1. Some of you have now asked me for help with your data choice. I'll do my best, but for the rest of the semester you need to get these things settled much sooner--then I can help you more effectively. The usual practice of doing an assignment close to its due date does not work so well when the assignment involves your discretion and judgment, and you wish to have guidance. But I promise to do my best in class tomorrow.

2. My concern about your being late or talking over me or going in and out of class, missing classes. . . is actually a concern with your well being once you leave USC. In the world I inhabit, especially when you have not built up credibility with years of scrupulous and proper behavior, you "lose points" rapidly by being late, etc. What drives me to distraction is watching you happily set yourself up to go over a cliff or be hit by a truck. Perhaps I am not tough enough, or even do not convey my expectations (I think I have done the latter), but in fact the world is filled with people whose respect you covet but who are not tough or do not tell you what to do. You are supposed to have mastered proper decorum.

As a friend of mine said, he found that letters of recommendation for those students just had to wait and often did not go out--other students' requests came first.

Also, it does not serve you well to "talk back" to your professor. I don't care, so much as I watch you self-destruct before my eyes. I think of what your parents/coach/bosses would think.