10 Smiling Faces
The great American Smile
I found the text below in some bottomless pit or maybe was it an endless everlasting abys. In any case, much like de Laclos and his compatriots I feel the urge to print it and bring it to public awareness. Unlike their text, the one I print brings no moral or ethical dilemmas to light, present no social breakdown, or drama, but nonetheless, I found it fitting to print. As their texts, beware, if you continue to read this text, you have only yourself, your curiosity and the constant visual pollution, of faces and texts screaming at us from walls to blame. You cannot blame the printer of this text, for merely printing it, as the responsibility for reading it is solely yours.
The great American Smile/ 2LP
10 smiling faces on a wall.
Where is the affront?
Why are they smiling?
Why are their smiles so offensive?
It is this great American smile.
Similar to the great American novel.
Only shallower. So much shallower.
The automatic smile.
Eye contact. Smile.
Eye contact. Smile.
To reassure you.
Nothing bad comes after eye contact.
Just a smile.
An automatic smile.
It was called the fake American smile.
The one one uses even when they want to
killing you. Softly. With their smile.
Eye contact. Smile.
Camera contact. Smile.
SMILE.
Be happy.
Don’t make the wrong face.
Don’t make any wrong moves.
Just smile.
10 smiling faces on the wall.
Do not make any wrong moves.
Other than being
10 smiling faces on the wall.
Me, a great teacher? A fantastic story
This happened a week ago, or two. I received an email with the ominous title: “Reflecting on your class”. Now, I don’t reflect on my class, so I’m not sure why anyone would. Not a good sign.
It started like many emails I don’t get, “Hi Professor!” The exclamation mark did cause some concerns, but I continued reading, considering we are a month after the semester has ended already.
After a casual wish, for a good summer, the email reminded me of a class I taught in Spring 2019, meaning 2 years ago, or several hundred years ago, before covid, the semester before the semester before the semester covid stopped college and teaching from taking place face to face. A time most of us remember. Vaguely.
The class was taught in a large lecture hall, the email continues, and in that large lecture hall, a few students were sitting doing their work, which was not part of the class I was teaching.
Now, this does sound strange, that students sit in a lecture hall during a class they do not take, but it was true. I didn’t understand it when it happened and I still don’t understand it . Why would students stay in a lecture hall in between two other lectures and not go elsewhere? They sat there for their first class, of 50 minutes, then 15 minutes break, then my class, 50 minutes, then another 15 minutes break, and then another 50 minutes class. So they didn’t move for 185 minutes – 3 hours of sitting in the same place, instead of using my class and the two breaks (80 minutes!) as a break going someplace. But no, I had a group of students sitting in the classroom, when they were not taking the class. Yeah, I remember the course the email reminded me of.
The email reminded me of that class, and its author wrote “Sometimes, instead of doing our work to pass the time, we would pay attention because something you had said had interested us even though we were all stem majors.” Since I believe in inclusion, I allowed everyone to talk in my lecture-hall, including those who did not take it and were sitting in the lecture hall doing their thing.
The email continues, that one day I asked a specific question, about the extraordinary element of the mundane (following Sacks). The author then writes that the TA gave a microphone for what the email author decided to contribute: that mundane and extraordinary or contradiction in definitions (as stem major), and therefore there cannot be extraordinary in the mundane. In the email, the author clarifies “This of course was not meant to offend, I was genuinely interested in the discussion!”
And now, two years later I receive the email. Considering this student did not take my class, I assume they did not have my email, so they needed to look for me and my email to write me this email. Think of the effort! To write a professor who did not teach you an email. Most students never write the professor they actually took a class with!
Because, two years later, the student had a wifi stoppage in the apartment. So the student went to the ILC, and found themselves in the same class where I was teaching other students, and not him/her/correct pronoun, about the extraordinary of the mundane.
The student sat in the lecture hall “in the same seat I used to sit in when listening in on your class.” And here I think I should better bring the words of the email:”and so the memories came rushing in, and I remembered the above interaction. I laughed for a minute about it, and sat there overwhelmed with nostalgia and thinking about how I was very happy that I was sitting in that seat. And that’s when I thought, jeez, there’s gotta be some joke in there about how this seat is so mundane, yet I feel so extraordinary to be in it.”
The email ends with that after two years she/he/pronoun (the email is written with an I) admits they are wrong. “I learned my lesson” after two years.
Granted, I am not sure anyone should learn anything from my lectures. So I don’t know which lesson the email author learned. But it seems I am a better teacher for the students who do not take my class than to those who do.
How a future catastrophe should not exist
The talk about a second wave drives me mad. It really does. I totally don’t get it. So imagine you are told there is a catastrophe in 6 months. The question is then, why? you have six months SIX fucken MONTH to get ready to avoid the catastrophe. So why should it happen? The answer, it should not. And that’s what drives me mad about a second wave. It should not happen. That is the catastrophe of closing everything down because it should not happen. We have 6 months to prepare.
Ok, we are missing beds and buildings? Easy, either build or convert the existing buildings to meet the needs. Machines? you can build so many machines in 6 months!
The bigger problem: Doctors and People to handle the second wave. There are not enough doctors and physicians. Really? why? you have 6 months to prepare more doctors to be ready. Take the 4-year medical students and make them ready to help in COVID-19 second wave. Let’s call it “COVID-19 prep course.” You can also have NP and AR take the course.
Ok, 4-year med students are not enough? simple, convert existing doctors to be Covid-19 prep ready. 6 months of courses. Take all the eye doctors, the skin doctors, the joint doctors, the quack doctors who are out of a job right now – no one goes to see them, they are not essential right now – and convert them to be COVID-19 reserves. Why would they? Because you’ll give them their salary for the course and a bonus. For every month of prep course, they will have one less month of student loan to repay. And then, if they are needed, for every week of COVID work they do, they get a month paid off their student loans. That’s a nice incentive. And also you’ll get younger doctors joining, which is good since they are not supposed to be at risk for COVID-19.
In 6 months, two semesters of course-work, or even 3 quarters of course-work, the system should be able to produce professionals that can deal with covid-19. They do not need to know everything, just the pinpoint work needed in response to covid.
So people should be educated, buildings should be ready, machines are easy to build. oh, tests! Just get as many people tested as possible from now until September. So you can map the population and its vulnerabilities.
In 6 months there is no reason to shut down the economy over something that can be prepared for. NOTHING. And it just drives me mad that a second wave is a threat above our heads.
That was the daily rant. Stay tuned for more rants coming to you soon in any computer you can get this page from.
and lastly, with some black humor tone to it, since most of the over-80 people in old-peoples home have already died, the second wave should be way less dramatic!