Oh, and just because I like to really beat a subject to death, I use the Immigration parts of the USC and CFR every day. I generally think of the USC part as the overarching guideline. It's also the authority we quote whenever we approve/deny something. However, the CFR addresses the nitty gritty procedural stuff and, as already mentioned, it can be changed by our agency. So, if we don't like the way something is working, we can change it.

That last part puts you ahead of many many lawyers.

So true. We had a guy here last month who spent a week in the federal prison here because he got bad advice from his lawyer. The lawyer obviously hadn't read the CFR and made a wrong assmption. (Guy is now back at home in Virginia with his wife.)

The easy course at my college was Music Theory, aka Clapping for Credit. I took it freshman year, and got a really easy A -- I already knew how to read music, and I'd been in school band for long enough that I could identify most instruments by ear (or, at least, be able to say "That's a brass" or "That's a woodwind" or whatever, which was all that was required.) Learned a few new things, like the circle of fifths, but overall, I don't think I put more than about 30 minutes a week into homework and studying for that class.

My worst "entitled student" story is the girl who insisted she didn't deserve a D on her calculus test, because she "studied really hard" and she's "a good student." She was furious, and was practically screaming at the TA. She didn't have any argument about any of her answers that were marked wrong being actually correct, or anything like that -- it wasn't her answers that deserved a higher grade, it was her.

Atheists are often very grumpy and bitter

This is making me laugh and laugh. And reminds me of the nice young Mormon Elders that came to my new house while I was over there cleaning, wantiing to talk about their religion. when I told them I wasn't interested, they were polite and left, but not until after asking "Is there anything else we can do for you?" Like maybe they'd take the garbage out or mow my lawn, I don't know. It was peculiar but friendly.

Like maybe they'd take the garbage out or mow my lawn, I don't know. It was peculiar but friendly.

They probably would have if you'd asked them. Well, maybe not mow the lawn, since that might take a long time, but I'm just about positive that they would have taken out the garbage if you'd asked them to.

it wasn't her answers that deserved a higher grade, it was her.

One of my students asked me once to increase her final grade in a class. Her reason was that she got married during the semester, and therefore didn't get to do part of the work and didn't manage to get the grade that she thought she deserved in the class. The only difference between her and the student you describe is that she was polite in the 15 minutes of attempting to convince me.

Oh, and I once had a student in a class I TAed who got a question wrong in a graded exercise. He came to talk to me and explained that he misunderstood the question. Then he demanded that I check his answer based on the question he actually answered, not the question we had asked (which everybody else understood). And he could not possibly understand why I refused.

asking "Is there anything else we can do for you?"

Do you have the Chabad people trying to convince the men to wear tefillin or the like? It's like that, only in reverse, in a way?

Which sorta fits, considering they represent different religions.

Dang bon! I hope your trip gets better ita!

I got to hang out with one of my nearest and dearest who I never see because of his work/travel stuff. He's moving to Sydney in January, which makes me sad, but hey! free place to stay in Sydney!

In other good news. My sister remains awesome for the 4th year in a row! [link] She's won best actress again.

Then he demanded that I check his answer based on the question he actually answered, not the question we had asked

Oh, I've had a ton of those. Also people who ask for credit when, say, problem 6 was assigned and they accidentally did problem 8 instead, but they did get problem 8 right. I have 70 papers to grade, with about 9 problems on each paper. I so don't have time to check to see if people did other problems correctly.

I had a woman ask me today if I could "help her just a little" in passing her citizenship exam. Which is really dumb because the entire thing is recorded. It always make me angry because a) I wouldn't cheat period but also b) I can't imagine putting myself at risk like that.

She wasn't asking you to cheat, just help a little! @@