So I’ve completed my first week of back to school. It has been an interesting week getting acclimated with the schedule and doing that whole time management thing so that I am able to work and study, get to class on time and fit some playtime in as well.
For the first time since returning to college I have a professor that I really don’t care for. He seems like a nice enough guy in that he has a friendly demeanor and whatnot but he is completely devoid of social or lecturing skills. It’s like he becomes a pod person as soon as the class starts. His voice falls to this flat monotone and then for 50 minutes, four days a week he stands in the front of the room, writes on the board by banging his chalk like some warped IBM Selectric or crazy teletype machine and talks to the wall that’s holding up the blackboard. When he’s not talking to the wall, he’s talking to someone that’s apparently outside of this universe because he sort of has conversations with this invisible person. Today he told the wall that “they’re bored”. Once in a great while he’ll turn around and seem rather startled by the fact that he has a room of 30 students sitting there. Occasionally he’ll ask the wall if it has any questions and then he’ll move on without waiting for an answer. Today he forgot to take attendance and started beckoning the exiting students back into the classroom after half the class had left.
Surprisingly, the 50 minutes tend to fly by. Perhaps it’s because of the 30 students in my class, you see, all of them are guys. At least I have something to browse while he’s having a conversation with his chalk.
Your description reminded me of Ben Stein(?) as the teacher on Wonder Years lecturing about the explosion of Krakatoa – flat monotone. It must be one of your engineering classes. I should have warned you about engineers. I work with them (not civil thought) all day. Good Lord, deliver me! 🙂