Spending Labor Day weekend at my aunt's place - a welcome respite from the weirdness of academics. First there's the distributed computing class, led by a dude who shall hereafter be referred to as Casper, even though he's nothing like Casper. The class involves reading papers and presenting them individually, while Casper sits back and watches with hands behind his head, interjecting occasionally through yawns to make sure that his existence hasn't been forgotten. You've gotta do better than that, Casper, since currently it looks an awful lot like you're getting paid to do literally nothing. To be sure, I don't really mind that you're making us read papers instead of well-organized course material; but making students present papers in front of the class is something I see little merit in. Especially because of the presence of a certain Sassy Sally, who seems to exist for no other reason than to interrupt every sentence he hears with questions and more questions. Sassy Sally sucks. Seriously. I wouldn't shed tears if I saw him being torn to shreds by a horde of vultures. That's the least that would be owed him in a truly just world. Casper sucks, too. He can be called a lot of things (I've called him plenty of things myself), but "teacher" is not one of them. I don't think it has crossed his mind once to "teach" anything, but it's not my place to speculate as to what may or may not have crossed the mind of such a perfectly ghostly being.
Another character who seems to flit around campus a lot is Evangelist Mary. The number of times Nicky and I have been startled to find thitherto empty stretches of earth bursting with Evangelist Maries are too numerous to keep track of. You don't have to be an expert in human psychology to know that there's more to her than meets the eye. Underneath that cloying, goody-two-shoes exterior is probably a less flattering Mary, lying in wait for the most opportune moment to reveal herself; and when she does, there won't be a bar within fifty miles of campus that hasn't seen her face - that hasn't seen her stumble up to the counter, and slap a fifty-dollar bill down in front of the barman. At that point her blood would be more alcohol than water, and she would have overcome the initial wave of shyness that impels patrons to order cocktails with fancy names and other drinks of little potency, sufficiently to drink pure ethanol straight out of the tap. This Mary would still be known as Evangelist Mary, but she would represent a whole different kind of evangelism.
2 comments :
lel lel lel
YAY now we have names for Our People.
Casper does much better when Sassy Sally doesn't interrupt presentations and they end early, forcing Casper to get up and say a few nice lines about the paper that can be written down. In any case it's time we print those goddamn papers and prepare to be Sassy ourselves o_o
Evangelist Mary is gonna get drunk on methanol. And that will be the end of her.
I swear, the fact that you're here is filling me with malicious inspiration. I don't think these people are capable of moving me to the extent of writing the equivalent of FIITJEE stories about them, but they have certainly moved me enough to write about them.
Awesome names are awesome, and these are awesome names. xD
Yeah, we probably should print those gosh-darned papers...
My only consolation is that my presentation will be over soon; and as horrific as it will doubtless be, I can at least spend the rest of the semester in a state of comparative tranquility.
CASPER IS SO INFURIATING.
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