Syllabus? What's that?

Ah, the semester has started in earnest!

Stu Dent shows up this morning at 8.35 in the lab. We started at 8.00. I request to see his lab preparation work, which is required. "My what?" Didn't you read the syllabus, sweet snowflake? "The what?" I ask if he attended class the first day. No, he had other plans that day. Well, since you are repeating this class, you may not know anyone here, so I suggest making friends fast and asking what we did that first day. Was he here any of the other days we had class? "Yes, I was there the day you spoke about the whatch-a-ma-call-it."

Dear Lord. Please keep the clueless out of the 8 am lab. I can deal with this at noon, but not when I got up at 5.45 to get to class.

After the lecture I had office hours, another Stu dropped by. He had been unable to attend the first lecture, but he had discovered there was a syllabus. Great! Unfortunately, he had a hard time understanding it. Now this was bizarre - the syllabus is in English, and he is a native speaker of English. To put it bluntly, the syllabus says: attend class regularly and submit lecture notes on time; attend lab regularly, be prepared, and hand in reports on time that use complete sentences; pass the exam. I explained this again, patiently. After all, that's what office hours are for, aren't they? Okay, now he understands.

"I wanted to ask you something," he continues. Okay. "But I've forgotten what it is." I suggest that he write down his points the next time he comes, that will make things go so much more smoothly.

Ah, and then there was the snowflake who forgot his password and emailed the dean's office today to ask if we could help him. Sure. Right after I get all this toilet paper distributed and the rooms vacuumed, because a teacher is refusing to teach in dirty rooms. Anything else? I would not have *dreamed* of asking the dean something like that! Is this because of email or what?