I Don't Wanna!

[rant]

Okay, as I have mentioned before, I am in an online English class. First of all, I am a little peeved that I have to take this class because I have already taken it's equivalent at FSU. But, that's another rant for another time...
In this online English class, I have noticed that the first language of the majority of my classmates is not English. That's fine. That is fine. Whatever. They don't write MY papers or discussion posts, so, ultimately, they are not affecting me... right? WRONG! Ugh! (I'm a little frustrated, can ya tell?) Every week we have to post no less than 150 words about one of the assigned stories. No big deal. I can do that. Easy. However, we then have to reply with 150 words to a discussion that one of our group members have posted. Right... Okay... Normally, I wouldn't have a problem with this. I actually even enjoy going back and forth with someone about a story we have both read. It's interesting to see their point of view as compared to mine. It's just that it's not that simple with these posts I have to try to respond to. Take this one for example:

"In Cathedral story the narrator drew a bad perception of Robert as he imagined him of not being capable of performing in a regular manner. His experience could probably relate in the way the he described the appearance of the blind man. There were moments when he felt uncomfortable just by his presences and by the way he was really not part of the conversation when the blind man and his wife just talked about their lives excluding him. Even thought the blind man was not capable of seen things, he was very precise in his eating and describing his surrounding something the narrator was able to visualize. In the dinning room the narrator was surprised in the way the blind man was eating his meal as in several occasion he noticed that the blind man was eating with his fingers too. The blind man was able to get familiarize with the surroundings and this is what the narrator was practically concentration for the most part on the blind man’s actions. "

::deep breath:: It's not that I think they are dumb or anything like that. It SEEMS like they are trying to speak English correctly, but this is just bad. Am I being rude? Am I giving off the impression that I am better than they are? I don't mean to. I am just having trouble getting enough out of responses like the one above to be able to respond back! I mean, really, what are they saying?!

And NOW! Oh boy... This past week we had to submit a paper--a response paper--to be peer critiqued. The teacher assigned each of us two papers to critique. I ended up with the two people that have proved to be the worst English speakers/writers in the group. Excellent. Now, I have to go through these papers, try to figure out what point they were TRYING to get across, and critique them on it. I just finished doing one, but I think I am also supposed to actually EDIT (as in grammar and verb usage/tense) the paper as well. (I emailed the teacher to make sure of that.) If that is true then I am not close to being done with it... There are sentences like these all throughout the paper:

1. He had noticed the blind man having a full set beard and did not have a cane with dark glasses.

2. He was amazed when he seen the blind man smoke and actually knew when the cigarette will end. He had believed that since blind people cannot see the smoke that they will find no need to smoke.

::shakes head:: Maybe I am being snotty. Maybe I should keep my mouth shut and just edit the papers... Well, I will edit the papers, but I think I will complain about it a little more--at least to myself.

[/rant]