and most recently, he got railed out for never spending the night at home and always going back to his apartment on weekends. "Why do you always go back? Do you have something waiting for you at the apartment?"

Well no kidding he goes back to his OWN place. That's part of being a grown up. Not even taking into consideration the White Devil girlfriend part.

good luck P-C

smonster, I had a professor in college that used to drop her voice to a whisper. She taught freshman history classes , it worked

That's promising, P-C, the doctor girl. Yay for possible friend who gets it, even if nothing more.

I KNOW I get bad headaches when I get bad sleep, so why am I surprised I have a terrible headache today, after waking up multiple times before getting up at 4AM (less than 4 hours sleep), then sleeping vaguely on the plane, then a 30 minute nap at home, and another keep-waking-up nap this afternoon. Argh--wasted all day and still feel crappy.

For some reason, Polter, I keep seeing you going to India and not being allowed to come home until they get you married, no matter if you're there just for a 5-day vacation or not. I may have read too many stories about arranged marriages back in the 17th and 18the centuries, and you're not a swooning, teenaged heiress under the control of a cruel guardian., but there it is. Have your return ticket and getaway money handy at all times.

Okay, hivemind, I need the teachers this time: I've got six 20-22 yo, who are not very mature - think high schoolers. Four boys, two girls. They have a pronounced tendency to hold side conversations while I am talking, despite repeated reminders of varying assertiveness not to do so. Any advice?I am trying to compliment them on what they do right, to catch them being good. Do I just stop talking and wait? If it gets really bad, add that time to their day?

OK, we used to do this at camp. Not just with the campers but when it was only staff too -- the staff was late teens/early twenties. The rule was "when the hand is up, the mouth is shut."

You raise your hand. When they see your hand is up, they raise theirs too and stop talking. There's no yelling for attention. Once everyone is quiet, you say what you need to say. You keep your hand up while you're talking. If need be they keep their hands up too (this generally wore off as the summer went on). If someone does start talking you calmly say, "my hand is up" and continue what you're saying -- its not a scold like "stop talking!" would be, its more of an indication of "dude, its not talking time."

Written out it seems silly, but it was amazingly effective. It also worked when you had three or four hundred people talking at once in the dining hall -- once the hands started going up it got quickly quiet.

I've got several students who always sit in class with an iPod earphone in one ear. It drives me nuts. One of them sometimes kind of dances along to the music in her seat. I've tried telling everyone at the beginning of class "earphones off, please," and I've even tried specifically calling the students by name when I notice it and telling them to turn the music off, but five minutes later, they put it on again.

Oh, Trudy, good one. Part of the issue right now is that we're running a generator, so they won't necesarilu notice if I stop talking. But the hand visual could be good.

Thanks, all. I've had a glass of wine and feeling better. Next up, shower and chili. And more wine. And streusel.

Isn't that the point at which you take the iPod and hold it until the end of class?

Hil, that's crazy making.

I've had professors in college who would throw students out of the lecture hall for less, Hil.