people observation #2: i'm a freshman in college, therefore I reserve the right to bash everything my doctorate grammar professor has to say.

Every Monday and Wednesday from 10-12 it is the same thing. I run in a few minutes ahead of schedule and quickly delayer my parka, mittens, hat, and extra sweatshirt before I break a ridiculous sweat. I give Megan a cheerful hello and ask her if she did the homework from last night, because I most likely did not. We take our seats and cross our fingers that they aren't going to sit behind us, but there they are right on cue.

The recipe of their conversation always consists of the ingredients from my last observation, quite complainy, but this one has just a pinch of arrogance. Of course being me, I cannot help myself but eavesdrop, and with the volume of their voices, it would probably be harder not to. Their conversation I am talking about is how they feel that they are much cooler, and clearly much more intelligent than our professor. All through class, literally, everything that comes out of our very intelligent professor's mouth is something for them to make fun of. I don't know why they don't get up in front and teach the class themselves. Actually, I do. Their making fun of her is caused by a little thing inside of them named insecurity.

These students are not alone. It is an epidemic that began when we were in middle school and being able to poke fun of someone made you superior in your LizzieMcGuire-mimicked clique. From then on, pointing out an elder's flaws was an easy thing to do, because one could assume these elders were never going to hear it. There you go, easy way in to that group.

I have always had a problem with making fun of the established elders, and this is most likely because the older people in my life have always been very incredible role models. They were successful yet not afraid to admit their humanity. They taught me what respect was by respecting me and most importantly respecting others.

I feel that another important factor as to why I get so upset about this topic is that I have had some great relationships with my teachers throughout schooling and I've learned that teachers are people too, and that they do have lives outside of the classroom. I do not think some students understand this concept.

Just the other day, we were going over a grammar rule that was rare, and confusing, because so many people mess it up. When our professor explained what the rule was, a student answered her hand, and in the most arrogant voice imaginable says, "I have never seen or heard that before now." I was appalled. Who do you think you are? As if your nineteen years of life gave you more credibility than our PHD grammar professor, with years of journalistic experience, who studies the concepts of these simple rules on and off the job.

Sure, I understand that sometimes professionals are wrong. Scientists do not find the solution on their first experiment. Sometimes Ryan Howard strikes out. However, we have no right to undermine their knowledge, and we most certainly have no right to blatantly disrespect what they have to say because of a mistake. (That being said my grammar professor knows her shit. She was not wrong, and she went on to give us five more examples of the questioned rule, thus, embarrassing the class. As we say in my family: face.)

What I'm trying to explain is just a small part of my daily life as a freshman in college, surrounded by intelligent students that sometimes let this trait get to their heads. I can understand frustration with a class, I can understand insecurity breaching from that, however, what I cannot understand is the finding it necessary to use these previous reasons to excuse us from respecting anyone. Word does get back to our elders, and not only does it look really poorly on you, it looks really poorly on our generation.