I was attempting to avoid posting this as I am not particularly fond of this professor BUT. It was a perfect moment.
So she's boring. Most of us don't listen. Yes, we realize that if you divide the total tuition by the number of hours of class we are supposed to attend it works out to more than $200 an hour to tune out a highly respected, Ivy-league-tenured intellectual. We're college students. Most people sleep. I daydream. The daring few slip in an iPod earbud. As far as we can tell, she is generally under the impression that her audience is paying attention.
It's Monday and it's nine in the morning. Maybe fifty percent of the class is conscious. I'm half-listening to her lecture, and there are a few Spanish words interspersed with the doodles in my notebook. Not bad, considering that I pulled an all-nighter and she's lecturing in a language that I don't really speak.
She paces baaaaaack and forth as she's lecturing. I get sick of tracking her across the room and use my position in the last row to check out the rest of the class. That Guy Who Always Wears Pajama Pants is, fittingly, actually asleep. Gorgeous and Mysterious International Student is surreptitiously completing an Econ problem set. Hasn't Figured Out That High School Teacher's Pet Does Not Equal Professor's Pet is diligently taking color-coded notes. Guy Who Would Like to Think That He is a Legit Skater Dude has carefully snaked an iPod earbud up his sleeve. That, um, Girl, Who's, Like, You Know, Kinda From California? is also, mercifully, asleep.
And the professor is completely oblivious. I focus to try and get some idea of what she's talking about. Baaaaaaaaaaaack and forth. Baaaaaaaaack and forth. Kind of in a monotone. Soothing.
Until, on the trip baaaaaaaaack, she reaches out and smoothly YANKS on Skater Dude's earbud.
He flinches backwards, almost falling out of his chair. The clatter of the earbud as it hits the desk seems to reverberate a thousand times in the lecture hall.
And she just keeps going. Lecturing. Pacing. No comment to Skater Dude, but she allows herself a slight smile. A slight buzz spreads through the room but quickly disappates.
Well played, Señora. Well played.
I'll be doing my daydreaming in a different class now.
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4 comments:
I'm on the phone with you which has nothing to do with this post but I like being the first to comment
My Japanese professor claps in your face if you fall asleep/look like you're kind of not paying but then again...it's a class of like...6
ha! once i fell asleep in my art history class - i felt terrible, because i LOVED that class, but i was so very tired - and i was in the front row, and she kicked me in the shin :x
we should talk in spanish together.
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