College kids

College kids are annoying.  I've known this for a long time, but in the past I didn't have to function with them for so much of the day.  I only had to deal with them in my actual class, and then I'd go home to people I like better, and all is well.  Now, however, I have to be around them all the time, or be in my apartment spending much more on internet. 

Many of them keep asking me to fix things for them.  Being the oldest here, I've ended up being people's mom, and at first, I was happy to help.  I had my own homesickness, but some of these kids have been pretty miserable.  It made me feel better, or at least distracted me from my own issues.  I helped them find strategies to fight it, and made them feel better.  Sadly, it seems I opened a door that now is issuing constant demands. 

For example, I burned the companion disk to one of my texts books to my computer.  It's lucky, because I misplaced it before I left, and I have a copy now on my computer.  The other day, I had another student who "heard" I had it like that and wanted a copy.  Well, it's huge file, and a major pain to explain to her how to do it, and she's on a crappy mac anyway.  Everything is always harder on a mac.  She's talked about all kinds of trips she is taking to Egypt or other flights, but she can't just buy the disk.  This country has no copyright laws, so it's all legal here, but I do have other things to do.  She didn't even want to download anything on her own time.  She just wanted me to do it for her. 

Another student is outright snippy with me at times.  She's been the one I've helped the most, and so I'm very tired of her.  She has few good things to say or positive behaviors to behave with, until of course she brings up her desire to hang out with my adoptive family.  Fortunately, she made a major cultural error, and she doesn't know it, but she can't go back.  She also wants me to fix her computer, and handle other things for her.  She made a joke to the professor when I fixed HIS computer that this ability is why she is my friend.  Truer words have not been spoken.

This morning, this other student, who had never said a word to me, comes in and interrupts my studies with a "HEY YOU."  I look up, and he knows my face enough to know he's in my classes, but does not know my name.  But now he wants me to explain in detail the homework.  I told him, and went back to studying, and then he interrupted me again, repeatedly, to check  if what he did is what I did LAST NIGHT when homework was supposed to be done.  Then he and his three friends decide to have a very loud skype conversation with Egypt airlines to change their booking for a flight to Egypt during the Eid break this month.  Many people are studying here.  So rude!

Another student, who never talks to me, joined me and someone else for lunch yesterday.  We've had a couple passing words over the last month, but then she told me that her homestay has a curfew of 10 pm, could she stay at my house some times?  Not that she wanted me to come hang out with her.  She just wanted to be able to get me up in the middle of the night to unlock the door, so she could sleep there, and use my bathroom.  Honestly, I am here to learn Arabic, not hang out in the bar, or hang out with a bunch of English speakers, so I don't even want to hang out.  But I thought this was pretty blatant.  I didn't tell her no, because if she got herself stranded somewhere, I'd feel horrible if something happened.  This morning, she walked into the coffee shop, didn't even say hello, and sat down.  I guess she also got what she wanted. 

So ya.  College kids are annoying.  I am confused by the fact that they are totally ok with asking for stuff all the time without developing any kind of a relationship with the people they want things from.  It is getting really old.