Sorry for all of the swearing.

HA! I had to scroll back to see if I'd missed something - two fucks in as many posts didn't even register as swearing to me. I blame Aimee and Joe. And Allyson.

there was swearing? I thought that was me.

How come I'm number one?

Fuck.

I want every single testicle undergoing a vasectomy ultrasounded and the doctor to tell the man who is killing and denying all of those potential lives about the sac eating monster that lives in his defrens.

How come I'm number one?

Because you WIN.

"Every Sperm is Sacred"

Aims, you misunderstand the law - men are the victims here.

WOOOHOO!!! I'm Number One!!

t flashes patented #1 sign around

men are the victims here.

Oh! My t uterus is bad.

The problem with the first measure isn't the ultrasound itself - I assume most doctors would want to do one anyway, just to confirm pregnancy before scheduling surgery

I'd have assumed this before I realized that California will schedule (and perform) a C-section and never do an ultrasound or any testing. And this is state-paid. [Yes, this baby was born very healthy but quite premature since the conception information offered by the mother was just wrong.]

I'd say I was boggled but really I am just angry and offended.

I don't know about other countries, or if my experience reflects any sort of wider trend, but some of my worst experiences with students with entitlement attitude issues were with students who had grown up in China. A bunch of other grad students noticed that, too, and our theory was that the only people in China who can afford to send their kids to an American university are probably the really rich and powerful people, and so that's how some of their kids are used to treating everybody.

They call it the Little Emperor syndrome. The one-child policy is often blamed for it; parents have just one child to support and encourage and sacrifice for and pin all their expectations on, and it's a very family-oriented culture. Add nouveau riche to the mix and it can get pretty obnoxious. It won't just be the very rich sending their kids overseas, but there's an obvious skew. It pisses Wallybee off mightily too. Both as a student herself here in Melbourne, and in her work as an interpreter, she has often come across kids like that (from rich families who are quite happy to fund a dissolute lifestyle while they're nominally undertaking study of some description).

I'm now doing a postgrad at Melbourne Uni, and generally speaking, over half the class is composed of Chinese international students. I've generally had very positive experiences with them. I did group assignments with a few Chinese students last semester. I wound up basically rewriting most of their contributions (both to polish up the English and tighten the reasoning), but didn't mind at all, because they were willing to do the work. They made the effort to write a good assignment.

One interesting side note: I was pretty obviously the oldest person in the class, and also pretty obviously had relevant work experience. These two students were the only ones in the entire class who asked me to join their group. (There's a strong tendency to stick with people of your own background in such an unfamiliar environment.)