comments to make. Hell, they're smart; there's no other way to put it.
[endrant]
The Cherry Blossom Festival kickoff is today, but I don't think I'll be able to go. Maybe later this week, when I don't have a newsletter to finish and a novel to write and a calculus test to study for and a concert to play and a softball game to catch. (And yes, I am now definitively the catcher for my team. I hope I get to block the plate - there's something satisfying about having someone with no protection barrel into your plastic- and metal-coated body.) But anyway, until I get to go to the festival, I'm here at home typing on my computer. Virtual reality. Reality is so overrated.
The only tolerable part of that course is the student body. I don't think I dislike anyone in the class, and I know most of them have at least a vague respect for me, so we have meaningful discussions about the material. They all have interesting and insightful comments to make. Hell, they're smart; there's no other way to put it.
[endrant]
The Cherry Blossom Festival kickoff is today, but I don't think I'll be able to go. Maybe later this week, when I don't have a newsletter to finish and a novel to write and a calculus test to study for and a concert to play and a softball game to catch. (And yes, I am now definitively the catcher for my team. I hope I get to block the plate - there's something satisfying about having someone with no protection barrel into your plastic- and metal-coated body.) But anyway, until I get to go to the festival, I'm here at home typing on my computer. Virtual reality. Reality is so overrated.
