Franiwack

Are you pondering what I'm pondering?

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

do i get paid enough for this?

Being the good little worker that I am, I arrived on time to the first lecture of the statistical computing course that I'm TAing this semester. I made my way to the back and sat there, trying to blend in with the other 70-plus students that were already waiting for lecture to start. I thought it'd work fine since I noticed there were several students who look older than I do.

So there we were, all my students (I'm the sole TA for this course) and I were awaiting the professor. WHO NEVER SHOWED UP. The class was schedule to start at 1pm (which is actually 1:10pm on Berkeley Standard Time). By 1:20 something, we were all getting antsy: where was our professor? Even the late students who came in were surprised that they weren't actually late after all! By then, the class had made bets on whether the next person to come in the door would be the professor or not.

I made my way back outside and tried spotting the professor. Still not there. Students started to leave. Finally, I did what I thought I had to do. I went back in and took over the class. I did what I could to keep them entertained, hoping the professor would show up sometime to relieve me of having to B.S. everything in front of over 70 students. But since he didn't show up, I did the best I could to convince them this would be one of the best classes they would take in their college career, chatted them, and answered their questions. I really had no idea what the course is going to be like, since the professor was a bit unorganized and uninformative about everything himself. I made up a quick sign up sheet for the waitlisters. Finally I let them leave after begging them to all come back on Friday. I guaranteed the prof would show up on Friday.

Worried, I made my way back to Evans quickly to find out what happened to the professor. I go to his office where he's just sitting in front of his computer. I asked, "What happened?" He goes, "What?", nonchalantly. I said, "You missed the first day of class, all of us were waiting." He said, "No, class is at 2pm." Then, in a louder voice, I said, "NO, it's at 1pm!" Subsequently, he said, "Oh wells, they got a break this time."

Yep, that was what I had to do today. I'm gonna be the best darn TA these kiddies have!

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

you should petition for a raise.

9:44 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Uh...Is the prof tenured?

3:41 PM  
Blogger ln said...

Poor you! Dude, at least they'll love you, since the affection for TA is inversely proportional to the teaching ability of the professor.

And I guess ppl are more studious up there. At UCSD, if a professor doesn't show after 10 min, we leave. =D

4:04 AM  

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