Are You Happy Now?

For those of you who read Tuesday's blog, you are aware of my most recent grades. I was docked 1 point for participation and 1 point on my research paper, even though I am the only participant in class discussions and my paper was beyond flawless. I sent Ms. Frizzle this email regarding the scores:

Ma'am,


This message is in regards to my most recent scores for participation and my individual paper. 


First, the paper. You stated that the paper failed to cover the key participants of the diversion programs to your liking. I have reviewed the paper and am unable to see how this objective was not met. Could you please show/explain to me what I could have done differently? I would greatly appreciate it. Also, you made a few corrections to my spelling and grammar that I am not sure are correct. "It's" means "it is" or "it has" (what I was intending) but you changed 4 "it's" to "its" which is possessive. Also, you changed "corrections" to "corections". 


As for my participation in the class discussions, I was unaware that I was not participating to my fullest. With every discussion, I was the first and often times only student to participate. I am unsure how I could participate more than I already am without being a distraction. Is it because I have my laptop out? I use my laptop to take notes and I can assure you, I am still able to participate and take in what you're saying. If you would prefer, I can take my notes with a pen and paper, but this might actually cause me to participate less because I type faster than I write. 


If you do not wish to change my scores, I completely understand, that's your choice as the instructor. However, any feedback you might have so I can remedy whatever mistakes caused me to lose those points would be appreciated and applied.


Thank you for your time,
Tiffany


Good right? I didn't flat out call her a dumb ass and I didn't demand a grade change, but I made it clear that I am not just going to lie down and take it. But she didn't reply. Not to my email, not in my personal forum, nothing. And now I sit in class, staring at her as she sorts through the mess of papers in her bag and repeatedly fluffs up her tangled rat's nest hair. She smiled and said hello to all of us as she walked in and made eye-contact with everyone but me.

She just fired up the computer and is pulling up an article about George Zimmerman and his "God's plan" interview. Great, another class spent talking about shit that has nothing to do with our course curriculum. I think I shall make the best of this though. She wants me to participate more? She values my opinion? I'll participate more. I'll participate like no one has participated before. She's gonna value the hell out of my opinions tonight. I'm not sure which route to go with this. Should I crush her ego by making it abundantly clear that my intellect is far superior? Should I bluntly steer her back on course when she goes off on her tangents? I know I have to keep "Tiffany the destroyer" boxed tonight, can't have a suicidal teacher on my hands, but a few passive aggressive comments could be slipped into the mix coupled with this smile my momma paid for. Maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh.

We just took our quiz, which I actually studied for this time, and as I walked to the front to turn it in, Ms. Frizzle handed me back my quiz from last week and said "Hey, I was looking over my grades from last week and I think I messed up on your participation." "Oh, did you?" I said with a knowing smirk. "Yeah, I was looking and you should have gotten a 5, not a 4. I'm glad I caught that!" I walked back to my desk, seething. SHE CAUGHT THAT?! I emailed her, she wouldn't have caught that without me. Fine, whatever. I'll pretend you aren't grossly incompetent and you can pretend you're a good teacher. BTW, I got 100% on the quiz and looking over my answers, I can't help but wonder how? It's some good BS but it is still BS.

We're an hour in and have yet to make it past the third slide. We've been sidetracked by talk of juvenile runaways that Ms. Frizzle and Fat Alberto have encountered. Fat Alberto is not just a doctor and a security guard, he's an expert on juvenile runaways. I should have known we should defer to him. What was I thinking? They talked for so long and somehow segwayed to standardized testing in Texas. Inadequate education makes for an at-risk juvenile (along with other factors) and I totally agree. But why we had to hear everyone's personal experience with high-school exit exams, I am not sure.

Class started back up at 8 and no one in the class seemed to realize it because Doppelganger, The Deputy, and Piercy Paula carried on a discussion about their team assignment while Ms. Frizzle is talking about juvenile arrest statistics. But as soon as she said something about how juvenile are entitled to the same rights as adults, Doppelganger had to add her two cents about how she was such a tough mom and if her kids had gotten arrested, she would have told them they were on their own. It's the same shtick every. Single. Week. We get it, it was your way or the highway and look how great they turned out..yada yada yada.

Break! Break! Break! I interrupt the rant about Doppelganger to bring you Fat Alberto's latest bout of bullshit. Here it is, word for glorious word:

Can the cops just bust in your door if you're having a party and you don't answer the door. Cause my sister's son, my nephew, he told me that he was at a party and it was all kids and they didn't answer the door because they knew it was the cops. So the cops, they went to the windows and shot the pepper spray inside.

Me: Um, I call bull shit. If that happened, there would be some serious lawsuits going down.
Ms. Frizzle: When was this?
FA: Oh it was like, when my nephew was at a party.
Me: There's a thing called use of force and escalation of force and you can't just shoot cans of gas into someones home because they won't answer the door for a loud noise complaint.
FA: Yeah they did cause the kids were throwing up and stuff from all the smoke they did.
Me: Even the dumbest officer on the planet knows you can't do that. If that really happened, it would be on every news channel and those cops would have been arrested and their would be lawsuits against the department.
FA: Well I told my sister to do that thing, you know, a lawsuit, but she never did.
Katniss: Well that's not surprising.
Me: Yeah, there is no way that happened.
FA: Well that's what he said happened.
Me: Well he lied.

And to piggyback on that (!) Doppelganger started talking about how she let her children drive without a driver's license because she needed them to run her errands. Here's a woman who proudly bragged that if they got arrested they were on their own, now proudly bragging that she let them use her car from the age of 12 and on without a license. She said if they got caught, she would just say they stole it and they were on their own. But they never did get caught and she totally trusted them. Ms. Frizzle told her she was lucky there was a statute of limitations and Doppelganger just laughed. Because it's funny how terrible of a mother you are? They could have died or killed someone, and guess what honey, they wouldn't be on their own, you'd be fucked too. I take back any nice thing I've said about her.

It's almost quitting time. I'm thinking if I just keep encouraging Ms. Frizzle's tangents, we'll make it out of here without having covered anything the syllabus says. So far, the stuff we have viewed was the stuff we didn't cover last week. Doppelganger told another story about how her daughter wants to key a cop car because they freak her out. The more she talks about her kids, the more I think they aren't as well-adjusted as she thinks. If she thinks at all. Ms. Frizzle keeps having these long pauses where she reads from the power point and then will start talking. But of course they aren't really silent long pauses because Fat Alberto and Doppelganger see these moments as an opportunity to share their stories/one-up each other. It's like dueling banjos/bullshit.

I'm gonna call it a night folks. Gotta pack this shit up before she releases us so I can get the hell out of here. See you tomorrow.