Wednesday, April 21, 2010

It's unseemly to gush to individuals so I'll just do it in the general direction of the public domain:

Got another 20 (of 20) on a biology essay, as I found out from Cresswell (the lecturer--picture a 12-year-old bird enthusiast, completely unabashed in his love for animals, grown into a professor without losing any of that enthusiasm) in front of the whole class. Being a good statistician, he shows everyone the regression on the class grades and compares them to last time--the Sustainable Development students have alternative assessment, so he leaves those out (confounding variables--they're marked differently), but after gushing about the class's positive performance he goes on "and the alternative assessment were at a high standard too...Brian--where's Brian [he finds me in the lecture hall of probably 50 people] you've done it again. If you want to learn how to write essays, talk to this man. He writes the best essays I've had from undergraduates, [a brief pause--almost as an afterthought] ever. [I do the shifty-eyes embarrassed thing] Are you embarrassed now?" But all said in a wonderful jovial way, not an Ender's Game 'single him out so everyone hates him!' way (thinking of certain nameless high school teachers...), but in a great 'we're all in this together, well done' way.

Anyway, that's the whole story. Time to go finish this history essay, or as much as I can. And memorise Antigone. And go to the gym later on. And then rehearsal. Ah life!