Airport officials say the weather didn’t seem to be bad enough to bring down the American Eagle plan that crashed yesterday in Roselawn, Indiana, killing all 68 on board. The National Weather Service says there was severe wind shear at nine-thousand feet near the site of the crash but a pilot says wind shear is more of a problem closer to the ground.
Israel’s army has begun reopening the crossing to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Some eight-thousand permits have been issued to Palestinian workers. A military spokesman says the workers are not expected to get past army checkpoints until tomorrow.
Federal prosecutors say a letter found in Francisco Duran’s pickup truck raises questions about whether he is competent to stand trial. Duran faces four federal charges after allegedly shooting the White House. He is currently undergoing a psychiatric evaluation.
Highs in mid-70s today with partly cloudy skies; tonight fair and cool with lows in the mid-40s. Currently it’s 45 degrees.
I mentioned the Public Health Building recently, but I didn’t touch upon the ridiculous teacher turnover that occurred the first sessions of the semester.
Back in August I received my official schedule and was told I was to report to the Public Health Building for Mr. Greer’s Kinesiology class. The first meeting of the class would be on Wednesday and I walked into my first-ever college class and sat down. And waited. And then I – along with everyone else in the room – waited some more. About ten minutes passed before an older, distinguished gentleman walked in and thanked us for waiting and, more so, staying. This was not Mr. Greer but rather the head of the department (or so he claimed. I suppose the suit and tie helped convince us that he was not a “coach”). It turned out that Mr. Greer had hurriedly left for Tennessee the night before to attend his parents’ funeral. Mr. Director explained a little about the Fitness for Living courses and answered some questions before dismissing us for the day.
That was easy enough. Onward to other endeavors.
Unlike a majority of courses that met on Monday and Wednesday, this one didn’t meet on Friday so we wouldn’t have the chance to meet Mr. Greer until the following week. There wasn’t much to be impressed with when Monday rolled around. Mr. Greer was late to class but then rattled off departmental policy on the number of times you could be tardy before you failed the course. He expected us to read the assignments but then apologized for not having a better lesson planned for that day. You get the idea.
Two days later, on the following Wednesday and a week since the first class, Mr. Greer is again a no-show. Moments before the class calls mutiny the door opens and in walks our third instructor in as many days. Hey, it’s the New Guy! He says Mr. Greer’s been having family problems and other personal issues and so he’s resigned. We won’t be seeing him, he says, as if we remembered what he looked like. Also, he’s sorry for being late, he just found out he was teaching five minutes ago.
Both Mr. Greer and the New Guy were graduate students – teaching assistants, really – and were teaching other sections of the Fitness for Living courses. The first thing our class did was try to catch up with the other sections, seeing as how we were at least a week behind thanks to Mr. Greer and his inability to coordinate his life and work. We moved quickly – both in the classroom and in our activities. Coursework ranged from a discussion on AIDS and body weight to cardiovascular endurance tests and cholesterol screenings. After every three weeks of desk work, we reported to the indoor track above the gymnasium (in proper attire) for “labs,” or actual activities. That’s when I was surprised to hear FM 89.3 buzzing through the gym speakers. Yeap, Bandito and Hodge Podge were still at it (at least on Mondays).
Grades were dependant on lab participation, occasional quizzes, and three exams, the last of which was the dreaded “final exam.” The Department of Kinesiology was smart in this aspect: since there were at least a dozen different sections of the Fitness for Living course and the students in all these courses were more or less taught the same thing, then it didn’t really matter when the student (i.e. me) showed up to take the final exam. In short, the department didn’t need to follow the university’s schedule and students could come to the PHB at any of the designated times and be assured they could take their final. On the day I chose for my exam, I walked into the regular classroom and was taken back at the number of faces I didn’t recognize. When it came time to start, the instructor (who, technically, was the fourth person I had leading this course) asked that we identify the name of our usual teacher on the Scan-tron form before we turn it in.
Suddenly it dawned on me that I had no idea who my instructor was. Thinking back, I don’t think he ever introduced himself. Mr. Greer’s name was on the syllabus, but then he was long gone, probably in the backwoods of Tennessee wearing a coonskin cap for all we knew. Who was the New Guy? I looked around the room and caught the estranged faces of my fellow classmates from the Monday 8 A.M. section looking just as distraught as I was. Thankfully, a girl near the front raised her hand and asked the question we all had.
“What if we don’t know our instructor’s name?” I suppose the question didn’t exactly warrant sympathy.
“You went all semester without knowing your teacher’s name?”
The poor girl did her best to spit out an abbreviated story of section’s first three days. That seemed to do the trick. “Oh, that class,” the exam proctor muttered, fumbling through papers at the front table. “He’s Mine. Your guy’s name is David Mine.”
A number of heads in my line of sight suddenly dropped. We were all writing. I guess the girl wasn’t the only one in our shared predicament.
It really wasn’t a stupid question.
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Ask a Stupid Question
(Hard Candy)
Hard Candy
From the album Turn Out the Flame
1998