Comments on: What Makes a "Sad Drunk"? (And yes, there will be a quiz…)

By: Will

Will — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:46:49 +0000

I had an English professor tell us the best ways to avoid getting/paying traffic tickets, a Logic professor who liked to assume pints of beer in equations, and a History professor who liked to talk about Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan a *lot*. This lecture doesn’t really strike me as especially weird.

By: Doug Winship

Doug Winship — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:43:06 +0000

The real lesson here is that American higher education, and by extension America, is DOOMED!

By: oysterschnapps

oysterschnapps — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:26:36 +0000

No, that doesn’t seem particularly off-putting.

Uncomfortable is when, in a single lecture, your older, internationally-recognized math professor chooses variable names that seem to have no other justification than to end up spelling “c-u-n-t” vertically in the final set of equations.

Uncomfortable is when your stern German professor spends thirty seconds berating a student for coming in five minutes late, then says “I’m just kidding” (still without smiling) and goes on with his lecture like everything is OK again.

Uncomfortable is when, on the last day of class, your very proper little-old-lady professor announces she’s brought her guitar and we’re going to have a sing-along instead of lecture.

Maybe I’m just missing the context, or maybe it’s uncomfortable because the professor in question doesn’t usually make jokes like that, but it doesn’t come across as weird to me at all.

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:03:27 +0000

See, that’s where you’re wrong and are missing the beauty I think.

The person that coughed this up to me made it evident that this is notable specifically because of the weird, off-putting, and discomfiting vibe that was created during the session at this point. It’s not every day that someone delivers me a transcript of a classroom lecture through a 3rd party – it was special.

Or, you just went to a very weird school.

By: oysterschnapps

oysterschnapps — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:53:15 +0000

What else is in there besides the biochemistry? I can’t believe the stuff about spouse-shooting was anything but an off-color joke.

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:24:08 +0000

It’s not so much any political incorrectness as it is dunderheaded misinformation and poor conclusions that have me dropping my jaw in any way.

Mind you, the biochemistry seems sound.

By: oysterschnapps

oysterschnapps — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:19:51 +0000

I dunno Gabe, none of this seems out of the ordinary for college. Some of my professors were a lot more offensive and politically incorrect in class. One of them swore like a sailor and explained the best way to fill a watermelon with Everclear. One taught us how to count cards in Blackjack. One was a big fan of South Park and quoted it in class. If I had attended this particular lecture I would have chuckled a bit but wouldn’t have thought anything of it.