Today was the last meeting for one of the classes I teach. After I told the students they were free and could go, two students came up to my desk to turn in some papers.

Student 1: Hands me her paper. I just wanted to tell you that I really enjoyed this class, and I learned a lot this semester.

Me: Feeling good about myself. Really? That's great! Thanks for telling me!

Student 2: Hands me his paper. I didn't learn anything.

Me: Feeling slightly less good about myself, a number of retorts run through my mind. 1) I wonder if you not learning anything this semester has anything to do with the fact that you listened to your iPod for the entirety of every class because you thought I couldn't see the headphones under your hood? 2) Oh, if you'd just said that you already knew everything about psychology, I would have let you teach the class. 3) That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. 4) Oh, well if you didn't learn anything, then I guess I'll have to give you a failing grade in the class. Instead, I decided to go with: Thanks for telling me!

But what I was really thinking, as you may have guessed, is that not everyone should go to college.

Yesterday the fortune-telling meteorologists at the National Weather Service said we were likely to have 4-8 inches of snow accumulate last night and into the afternoon today. In adulthood, I've always contended that they just guess when it comes to stuff like this, and so I try and make fun of their predictions whenever possible. I think they shattered my snow-day-dreams one too many times when I was a child.

Anywho, I started thinking about this most recent prognostication. As you may have noticed, they recognize that they're going to be off by at least 4 inches. Let's tack that 4 inches of assumed error onto the high and low ends of the 4-8 inches. Hmm... now it seems that they've predicted somewhere between 0 and 12 inches of accumulation. That's weird, because I make that same prediction every day of winter.

How did my forecast stack up? Let's check what's happened outside. Survey says... there's approximately a quarter inch of snow in my yard. Zero to 12 inches prevails again! Hey everybody, I'm a weatherman!

Not everyone should go to meteorological college.

A few days ago, some of my relatives were talking about how they were going to go to Wal-Mart in the morning to find some of the incredible 'Black Friday' deals. Half-joking, I issued a warning about how, every year, someone gets trampled by a crush of shoppers at a Wal-Mart on the day after Thanksgiving.

It happened again this year. In Long Island, NY, a group of shoppers were pushing so hard against the doors at 5 AM that everything exploded inward. Four people were injured, and an employee was killed by the onslaught of people. When the police shut down the store for a few hours to assess the scene, the shoppers responded with complaints about how it wasn't fair because they'd been waiting so long to get a good deal.

Isn't consumerism wonderful?

I once wrote about a student who came to class with a glass of beer and who, in another incident, asked me if I thought it would be difficult to "nab a bike from Wal-Mart." Last week, that same student asked me to write him a letter of recommendation. True story.

Read no further if you're uninterested in hearing a rant.

I love to play basketball, but I'm really starting to hate playing at the rec center here on campus (the only gym I have access to on a regular basis). Most of the basketball isn't good basketball. People play bad defense and selfish offense. People cheat whenever possible so that their team will win, and they'll get to keep playing. The games are rough, and I usually come home bruised. There are usually three open courts, but there are typically up to 20 people waiting to play on the main court. If I ever say something like, "Hey, instead of sitting out, maybe we could get two more games going and everybody could play at once," but I usually find that people won't even make eye contact with me. I suspect it's because I'm white (98% of the players are black). When I do get in a game, I seldom get the ball passed to me, and I often hear people on the sidelines making fun of me or expecting me to play poorly. Again, I suspect it's because I'm white. Never mind the fact that I'm usually the most fundamentally skilled player in the gym and regularly score at least half of my team's points.

I just want to play basketball, and I'm really tired of not being able to.