And the winner is...

It's that time of year again. The leaves have fallen. There's a chill in the air. Hell, it snowed the other day. And the panic is so thick you can smell it from a mile away.

Now that I officially find myself as a member of the student body again, I have rekindled my appreciation for how stressful the end of the semester can be. Believe me...I get it, as any of my new colleagues who read this can surely appreciate. And I consider myself to be a pretty diligent student. Not that I'm perfect. I've been known to forgo my reading in lieu of a good third and long. But I can honestly say, with no reservations, that I've made a valiant effort to...you know, at least go to class.

I can only imagine how scary this time of year is for those people who haven't. And yes, Visitors. I'm talking about you.

If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you know who the Visitors are. They're like the C&E churchgoers that showed up for holidays, weddings and funerals. But in every Visitor's semester, there's that moment. That "oh shit, I'm FAILING!" moment, that's akin to the C&E that realizes on their deathbed that the guy with the funny collar wasn't kidding. It's like Bill Cosby used to say about his mother. "You are looking at an old woman who is trying to get into Heaven now." This is how I feel around week 14 of the semester as I look around at the Visitors, who reappear in droves. These are not the same people that blew off my class all semester. These are the students that are trying to get out of the grade basement.

When the Visitors start to trickle back in, the real fun begins. The front row fills up, as if being seen is enough to make up for the previous three months. Some even raise their hands and try to sound like the reason they haven't been in class is because they've been so enraptured with the material that they've been unable to tear themselves away from their textbooks to make it to class on time. And every semester, one Visitor pulls away from the pack, like that last minute long shot who ends up winning by a nose.

Well, kids, we have a winner.

During this time of year, Visitors are often fill my appointment book, and I thought nothing of it when a student with a name I couldn't match to a face sent a polite email asking if we could meet. When he showed up for our appointment today, he launched into a soliloquy of how he's been President of This, and a Member of That, and somewhere in the mix, he'd forgotten to come to class.

As I started to pull up his grades, I asked if he remembered the last time he'd been to class. "Well, that's the thing," he said. "I haven't."

"Haven't what?" says me.

"Haven't come to class."

Before I can reply, my computer screen refreshes and confirms what I've just heard. Midterm: 0. Paper, 0. Zeros across the board.

As anyone who knows me will attest, it takes quite a bit to render me speechless. I almost wanted to give him some credit just for that.

He proceeded to tell me that as he was going through his notes in preparation for finals, he noticed that although he knew he was registered for six classes, he only had notes for five. It was then that he realized that he had forgotten to come to my class. Not once, or twice, or even since the midterm.

He admitted point blank that because he'd been so busy with his other responsibilities he'd forgotten to come at all.

Now this isn't the part that put him ahead of the pack. This is not the first time in over 10 years that I've had a student regale me with the same story. It was his next request that catapulted him to the level of "This is going in the blog tonight."

I mentioned that there was nothing I could do to help him at this point. But he interrupted me and said that he thought there was something I could do to help. Intrigued, I asked what that could be. He then proceeded to tell me that he had cleared his entire Saturday for me, and could I just meet with him and fill him in on what he had missed. And before I could decide whether to point and laugh or burst into tears, he said that this, of course, would be enough to prepare him to make up the midterm that he had missed.

There was no request. No pleading or begging. As if the assumption that not only would I be willing to give up my Saturday for someone who couldn't be bothered to remember he was a student in my class wasn't enough, he simply assumed that I would be dumping my entire policy on "no late assignments or make up work".

Imagine his surprise when, with a slightly bewildered smile, I stood and thanked him for stopping by, and wished him luck with the classes he had bothered to show up for.

Thanks for playing. Enjoy these lovely parting gifts of forfeiture of any second chance to take this class with me, and of course, a big fat and well-earned F for the semester.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and hug a Visitor. At least they make the effort once in a while...