I wish the HR people would have been on the ball.

Unless they have a secret "confuse people and prevent them by any means possible from using the sick leave they have coming to them, thus saving the university a bundle of money that can then be shoveled into incentive pay and mansions for prospective vice-chancellors" policy, in which case they're right on the ball.

I'm trying to imagine a world where my mother would've been willing to write my papers for me. It's even harder to imagine a world where I would've wanted her to. I was in college! 900 miles from home! I didn't want to run to mommy for anything.

I did get my brother to help me with calculus, because he was teaching it at West Point while I was taking it at Penn, but that was always, "I don't get this concept," not, "Here's Problem #6. Will you solve it for me?"

I'm a rage bomb about mommy writing papers for her daughter. RAGE BOMB.

Apparently her mom has been writing her papers all along, but now that they are about Shakespeare and such, she can't do it any more!

JZ, that just plain sucks. When I left my CT school, I had 80 DAYS of unused sick time. Frustrating as hell to not get a penny for it, but I would have been even more pissed if I'd had a situation like yours.

Recently CJ was upset about us checking his homework because "if we told him what he did wrong then it wasn't his work". We tried to explain we were more checking to make sure it was done and legible than what the answers were.

But we also explained that there are times where it is good to brainstorm a problem with someone else and discuss the concepts behind a paper. As long as the person assigned the work is doing the actual work, it is ok to get ideas from others.

So tricky.

JZ - I didn't mean to imply that you were wrong to be upset. You were given such bad information when you went on leave.

RAGE BOMB.

Word.

I think the daughter should (a) be reported to the Dean of students; and (b) fail.

Either or both would do. What the hell kind of parent thinks this is a good thing to do for your kid?

I'm a rage bomb about mommy writing papers for her daughter.

Allyson, you should have seen me the day I found out from our valedictorian that his parents had been doing his homework for him through high school in addition to giving him money so he didn't have to work during the school year.

I would have lunged from the back seat and throttled him to death if he hadn't been driving the car.

I am also filled with rage about paper-writing parent, but I'm already in a pissy mood because of Passive Aggressive Entitled Student (tm) in my last class. My moods right now are not to be trusted.

You know, I hear stories like this, and I wonder, how come Buffistas aren't running the world?

Apparently her mom has been writing her papers all along, but now that they are about Shakespeare and such, she can't do it any more!

I can't figure out what the hell her mom was thinking. An english major who can't write is not going to find a friendly world after college.