Things that happened Yesterday

It snowed/rained/sleeted here, yesterday. I know that is probably not a big deal for most of you, but for where I live, it is. We have not seen this much snow in quite a few years.
My little sister had called and called saying we should close the studio down and go home, but she tends to over react to the rain, so I did not listen to her. I wish I had, because well . . . you can imagine how surprised I was, when I finally left work, to see that the snow was actually sticking to everything, even the main roads. I wore Capri pants, a black T-Shirt and Crocks to work. Yes, I froze my ass off going home. I tried to get a few pictures of it but it was dark when I left work, and my camera is great but not that great.
I could barely walk to my car the ground was so slushy; it was kind of cool and pretty but very scary. I know I annoyed those driving behind me, when I drove 10mph all the way home, but I could not make myself go any faster. Even driving that slow, I still managed to nearly run off the road. Also, if the fear, that felt while driving in the slippery mess, had not had me so paralyzed, I probably would have thrown up all in my car, because my nerves had me shaking so bad.
My co-worker got a flat tire on his way home, because he really did run off of the road. I feel kind of bad for him, but not too bad because I am not the boss and was not the one who asked him to stay. I would have left earlier, myself, but I had a student, whose mother did not have enough sense to come and get him when the weather turned bad, in the studio that I could not leave.
You would think that considering we do not live in a state that gets any snow, that people would be more conscious of there actions. I could understand peoples nonchalance if I lived in Maine, or somewhere else where it snowed all of the time, but I do not understand it here. We are not trained to drive in this weather. We do not have vehicles that are equipped to be driven in this weather, and we should act like it, but we don’t.
I say this because not only did this child’s mother leave him at my studio until everything outside turned white, but as I was driving home I saw a Domino’s Pizza Delivery car delivering pizza. I cannot speak for other places, but here, those who work for food delivery places normally do have the best vehicles, therefore they have no business being out in such conditions. Not only do I think the person or persons who ordered the pizza was an asswhole, but the store manger of that Domino’s is an asswhole for allowing the employee to make the run and for even staying open once the weather turned bad. It wasn’t as if the weather was that a big surprise.
When I went to work that morning, all that the weather station had called for was rain, but as the day went on we were informed of the upcoming rain/snow/sleet. And like I said, I would not have been dumb enough to be out in it if I had not been responsible for another person. I guess I could have taken the poor child home myself, but I would have taken the chance of being in some kind of accident and his parents would have sued me, and I would have gone to jail for inflicting bodily harm on the mother, which is something I should have done anyways, for her leaving him like that. Yes, we did try and get in touch with her, but she chose not to be found, I guess.
Maybe it is me. Maybe I overreact to things, and everyone else is normal. Maybe last night’s storm was not as bad as I thought it was. My dad works nights, and he went out in the middle of it to go to work. If I had been my dad’s boss, I would have closed down and sent everyone home, because if anyone had died coming to work it would have weighed too heavily on my conscious. The job, the money isn’t that important, not when I am risking people’s lives.

Talisman

Greed

I am tired of people saying that my generation is lazy and greedy. I am not saying we aren’t, but I think every generation is greedier, lazier and all around more spoiled than the generation before it. That is just the way life works, and we do it to ourselves.
Christmas is a perfect example of it. When I was a kid I got a regular sized stocking full of socks, perfume and other essentials, I got a few outfits, and a few toys. My mother probably got less because she was born into a much larger family so I cannot compare my Christmas’ to hers. I can compare mine to my nieces and nephews and all the other kids in my family, though.
Christmas morning, at one of their houses, looks like a toy store threw up in the living room floor. I am not talking about before the mess is cleaned up, when all the wrapping paper, bows, etc are still covering the floor. I am talking about after everything is cleaned up and all of the toys are laid out in full view. It is crazy the amount of stuff these kids get.
My brother, sisters, friends and family are not wealthy, so it seems odd that they would be able to spend that much on gifts. Up until my generation started procreating, I had not seen so many gifts under a tree . . . well except for on television.
I know some of it has to do with the fact that we are not having as many children, at least not at first. For years, I only had two nephews and I could afford to get them a bunch of things, and so could everyone else in the family. Unfortunately, now that I have 5 nephews and 5 nieces I cannot see how we are going to be able to continue doing it. I said the same thing last year and we were minus a few kids then, but the Christmas the kids had was above and beyond anything I could have imagined. This year is going to be fun (I say this sarcastically).
I personally have limited my funds and the number of gifts drastically, but apparently I am the only one. I ran into my stepsisters step mom the other day and she was telling my how much she had already spent on the kids and what all they got, it made my feel real bad about my few items.
I guess I should have mentioned I have a large extended family. I have a stepsister who has a step family who buys for her kids, my sister has also been married twice so that adds to the kid’s gifts. I have a half sister who has a stepfamily and who has married a man who already had three kids. I have a sister-n-law with a decent size family and a few small children. So, I guess there are a lot of people buying for all of the kids, but it doesn’t make the amount of gifts any less crazy.
Maybe the reason I think it is a bit much is because I do not have children, but it seems to me that people are going a little overboard on the gifts, and the prices they will pay for toys that will be destroyed in less than six months is ridiculous.

(Side note. As I was writing this, my niece came into my office, and we started searching the Wal-Mart web cite for Dora toys. I am no better than the rest of my generation. :) )

Arrogant Professors

Most of the time, I have no problem with people being proud of their accomplishments. I have said before that unlike most people in my life I have college degree and hopefully very soon I will have two more, but that does not mean that I act as if that makes me better than anyone else. I do have a problem with people who expect things out of others or ask things of others, yet they do not think they should be held to such standards. As if they or their lives are more important than others and therefore they do not have abide by such things.

The professor, of my one 100 level class, has a very strict attendance policy, even though the university that I go to does not have an attendance policy at all. I do not think that I would have had a problem with this if he had not missed so many classes. Not only did he miss more classes than I could count, he has proceeded to count our absences as part of our grade.

I do understand that having such a strict policy is necessary when dealing with fresh out of high school freshman, which is what most of the students are, but come on. I believe that it should not matter how many classes a person miss, if they ace the class then they aced it, get over it.

My grade is not going to be horrible with my absences but if it were he and I would so be having rounds right about now, considering that my actual exam scores are fairly high, mostly As and Bs. But, since I have to have him again next semester, I do not want to piss him off and get a real bad score in the next class.

My 600 level grad class meets one night a week for like 3 hours, and we do a ton of work in that class, and his attendance policy is . . . well I do not even think he has one. Luckily, I have a near 4.0 in that class, so if I make a B or C in my undergrad class it should off set it and keep my GPA up a little.

I do not have high standards, I have always been a B student, and I am alright with that. Still I may email him, because I did miss a few classes but only two were for no reason. Wish me luck with that.

Talisman