What...just...happened?

[eredien]

So, I was having a good day. I mean, a Really Good Day. I had a long long talk with Kitten and Randal about Life, the Universe, and Everything on Wednesday night (and, I must admit) this morning. It was fun and productive and thought-provoking: just the way I like my conversations.

I had a nice breakfast (heck, I had breakfast). I got more answers right than wrong in Russian and talked to my professor about why I'm not taking Russian next semester and he completely understood why it would have made my head explode. I reread bits of Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 and may have to reread the whole thing, 'cause I found myself with a completely different opinion of the book on this rehashing, which made me happy and suprised me. I got Blackjack--all of it!--in the Big Gerbilhouse Present Box, which made me bouncy and gleeful. I went into town and got two library books: a new Garison Keilor and The Wasteland by Stephen King. I got laundry detergent. Life was good.

My last class of the day was going well. I love my class on Troy...you've all heard me ranting happily about it in one form or another. I was sitting there thinking how much I loved the interplay of ideas between the professor and the students and the students and the professor, despite the little bit of end-of-term giggles that some of them had got into, and how I had Kendo and Naginata practice tonight and that would just cap off a perfect day.

Then, the professor looks at the students with end-of-semester giggles and says, "Okay, do you guys want to tell me what's going on?" In a jocular-uncle kind of way. Like, "hey, won't you let me in on the joke, if it's that good?"
And they say: "Nothing", because there really wasn't. The play we were discussing had hit their funny bone, and/or they were just thesis-ing, and they tried to quiet down.
But the professor..."Does anyone else want to teach this class?"
We all kind of look up at him, and our jaws drop open. Silence.
He gathers up his books and walks out the door.

We all sit for a moment.

We've obviously offended him. We just can't figure out how, or why.

So one of the students who'd had the giggles goes to try to explain and apologize for whatever it is that we'd done. He slams the door in her face.

She comes back. We are all still sitting there. Quiet.
We look down at our texts and sigh and feel confused, then, as a "show of good faith," gamely struggle to find something to talk about for the remaining 15 minutes of class.

I have never felt more relieved when leaving a classroom.

But it made me upset. Maybe it's just that the prof. twisted around my expectations of what I thought he was like, and so I'm resentful of him for screwing up my neat little "professors mostly act respectable like this" idea...
Still, though. He's an incredibly good professor, and I'd never thought to see him act like this.

Comments

[arcturax.livejournal.com]

He was probably just having a bad day...