Awesomesauce Students

I don't know about you, but I've got to tutor some pretty awesome people so far. I know I've got one more tutoring session left, but I want to make the most of it like I always do. People often tell me that I am the human equivalent of Grumpy Cat (my boyfriend, sister, friends, etc), but when I'm at at Williams-Johnston at the tutoring center, my grumpiness seems to go away. I turn into a really friendly person with concerns and a smile plastered on her face. I try my hardest to make sure that there won't be a situation that could potentially arise that could bring disaster among my tutees, because they're turning to me and it is under my responsibility to give them the treatment they deserve and the calming environment they need to assure that everything will be alright with their work. 

That's why I always make sure I have coffee Monday mornings so that I can be pumped and ready to go, because nothing would suck more than to be falling asleep on your tutees. I also go visit Mom and Pop's by Diffenbaugh, or when I'm lucky, La Lola Loca at Landis when they're there, because unfortunately, they're like Haley's Comet. 

So far, I've been extremely lucky with my tutees. Even the quieter ones have been open towards me and have told me what their concerns are, their strengths, weaknesses, and which sentences are troubling them the most in their essays. A couple of weeks ago, I had a tutee who was pretty much the ideal in the Minimalist Tutoring article in Murphy's Handbook. This guy would ask me all of the question, show his concerns point-blank, and would join me in reading his sentences out loud so that there wouldn't be error. He knew of his bad habits with the experience of his past research papers and asked me to point out any if I had seen them, and most times, he would catch them as I kept reading. Out of all of the people I've helped tutored, this guy was pretty memorable and was with the hour long session because even I learned some interesting facts on his paper that I applied in a future (by then) paper myself, as well as his research skills and information. 

I've always pictured tutoring to be like this. You meet people and you get something in return. Sometimes, it won't be tiny tidbits like how the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) protested Delta Airlines for not having diverse stewardesses, or how Belgians base their romantic attachments on a complete open-book mentality and how secrets are taboo to them. Sometimes you get something else deep down inside when you tutor people, especially those who seek the help they need and give you direction on where to go, these guys give you a deep sense of satisfaction and a need to keep on doing this, because this is the right thing to do. 

And because of that, I lose all sense of grumpiness for the rest of the day.