My survey of Spanish literature, where Clarissa and Jonathan both gave Skype lectures, is composed of sweet people but they are lost. I have been attempting to explain what the second Spanish Republic was for ten weeks and the students still do not understand. What the Franco dictatorship was. What the relation of the current King is to Franco and to former kings. What the “transition” was. What the European Union is. It is incredibly difficult and they still do not get it.
One of the students has been e-mailing me questions about work for another class. What is the Lazarillo, what is the picaresque, why is the Lazarillo picaresque, questions like this; why is the tragic dénouement in Don Juan cathartic. I would think these answers could be looked up and I keep saying to ask that professor.
Today in class everyone was buzzing about that professor, he publishes the most in the department, he says, and he is a personal friend of a well known author. Can this really be true, the students want to know — especially given that, when they Google this professor, they do not find publications but they do find his picture on dating sites?
We all know writers and academics, said I, and it is totally possible that that professor is a friend of that writer. I am not on any dating sites but if you Google me you can find every petition I ever signed, I said, so we can all be spied upon. I also used the opportunity to show them, once again, how to use the library search engines to find peoples’ publications. It turned out that that professor has publications, but the one he keeps saying does not have them, has more.
One person had not yet chosen a research topic so I suggested one which was also being done by someone else — someone I feel will need the support, since she is not doing a very good job yet. She said, in class, do I really have to work with him? I do not like him! I said no, you do not have to work with him, it is a broad topic and the day of the presentations may go better for the audience if, begging your pardon, the two weakest presentations are on the same topic so that the rest of us can help you together.
Some days I just do not feel I am in the adult world.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
They want you to give them the answers so they can get a good grade and forget about what they have learned.
No — they just lack background / don’t understand what college is. I told one of them the reason he could not do the presentation he wanted to do was that this was not a freshman language course. He thinks I want him to say something I want said, and does not understand that all I want is work at a certain level.
Oh, I see. Stop acting like freshmen, in other words.