The Blog

   Beto said I sounded too happy in my last blog...

So here's grumpy-Catherine in full force.

In my few free hours a week I tutor people. It's a grand and noble profession, and I get to charge $50 an hour for it. Which is $20 more than the university pays me for teaching, so it's worth my while to tutor. And I like the thrill of seeing someone's eyes light up as they finally *get* something. It's a rush.

But the problem is that the people I tutor expect me to be on call. They email me at all hours, and expect immediate responses. Sometimes they will email me five or six times an hour, regardless of whether or not I'm responding. I don't get paid for any of the time that I spend reading and replying to these emails, but that's okay, because when you get right down to it, I like what I do.

The problem I have is that I'm not appreciated.

Last night I got six emails from one of the students I tutor. All in netspeak, with terrible grammar and spelling. One sentence ("If I can get quest 6 and 7 out then imp rob ok…") had to be read eight times before I could translated what he meant ("If I can get questions 6 and 7 out then I'm probably okay"). He included attached scans of the working he had done on the assignment, but he hadn't even bothered to rotate them so they were all upside down.

Please people. Show me some respect! I'm good at this stuff, but I am not going to put up with being treated that rudely.

And to get your mind off my rant and (possibly misguided) sense of entitlement, here's a brilliant political essay by Charles P. Pierce: Battle for the Planet of the Apes.

Labels: grumpyCat, imp rob ok, politics, tutoring