Summer School

Dropped a kid because he didn't show up the first day or email to notify me (bear in
mind, the entire semester is encapsulated in 9 classes, so one day of class
is like 1 1/2 weeks). Sends me this terse, sarcastic email about how he'd
spent the day at UCSF with his girlfriend who'd got diagnosed with a tumor
and how he wasn't out screwing around and so didn't deserve to be dropped.
Felt terrible for the guy and wrote him a very brief response offering my
sorries for his troubles; but at the same time, I felt weirdly indignant at
him blaming me and/or getting salty, partly because all he had to do was
make contact with me but mostly because that's just one of many sad fucking
stories that students have. Is this guy's angst greater than the student who
hasn't been able to get into this class and so hasn't been able to graduate
for a year because of the fucking hampster wheel Catch-22 bullshit system
that creates this requirement but makes it so maddeningly difficult for
students to satisfy it? Perhaps. I'm not sure I want to judge.
Funny thing is I love teaching summer school. It's a blast and the 5-week
format works well.