An Open Letter to the Next Student Who Asks "Do You Bump Up Grades".

Dear Next Student Who Asks "Do You Bump Up Grades,"

It is the ninth week of school, and in two days the quarter will end. Remember back on the first day of school, when I said there is no extra credit in this class because I like regular credit? Remember how I put that on the syllabus and then I pointed it out to you a couple of times because I knew that I would be asked this ridiculous question when the last couple of days of the quarter drew near?

No? Well, then accept my apologies. I guess I should've made that more clear.

You come up to me in the middle of class while you are working on a group project. You ditch your group and say Ms. Prokott can I see my grade. I show you that your grade is 89.52%. You say oh, man that's so close. Can you just bump it up to an A-? How many percentage points, exactly, does a grade have to be before you bump it up?

I say, I don't bump grades. I wouldn't lower a grade if it was .5% higher than I think it should be, and I'm not just going to throw extra points at you because you are close to an A-. And you say, an A- and a B+ are sooooooo different and that makes a difference on your GPA. Do you know what a big difference that is, Ms. Prokott?

I will tell you student, that your grade reflects how well you've done in class. I tell you that I don't bump grades, and on the rare chance that I do bump grades, it is because the student whose grade is bumped has shown remarkable, above-expectations effort in my class. That student whose grade gets bumped raises her hand during class discussions, she is respectful toward me, she comes in to talk about her work, she doesn't leave her garbage on the floor, she doesn't ask me for a pencil every day, and most importantly she was concerned about her grade the entire quarter rather than two days before I was to submit grades.

That student, Next Student Who Asks "Do You Bump Grades," is not you. You don't raise your hand in class. When you talk, it is to tell the person next to you that you didn't read the assignment or to mention something about that slut in the hall who gave you a dirty look. When you work in groups, you think you're tricking me by swapping "numbers" with the person next to you so you can be in your friend's group. Then, you don't participate in your group's assignment, and you flip open your phone like an expecting father, and you text when you think I can't see you. Then, student, you write essays about how teachers give too much homework and students are overwhelmed. Then, when you get a C on the essay, you whisper to the kid across the row this is SO UNFAIR.

When you forget your book on independent reading day and borrow one of my books, you neglect to put it back on the shelf even though I told you to four times, and instead you leave it on the floor near your desk where it is obvious you've been sitting. In fact, once I found a pop can that you hid on my bookshelf, behind my books, because you were too lazy to walk three feet to put it in the recycling bin. When you aren't so disrespectful you leave a pop can hidden behind my books, you whip empty green Mountain Dew bottles toward the front of the room--sometimes when I'm in the middle of a lecture!--and then when they thunk off the lip of the blue recycling bin and clatter to the floor, you leave them there. Once, I heard you say in the hall who cares if we don't clean up our stuff. It's the custodians jobs to clean up after us.

Then, student, when I tell you that I rarely bump up grades except for the kids who are A+ on effort and participation, you plead and plead and beg. You say but it's SOOOOO CLOSE. Can I just please do extra credit? I'll clean your room. I'll do anything you want me to.

And then, student I am literally, no, so seriously, literally disgusted by you. You are disgusting. Your pleading and begging and desperation makes me sick to my stomach, and I am sad for the kind of person you are, and I am so, so angry that you think this will work--to care only when it's days before the grade is due, when you had nine whole weeks to give a shit earlier, when you got a quiz back--and instead of holding onto it and using it to study for the final test like I told you to--rolled it into a ball as soon as possible and then threw it at the blue recycling bin and didn't pick it up when it bounced off the lip.

And then, student, you say:

Well, what if it was 89.99%. huh? What would you do then?

Fuck you, student. Fuck. You.

Right now, I am supposed to be grading papers, student, but I just had to write you this letter first--I just had to let you know what was up before I tried to do my after-hours paper-grading job. Because this is little to you, but it's eating me inside. You entitlement-generation asshole.

Oh, by the way. Let's recall a conversation we had last week. I was introducing the play Raisin in the Sun. I asked you the question--Can anyone achieve the American Dream? you said, yes, anyone can achieve it if they try hard enough.

But I gave you a chance. I gave you a discussion question the next day that said really? Can they? Really? Please think about it.

And you, student, you raised your hand and said yes--anyone who is not entirely lazy can achieve the American Dream. And then, student, we argued back and forth, and I brought up race and gender and unfortunate circumstances, and the hand you're dealt not being fair no matter how much you want to win the round, and I said what if I wanted to play professional baseball even though I'm a woman and you said if you were really, really, really, really, really good, then you could, they would let you on the team. You said it doesn't matter if you're poor, you just need to try really hard in school and you will get scholarships to go to college, as though there were trillions of dollars in scholarships floating around, waiting for underprivileged kids (with drug addict parents) to snap them up by caring about school when they don't know where their next meal is coming from.

Do you remember that conversation? Because I do. It nearly gave me an aneurysm.

I guess all I can say here, student is: was it your dream to get an A- in this class? Well, I guess you just didn't TRY HARD ENOUGH. I guess it is just because you're lazy. It had nothing to do with those outside circumstances. I guess you just didn't want it badly enough.

To borrow the words and timing of the amazing Professor Ronsman:

I QUIT.

Enjoy your B+, student. It's nothing to be ashamed of, but so many other things you've done in class are.

I'm embarrassed for you and your Justin Bieber haircut,

Ms. Prokott

Student writing.

• Many public schools hire under-qualified and incapable teachers practically off the street to teach their students. In the senate and governor race, many candidates are propising that no gays or unwed mothers be allowed to teach children because they will poison their minds. This proposition leaves only desperate and weird people to teach children.

• Teen pregnancy can also be caused by children following the lead of their parents. If a teen's mother or father is blatantly having sex every night, then the teen will most likely think it is okay.

Last week's question of the week. (While students are researching for persuasive papers.)

Um, Ms. Prokott, can you tell me what fecal matter is?

You bet I can!

Happy Monday.

In first block today, a student came up to me during work time and stuck his foot out and stamped it a little, like an aggravated horse. His white tennis shoe was covered in brown and green shit, along the side, on the front, into the laces.

I have to go to the nurse, he said, because I just realized that I stepped in some dog poop in my yard before school.

ONE MONTH LATER

In the 10 minutes I have left of lunch when I should be grading, I will write a list that will somewhat explain what I've been doing for the last month of my life but will likely not be all inclusive:

• Some greasy maintenance man is "letting himself in my unit" right now and will fix the oven that doesn't work; it hasn't worked since I moved in at the beginning of August, but three days ago was the first time I tried to use it.
• The Good Doctor and I share a gym membership. I've been average about going. The Good Doctor and I have gone about the same amount of time; he has lost six pounds. I have lost zero pounds and have developed some weird rash below my eye.
• Two days ago, a student, a girl with Asperger's, said to me: wow you have a huge gap between those teeth up front. That student disappeared today during a test. She was supposed to have gone to the testing room but didn't show up. She is presumed dead.
• The same day another student, non-Asperger's, said to me: Do you watch Project Runway? Because you look just like the Gretchen girl on that show. Everytime I watch it I think of you. And when I see you I think of the show. I mean, it's awesome! She's so pretty. Right on, student. A.k.a. new best friend.
• I almost died in front of my class, literally, choking on a sucker. A student had his arms around me, Heimlich ready. It was humiliating. I mean, I assumed I would die while eating candy, but not in front of my students.
• My bathroom pass is a mannequin head with hair so greasy it is becoming dreads.
• Today a student wrote this metaphor (non-mash): His hand is a crushed peanut butter and jelly sandwich at the bottom of my backpack. And I freaked out because I really like it.
• Another moment: in an assignment, a student wrote: the birds depart from the trees, airplanes from terminals.
• In a descriptive essay, a student wrote: A smile spread across his face like the Bubonic plague. What?

Some people just don't like dogs.

I sort of hate my new apartment. I hate that my phone doesn't work there even though it did two weeks ago, I hate the fruit flies that love my still-fresh bananas, I hate the way it smells, I hate that on my lease the landlord said they'd be by to fix the "starred items" and have done no such thing, and I really, really fucking hate the guy who lives below me.

Nay, lives in his garage.

It's difficult to explain this. My apartment is a four-plex. Next to the four-plex are three individual garages, and I have the middle garage. I live on the top left corner. A nurse-in-training named Olive (who I heard has kids but have not seen them) lives across from me. I don't know, nor have I seen, the person who lives in the bottom right (or even if anyone does), and the man who lives below me, whose name I have forgotten, is a disgusting, annoying old man who smokes disgusting, shitty cigarettes and has turned his garage into a shop where he houses his old carpentry tools, a TV, and a stool that sits on all through the evening and night so he can watch his TV. He is Nasty Downstairs Guy.

He has a mustache and he ways about 100 pounds. He has disgusting fingernails that are hard and yellow and look like they should be the exoskeleton of a desert beetle. Whenever he smokes in his apartment, the smoke crawls through the vents like an apparition, permeates my room, probably weaves itself into the fabric of my curtains.

An order of events about what has happened with Nasty Downstairs Guy:

1) When I was looking at the apartment to rent, NDG was in his garage with all of his shit; it only made sense that I assumed that garage belonged to the person who was moving out. Plus, as I later found, the lease says garage may only be used for parking cars and not for storage.

2) When David and Matt came over to see my apartment in a brief visit, NDG was in his garage watching the Twins. When they pulled up, NDG stood up from his stool, in the middle of the garage, and stared them down. He didn't stop staring, and David and Matt said that with the light behind him and his hands on his narrow hips and his staring that he looked like Michael from the Halloween movies. He should've been holding a machete or a chainsaw with that looking-down look.

3) At first things, were fine and I was friendly--I asked him about where he got his cable and internet service, he gave me some information, I asked him where the garbage went, he told me where and that the recycling comes on Mondays. Good to know. If you need anything, I'm a carpenter, he said, and let me know if you have any questions about the place.

4) The mailboxes in my building are really complicated with the key. One day I ran into NDG in the tiny foyer and asked him how to open the mailbox. NDG tried to explain it to me as I worked the key, but the box is really crappy and I couldn't get it. For some reason, then, NDG decided to put his hand over my hand so I could get the feel of it. He said, no, no, let my hand do it, just get the feel of it and I was so in shock and close to throwing up that I didn't know what to do or say, and as he stood behind me, I contemplated whether this was harassment or some social problem or some NDG trying to be nice but instead being, well, nasty as his name implies. I felt dirty all day. At one point, he was even frustrated with me when my hand wasn't working with the key and he said no, no, no get the feel of it and then turned my hand again. This is when I noticed his beetle-backed fingernails, so hard it seemed that two other nails had just grown over the first nail.

I will ask for nothing else from NDG.

5) NDG told me that he was getting kicked out of the four-plex after having lived there for seven years. He said that if I read the lease, I'd see the rules he'd broken--not supposed to have a boat, not supposed to have a dog over 30 pounds. He said he was looking for another place. I wondered whether this was true.

6) NDG has a German Shepherd that digs holes in the front lawn. It's a pretty dog, but it's huge, and I'm not scared of German Shepherds normally, but I am scared of German Shepherds that are owned by NDG. I think the dog's name is Buddy. NDG says he found Buddy when he was up in the Boundary Waters and couldn't resist bringing him home, even though he knew the lease wouldn't allow such a large dog. He ties Buddy to a rope outside, so everytime I back out of the garage I'm afraid that I will run him over. I also fear that Buddy will trip me up in his rope, or bite me, or scratch my car when I leave it outside because I'll only be home for a little bit before I leave again, anyway. I also don't like that he is a crotch-smelling dog, and that when he crotch-sniffs the lipstick of his penis shows, which disgusts me more than it should, because he's just a dog and probably does not tend to be a reflection of Nasty Downstairs Guy.

7) Yesterday, the cable guy came to install cable at my house. After he left, I had to drive myself to urgent care* and when I went outside, NDG was fiddling with the spot where the cable is tethered. He said to me YOU NEED TO CALL YOUR CABLE GUY BACK and I said why, and in a rushed way because I needed to get to the doctor and he said BECAUSE HE LINKED YOUR CABLE INTO MY CABLE and I said, fine, even though I didn't know what that really meant, and then he said and another thing--when you leave your car in the driveway, you need to pull it up a little further because people can't get in the roundabout and I said, sure, fine, and drove off, remarkably pissed the fuck off. When I came home about three hours later, my cable wasn't working anymore, and even though I can't prove NDG fucked with some cable that he wasn't supposed to, I'm pretty sure he did something to it. And now, I have to wait until Monday to find out what the fuck is going on with it, and I'm really, really getting tired of this technology bullshit, especially since my phone doesn't work in my apartment and I've been to Verizon 4 times in the last couple of days and they say that can't do anything, but if I want, I can first 1) purchase wireless internet and then 2) pay $100 for a signal extender. I say that I had phone service in Elgin, Minnesota, and it doesn't work in Wayzata? and they say we don't guarantee service, ma'am, or well, a phone tower costs $5 million dollars, and we can't just put one next to everyone's house or they just text their boyfriend the entire time they're supposed to be helping me and say oh, just a second, my boyfriend wants to know if we can get food later.

8) When I got home from the doctor yesterday, NDG had the same visitors he normally does--someone with a hefty chocolate lab that chases Buddy around the yard and all over the driveway (have I mentioned how fucking trashy all of these garage parties and dogs with rope for chains looks? I live in a pretty nice neighborhood next to lots of ginormous houses and this guy is killing property values all on his own) and a couple who have a giant bulldog/lab (?) that's as large as the other dogs except is seriously obese. When I got out of my car yesterday, sick and tired and frustrated, I walked straight to the four-plex door without making eye contact. The bulldog ran toward me, and I walked out of its path and didn't say anything, and the bulldog's owner pulled back his chains and said, now, now, some people just don't like dogs.

Excuse me, I fucking love dogs. I just don't love your dogs because of all the abovementioned shit and because I have no fucking reason to interact with your stupid fat dog. However, what I really "just don't like" is fucking NDG sitting in his garage all day making my apartment building look trashy when it's not, or making me feel really uncomfortable whenever I come home, or telling me how or where to park my car when he is the one breaking all of the rules of his lease. What I don't like is old men harassing me in the foyer or giving me dirty looks or thinking they own the place when they've just been leasing for seven years; what I don't like is my apartment and the entire building foyer stinking like smoke so that I fear when I leave this place all of my fabrics will reek. But I fucking love dogs.

*In addition to the stress of my phone not working and nobody being able to fix it, and the first-year teacher's workshop (so stressful) and NDG and my cable not working, yesterday I had a severe allergic reaction (or stress reaction?) and broke out into the worst case of hives I've ever had. I feel like a leper (except I just Google-imaged that and feel guilty for that hyperbole) and my body is covered in red splotches that itch tremendously. Plus, I couldn't breathe through my nose. This happened after teacher training yesterday. When I was at Verizon, the splotches were beginning to form on my face; when I got home it was out of control. I imagine that the flirting with the cable guy would've been much better if I wasn't covered in a severe rash that was finding its way up my neck.

Anyway, after much stress about trying to figure out which clinic to go to--after getting "office not open" messages from Medica and the phone internet not working to guide me on the website, (I had to run two blocks up the street to make a phone call) I found that the closet urgent care would see me. And that my insurance through Hutchinson will hang with me for another week, until next Tuesday, when I've made a "normal physician" appointment to see if I can get tested for allergies. Good to take advantage of my insurance on the last day of the policy. They said they'll take the claim; we'll fucking see.

I have to take a lot of Benadryl to get rid of this, but it's not really working; the doctor also gave me a steriod and said it should be gone in two days; still I have new splotches (although others have gone). So, I'm tired, I'm supposed to be putting my classroom together, but I really just want to go to bed. Also, I would like to get to the gym, but I don't think they want rashy people all over their machines.

Argh! said Charlie Brown. And then his head fell off his neck.

Last night! Oh, it's the last night.

Leaving Hutchinson is very easy. Leaving anywhere is very easy when you spend so much time packing. You're just like: I want to get the fuck out of here. Get me out, now.

I'm taking a break from packing at the time--my landlord is showing the apartment. The more I clean it, the more I realize that my dad was sort of right when he called it a dump. It's just old, and old houses never feel like they're clean. I can scrub, scrub, scrub, and it still looks dirty.

But what really makes it easy to leave is the basement. Since I've started pulling boxes from the downstairs, I've realized a couple of things:

1) something is leaking, water, and it caused shit to fall from the ceiling, over a bunch of my shit--ruined my boots, destroyed the ottoman, made me glad I didn't have anything down there I'd be upset about losing;

2) mice, mice, mice, fucking fucking mice.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a little poo on the dryer, I swiped it away, convinced myself it was just a dark piece of lint. Then, with a box I'd brought upstairs, I noticed a little piece of poo; convinced myself it was leftover poo from when all of the things were in James' shed.

But when I started moving the boxes around, really, I found a whole lot of poo. There was a corner near the staircase where this mouse had just shit his brains out, and another corner that he'd turned into his personal toilet--or like a small grass field, if he were an entire herd of cattle. There was so much shit, it looked like someone had spilled a box of shit on the floor.

So, I convinced myself that the mouse had just been there in the winter, he and a couple of his friends had just decided to hang out because it was cold outside. I mean, there is nothing in the basement for him to eat, and there is absolutely no evidence of a mouse upstairs (not a poo to be found, praise the Lord) so it only makes sense that a mouse use the basement to stop from freezing to death. There's no mouse down here right now! I said stupidly to myself. It was months ago, and the poo is just still here! I mean, the basement must be an awesome place to shit for him. He just comes in to take a dump. Just like the special bathrooms Christina found at MSU so she could poo and nobody would bother her.

Lots of spiders, though. Loooots of spiders.

Nonetheless, whenever I went to grab a box for more packing, I still shoved the broom at it first. Like poking a sleeping dragon just to see what it does. Nothing ever ran out. Very little evidence of poo in the boxes, just mostly on the floor.

So the just-in-the-winter theory definitely worked.

But then, this morning, after I'd spent yesterday stabbing boxes and sweeping up shit, I went downstairs to put in a load of laundry. And there were three poops right there, on top of the washing machine. Poops that were definitely not there a couple days ago.

Who the fuck shits on a washing machine. There's plenty of floor to be had, but the little bastard has to shit on the washing machine. Just to be a fucker. Just to say hey, Jean, have fun being in the basement, because I'm not a winter mouse. I'm an all-year mouse. And I might be down here somewhere.

Little fucker.

So. Starting with Winona, I had: centipedes (at King Street), then in Mankato: centipedes at SW and centipedes/moths at Highland, then in Minneapolis: centipedes, then in Elgin: mice, and now in Hutchinson: mice.

I have to be honest, I'm pretty excited not to have a basement next year. Second floor, here I come. Please, vermin, leave me alone. You've made a stronger woman, but I just want to go back to being a girl.