That Was Unexpected

I'm sure the vast host of regular readers (all five of you) will recall my posts on the Louis-Black-channeling professor I had last term.

He's a professor in the same department that I am now in. And his lab is next to the lab of my advisor. A face-to-face was inevitable, as you can predict.

But the circumstances--well, all of the labs along this particular corridor have key-entry doors but are alarmed so that you have to enter a code into a keypad after you open the door. I sort of *forgot* the code the first time I tried to enter and set off the alarm.

No, those words don't really do justice to the aural assault that ensued when I failed to enter the proper disarm code. It was early in the morning so I ran to the department office first. The secretary called campus police but they declined to get involved ("fix it yourselves, dumbasses" [a paraphrase, of course]). By the time she and I headed back down to the lab, my advisor and this Louis-Black-channeling professor were standing in the hallway, but the shrieking sirens had stopped.

I could not hesitate--I had to own up to this snafu immediately and with full admission that I had done a very stupid thing.

With the alarm disarmed, we all trooped into the group office space. The L-B-c prof looked hard at me and said, you were in my class last term. I said, Yes, I was. My name is lilspotteddog.

Keep in mind that I had not exchanged a single word with this professor in person, but I had emailed him several times with questions. But like most of us herd-beast humans who like our routines and rituals, I sat in the same seat every day. So he instantly joined name to face.

He asked me what I thought of the course.

Despite my hyperbolic rants here, my thoughts on the course had become...moderated...with time. So I answered him truthfully but professionally. I won't bore you with that. Our conversation spiraled out from there to teaching young people (I carved out my own credibility by letting him know exactly under what conditions I had acquired significant experience with that, since penis-measuring is of great interest to this guy). We commiserated about how young people are ill-prepared to take responsibility for their learning, about how their internet-shoe-buying during class was a real distraction to those around them, etc. He said that he found it difficult to teach the same class year after year to such unmotivated students. Then he said this: But every day, I could look over to you sitting in the same place and see your interest and engagement and I found it inspiring. It helped me to keep going.

Not much in this world strikes me speechless.

All I could think was, this is a nearly perfect example of irony.