The Man Wif No Eyes, Minus the Sadism
What we have here is a failure to communicate.
He's young, he's upstanding, and he's got a direction. He's Hawaiian in heritage, but he grew up in the Midwest. He has spiky black hair and a vestigial smile that has nothing to do with his humor. He's Bill. I'll withhold his last name, but suffice it to say that he's a GSI for Nutritional Science 10, the survey course in the field of study.
At Berkeley, NS10 is the class taken by all the students who don't have the time for and/or interest in crucifying themselves in Chemistry, but still have to fulfill those ever-endearing breadth requirements in "Biological Sciences." It's supposed to be easy, informal, and introductory--no strict doctrine or lofty legacies to uphold--after all, it's not churning out Marines. The professor is a lovably bumbling old guy who draws cartoons on the overhead projector and launches unprovoked into stupefying, heartfelt descriptions of the loss of his wife to cancer. If you read the textbook, the lectures are totally unnecessary, unless you're interested in his felt-pen depiction of a hamburger.
Cue Bill, a hardy army man in his later twenties. He enlisted to pay his tuition at a prominent midwest university, majoring in Biology and Infectious Diseases, I believe. Now, between his own studies and obligations to the ROTC, he is the GSI for NS10. And he takes it seriously. VERY seriously. We may not be "maggots," but we seem to be the closest thing. He treats his discussion section, which meets early in the morning, with a detached, impersonal contempt. If we are not gazing upon him with rapt attention, he surmises, then we are losing our way, reverting to our irrverent, insolent natures. So he is harsh with us. He vocally and vehemently chides any student unlucky enough to use profanity. He makes students give twenty minute presentations on various subjects. He sends us quizes on the presentations which encompass more information than was provided. All this might be understood if the questions on the midterms were any harder than multiple choice: what is the most common form of lipid in the diet?
This wouldn't be half as maddening if our man Bill was only aware of his ludicrousness. If he would only approach his task with gleeful villainy he would become a memorable character. But he phones in his performance--not a hint of personality in the whole lot of overdemanding assignments and stern speech. He laughs at nothing, speaks nary a wasteful word. I fear that the jaw-dropping blandness of his in-class demeanor is the symptom of an insipid heart. Is this the pervasive influence of the stoic Midwestern tradition at work? Or, more likely, the lingering effects of the army's conditioning? Regardless, there is little which can compare to staring in disbelief at that smug face, that perfectly-formed malicious sneer, and knowing that it is entirely unconscious, that all the malice is embedded, impotent and obscure. Oh, what might have been!
At Berkeley, NS10 is the class taken by all the students who don't have the time for and/or interest in crucifying themselves in Chemistry, but still have to fulfill those ever-endearing breadth requirements in "Biological Sciences." It's supposed to be easy, informal, and introductory--no strict doctrine or lofty legacies to uphold--after all, it's not churning out Marines. The professor is a lovably bumbling old guy who draws cartoons on the overhead projector and launches unprovoked into stupefying, heartfelt descriptions of the loss of his wife to cancer. If you read the textbook, the lectures are totally unnecessary, unless you're interested in his felt-pen depiction of a hamburger.
Cue Bill, a hardy army man in his later twenties. He enlisted to pay his tuition at a prominent midwest university, majoring in Biology and Infectious Diseases, I believe. Now, between his own studies and obligations to the ROTC, he is the GSI for NS10. And he takes it seriously. VERY seriously. We may not be "maggots," but we seem to be the closest thing. He treats his discussion section, which meets early in the morning, with a detached, impersonal contempt. If we are not gazing upon him with rapt attention, he surmises, then we are losing our way, reverting to our irrverent, insolent natures. So he is harsh with us. He vocally and vehemently chides any student unlucky enough to use profanity. He makes students give twenty minute presentations on various subjects. He sends us quizes on the presentations which encompass more information than was provided. All this might be understood if the questions on the midterms were any harder than multiple choice: what is the most common form of lipid in the diet?
This wouldn't be half as maddening if our man Bill was only aware of his ludicrousness. If he would only approach his task with gleeful villainy he would become a memorable character. But he phones in his performance--not a hint of personality in the whole lot of overdemanding assignments and stern speech. He laughs at nothing, speaks nary a wasteful word. I fear that the jaw-dropping blandness of his in-class demeanor is the symptom of an insipid heart. Is this the pervasive influence of the stoic Midwestern tradition at work? Or, more likely, the lingering effects of the army's conditioning? Regardless, there is little which can compare to staring in disbelief at that smug face, that perfectly-formed malicious sneer, and knowing that it is entirely unconscious, that all the malice is embedded, impotent and obscure. Oh, what might have been!