During a post-lecture, the TA for my Critical Studies in Sexuality class was explaining what the guest lecturer had talked about, since the language and concepts she was talking about were fairly sophisticated. As he was explaining in simplified ways, two students burst into the room. They were both holding boxes of candy that I had seen on a table at the lecture earlier.
“WHO WANTS CANDY???” one of them shouted, as if the class were a bunch of kindergarteners whose sole goal was to consume as much sugar as possible. She and her partner in crime seemed completely oblivious to the TA who was standing in front of the room with a surprised look on his face.
Since no one responded to the interruption and before I could scold them, the student continued. “We’re going to pass it around from the back, so the people at the front might not be getting any, haha.” Hilarious.
I have to give props to the TA for keeping his cool and not telling them off, even as the boxes circulated the room and distracted students searched the varieties of candies in the boxes, even as the crinkling and ripping of candy packages almost overpowered his words. I give props to the students, who obviously realized that more important things were happening, yet didn’t offer an apology to the TA nor the rest of the class.
It’s times like these that remind me that even though I’m taking a third-year course, a lot of these kids are only 19/20. UBC may be considered by many to be a good school (not including me), but the students — that’s a whole different thing.
aaron's random musings 