professors are people too

Students were coming down the stairs, finding seats, chit chatting with one another while taking out materials, as they waited for our physics 2c class to start. The professor sets up his laptop screen with the projector as the large auditorium filled class settles down and pulls up his PowerPoint lecture.

As he starts the lecture, a little box pops up in the corner from ichat with a little bubble saying, “hi” … “bz?” The class roars into laughter as they recognize the name of the person chatting with our professor. And at the fact that these people who teach us such complex things also use abbreviated language when chatting. It’s the physics 2bl lecturer whom most of us had last quarter! Our professor types back something along the line of “in an hour” “have class right now” and then promptly signs off and tries to get back to the lecture he was just starting. Meanwhile, the rest of us students are still laughing as having witnessed what we’ve known in the back of our heads but haven’t seen until now. He gives up and can’t help but laugh with us, and then all is back to normal.

We’ve known all our life that our teachers are people too and have a life outside of their students. But the only other time that I’ve ever seen the personal side of a teacher was back in 6th grade when we had an end of the year party at our teacher’s house and spent the entire day playing around her church. Other than that, we just see the professors as someone who is paid to be there, to teach us what they have spent their life learning, and then put us through our strides with midterms and finals. Professors are people too.

Here are some photos from my trip to Sea World. I haven’t been here since I was a little girl. And I spent all of last year rowing by it, only seeing the pylons that transport park goers from one end of Sea World to the other, and the stage where shows are performed during the summer, in the wee hours of the morning. I can finally say I have seen the inside of Sea World again.

~ by vivian on October 8, 2008.