A VEGAS MARRIAGEHave you ever heard the same story again and again and again, and the only difference is the person telling you the story? That’s how I feel lately as educators are having the same conversation with one another: the honeymoon period is long over with our “new” students and we suddenly realize that, in some cases, we are in b-a-d relationships. Let’s face it: with certain students, if we had the power to divorce or annul, we would squash our Vegas marriages—these bad relationships we initially had high hopes for that suddenly we find ourselves wallowing in—quicker than Britney’s been ordered to give her kids back to K-Fed—the latest mainstream media rage.
Many of the educators I know—mostly secondary and post secondary—know what I’m talking about, the reality that the Columbus Day or Fall break couldn’t come soon enough. But the break we really want is not from the teaching profession itself; it’s from our students' lame-as* excuses, which seem to get worse each year and range from the conventional, “my dog sh*t on and then ate my homework”; to the rather stupid, “ professor so-so, would you give me directions to your office because I will be late in turning in yet another late paper?”; to the truly, f*cking absurd, “even though I’ve shown up to 1 of the 10 classes so far and submitted nothing, do I still stand a chance of passing?” I kid you not.
So as we educators fantasize about “ending” our Vegas relationships with these hideous trolls; as we find ourselves routinely saying, “you can’t make this sh*t up;” as we may—especially if you’re new to the profession and an idealist of sorts—consider a “marriage” counseling intervention, we can take comfort in the saying that “nothing lasts forever” and that a Vegas marriage can end as quickly as it began.
