P-U, Part 2

Besides people's body odors, I also am not fond of strong food smells. It is awful to get on a plane or train and to realise someone has brought along hamburgers and fries or fried chicken or bacon sandwiches or other greasy and strongly-scented food. There I am, stuck in a close compartment with smells that nauseate me.

I know people are hungry, but I guess, as with many other things, I wish we would all show more consideration towards others. Keeping ourselves fresh and not intruding upon other people with smells (or sounds or other behaviors) doesn't seem like too much to ask.

Sidewalks as Ashtrays (and Toilets)

Why am I so unaccountably pleased when someone else rants about something peeve-worthy that annoys me, too? In this case, The New York Times has just run a "Complaint Box" piece that focuses on lax disposal of cigarette butts. I agree with the writer. But what makes me even happier are the column's comments, many of which articulate some of my own primary peeves as a city-dweller. I'm talking about how much I hate sharing the sidewalks with dogs who are using said sidewalk as a toilet/urinal, and how much I despise having to inhale cigarette smoke while strolling from place A to place B because someone else must walk-and-smoke at the same time. I guess misery really does love company!

--Prunella Peeve

P-U!

I'm oversensitive, I know, but I really can't stand strong smells, especially when they are emanating from people.

There seems to be a number of people for whom showering is optional. Ugh. Not long ago, I had to contend with a visitor to my home who had unbelievably smelly feet, and who put said feet on my sofa. I was close to passing out from the stench.

And then there are also many people who wear strong perfumes or aftershaves, which can also be quite unpleasant and headache-inducing.

Please shower regularly and please don't overwhelm others with strong smells!

--Curly

Raving about Students

The term is nearly over now, and there’s just marking left to do, so I will stop ranting about students for the time-being (I’ll have some more rants in the next semester!). Instead, I will point out that a lot of undergraduates are going through many major life changes, and I see it as part of my job to help widen their perspectives and to offer them support. So I’ll close this series of ranting posts about students on a positive note by saying that some of my students have really impressed me this year with their dedication to their work and their willingness to be exposed to new ideas.

In a couple of my classes, the students started off with some extremely naïve, occasionally even prejudiced, views. By the end of the semester, they were looking at and discussing topics in a very different manner. I was quite pleased with their progress. And seeing students really get something is what teaching is all about, and hopefully it’s part of what attending university is about for them too.

--Curly

Ranting about Students: Part 5

As the weather gets warmer, my students get more and more undressed. I am looking out my office window as I type this, and I’m surprised by the states of underdress, nearing undress, that I see. There are guys without their shirts on (women couldn’t get away with that). There are girls in skirts so short I could probably see their thongs if I squinted. There are bare legs and bare toes. There are sweaty armpits and there are tattoos and piercings that are in locations rather more intimate than I expected to see. Is university really the right place for such fashions (or, rather, for such lack of fashions)? Or am I just too curmudgeonly?

--Curly

Ranting about Students: Part 4

Something odd happened one week in one of my classes. None of the male students turned up (see my earlier post about them having better things to do than attend class!), and the students who were there suddenly spoke much more and seemed significantly more confident. The discussion was livelier than usual and the students appeared to be having a lot of fun.

This is to say that on a day when there were only women in the room, the class was better. At the end of the seminar, I mentioned the fact that the ladies had been more talkative when no guys were around. The women looked guiltily at each other and finally one said that they didn’t talk as much when the entire group was there because they didn’t want the men to think they were “feminists.” The others concurred and said that if they monopolized the discussion, or even just contributed to it more, the male students would think bad things about them. In other words, women attending a selective university are still afraid to speak up, lest men find them less attractive for doing so.

There’s something wrong with this, isn’t there? How can we change it?

--Curly

Ranting about Students: Part 3

I’ve complained about texting-style language before, but it also is relevant to my spate of student-related peeves. Students should not be sending me emails in text format, such as “Can u rmnd me of hmwrk? Thanx!” I also find it a bit strange when they sign their emails with kisses. Informality is fine, but only up to a point.

--Curly