A Day of Jay.

I lied. I won't tell you about the whole day. I about had a stroke I got so mad at a group of freshmen who are the most maddening group I've had in the past 15 years.

But as I was FINALLY leaving campus after a nearly 10 hour day (I only teach 3 courses, but you know how you can get caught up in things), I watched a student commit 3 different jaywalking infractions in about 25 seconds total.

First of all she did the classic jaywalk, right across a busy street that borders campus, halfway between 2 perfectly marked crosswalks. Cars honked. She had to stand on the double yellow line for a few seconds while cars had to decide to simply stop and let her complete her crime or keep going and risk killing her. (I was too far away to kill her. Just sayin'.)

Then she got to a real corner with crosswalks, and she crossed against the red, holding up one hand when she saw a car hustling along at about the normal 35 mph speed. She had started against the red without looking too closely, and lucky she was young and nimble and lucky the driver actually had his/her eyes on the road.

2 down. 1 to go.

Now, on another legal corner, she paused, and then walked across the street ON A GREEN ARROW designed to let cars going in her direction take a left turn in front of her. The actual walk signal she faced was red. RED HAND! Wait. But she moved through the crosswalk and 3 cars had to stop in waiting traffic for the princess to go across - now, suddenly languidly. And as I crossed the crosswalk myself I could see her shaking her head, and I heard her say to nobody, "What the fuck?"

Three different times she put herself and others in harm's way. At the very least she inconvenienced or impeded 10 cars in traffic.

And I know if you were to ask her, that she'd say everything was someone else's fault.

This is my complaint today. She, just her, not every one of my students, thinks it's all about her. I know from the display what kind of student she'd be. How she'd act in a restaurant. What kind of grownup she's going to make.