Ugh.

Tonight I have to give a placement test to 150...hopeful souls inspired to pursue higher education as part of their noble quest to bring peace, unity, and a better quality of life to all mankind. (Fine, quit bitching, I'll turn down the brightness on the "SARCASM" sign, but the "APPLAUSE" light stays at the same level--deal with it!) One hundred and fifty is a nightmare, even with help, which rumor says will be there. Americans can't follow directions (especially some of the mouth-breathers that take our placement test), and there are sure to be at least a dozen non-native speakers, some of whom can barely navigate the supermarket in English, let alone read college level paragraphs or fill out bubble forms. And then there are the kids with 1400 on the SAT who will be so bored that they'll rush ahead, finish, get disruptive, fill out stuff wrong, be too cocky to pay attention to the fact, get corrected, get hostile, and generally be a pain in the butt. Those people still have to take the stupid test because the administration of our college hasn't taken its collective head out of the place where the sun don't shine in so long that they wouldn't recognize a rational idea if it grabbed them by the ears and screamed "Pay attention!!!" If we were charging people to take the test, maybe it would make revenue sense to make everyone take it, regardless of SAT score or Regents grades. But it's friggin' FREE!!! Why the hell are they throwing away money??? Because they're stupid anal-retentive micro-managing morons, that's why.

The upside is that giving the test means I don't have to go to Eastern Star (though I'll be in deep ca-ca for that, too).