So I'm parallel parking my station wagon across from campus (because the campus parking lots have been invaded by pickup trucks), and as I pull up and back and up and back I notice an international student standing in the tree lawn just across the road from me and grinning like an idiot. I pull up, she grins; pull back, she nods; pull up, she grins again. Could anyone possibly have a life so empty that watching me parallel park counts as entertainment?
But no. I gather up my things and cross the street but before my feet hit the curb she's holding out a paper and asking me to go through it with her to correct her grammar.
Seriously.
1. She is definitely NOT my student. I don't even know her name.
2. I don't even WORK in the Writing Center any more and I haven't worked there since this student left kindergarten.
3. In case you haven't noticed, it's SPRING BREAK.
So no, I won't be going through this student's paper with her. She'll have to stand there beside the road desperately awaiting the next parallel-parking professor, or perhaps accosting any random person who happens to wander by.
3 comments:
How odd. Maybe you have a look-alike in the writing center?
Unlikely, since the Writing Center is staffed by students plus one (male) faculty member who serves as director. This is a small campus, and I think she's seen me around the department and knows I'm an English prof. The fact that she knows my car is a little more odd.
I received a random (at least I'm pretty sure it was random) email from someone in India wanting help with "proofreading" college essays a month or so ago. Very odd. I just ignored it.
My colleagues who teach ESL (and, I suspect, other ESL teachers elsewhere) are very kind, very patient, very dedicated people. I'm beginning to think that they just might be a bit too kind and patient and dedicated for the good of other professors (not to mention themselves).
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