I may have mentioned previously that I am not a big fan of the graduate program I attend to earn my Masters Degree in Special Education.  However, it is the most affordable option for me, so I stick with it, despite its mediocrity (and that's probably being generous).  

A week ago from Tuesday, I think my graduate experience hit a new low.  Some background info:  My Tuesday class is about transition planning from special education to post-high school life.  In all honesty, this topic could be covered in 2-3 class sessions, but they've managed to develop an entire semester's worth of "instruction" around it.  Anyway, the professor for this course is a sweet but somewhat ditsy middle-aged woman.  The first day of class she spent at least 20 minutes telling us about how she used to teach at the university, but the class sizes got too big, so she left, but then she came back, but the class sizes got to big again, so she left, and then she came back again, and . . . yeah.  She talks very quietly and gets sidetracked very easily, meaning that we never get out of class before 9:15 pm. 

There is a group of 4 girls and one guy who sit in the back and talk fairly loudly throughout the class.  They also frequently laugh, and make no effort to control their volume.  Although I'm not particularly interested in what the teacher is saying, I still find this very annoying, as do many other members of the class.  So during this particular session, the teacher asks them at one point if they had a question.  It didn't seem she was doing this snidely; I think she actually thought they had a question.  The ringleader said no and then they went back to talking, with no change in their volume.  We took a break at around 8:30, during which at least 10 people left.  Here's the crazy part:  When the break was over, the teacher asked if everyone could move forward so she wouldn't have to talk as loud.  The ringleader said, "No, we like sitting in the back."  The rest of the class pretty much stopped.  The teacher, to her credit, responded, "Well, I don't like you talking while I'm talking."  The ringleader stood up with her little gang, and they started to move forward as she said, "Well we'll move up, but we're not going to stop talking." 

Wait, it gets better.

A woman sitting a couple of seats ahead of me said audibly, "Well, that was rude."  The ringleader turned around and said, "What did you say, statistics girl?" (She was addressing a different woman who is an avid participant, somewhat annoyingly so, but at least not rudely!).  This woman then turned around and said incredulously "Was she talking about me?!?"  Apparently (I later heard this from another student in the class), the ringleader then called this woman a "white b*tch." 

Word of the Day:

dapper (adj.) - attractive in dress