JOB INTERVIEWS

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

FINAL FINAL

I’m sure you’ve all noticed my blogery absence. My apologies. I know how you all live from post to post - your cursor steadily floating above the refresh button with the hopes that I have posted sometime within the last 20 seconds. However, the last few weeks have been packed with life-altering events…so much so, I haven’t been able to find time to sit down and write about them.

Now, when I made this blog, I set out to create a space where I could relive all the inane and inconsequential misadventures that make up my day to day life. I wanted to avoid dry posts about where my life is going etc, why? Because I had my doubts that anyone really cares. But judging by the number of times I’ve had to answer “so what now,” I’ve considered the possibility that I may be wrong.

So to give you insight as to what I’ve been planning to do with my life, I’m going to recap the major events of the last couple weeks. I’m going to do so in a series of installments. Tonight’s is the story of my very last examination ever. Please, enjoy.

Final Final

On April the 12th, at approximately 9 am, I took my very last final of my college career. I would have been excited, however the Powers that Be decided to place my hardest final on the very last day of the examination period. (Here’s a fun Chris Miles fact for you. I have had a final on the last day of the examination period every semester since my very first 4 years ago. What are the fucking chances?) Earning my politics degree hinged on me getting a C in this class that I was currently holding a B- in. To make matters worse, the final was identifying 10 quotes pulled from the 9 books we were supposed to have read throughout the semester – of which I had read none. I hadn’t even opened one. THAT’S ME!

So for the 24 hours before the exam, I read as much as was humanely possible – or at least as much as was Chrisely possible. In a panic fury, I tried to cram as much modern political theory into my weary head. I poured over Spark Notes, skimmed over the texts, and tried my best to read my notes from class – with little luck. I use to think it was sooooooooo funny that instead of taking notes in that class, I would do Su DoKu. Hilarious right? Well fucking joke was on me. My notes were as useless as male nipples. And that’s why my notes ended up in the toilet. Literally. I flushed them in a fit of rage.

So, at 8:20, I made my way to the shuttle, 100% certain I was going to fail. Instead of studying, at that point I thought it wiser to practice what I was going to tell my parents. Perhaps blame the test, or the teacher, or my t.a., or Satan, or Democrats, or Sinead O’Connor (fucking bald headed bitch). This is how bad it was – when I was crossing the street, I genuinely contemplated throwing myself in front of an oncoming vehicle. I can’t take the test if I’m under a Pathfinder.

As I approached Minor Hall, I stepped on a squirrel. I’m not even kidding. I stepped on a live squirrel. What kind of omen is that? He ran in front of me, and stopped just long enough to end up beneath my foot. I guess he was on his way to an exam too. I stepped on the edge of his tail, and he jumped up and ran away. I didn’t hear if he screamed or not. I was screaming too loudly to hear any noise.

Now, I’m guessing squirrel crushing is a good omen, because when I was handed the exam, I actually recognized the first quote. It was amazing. And as I read on, I knew more and more. The things I had scrambled to shove into my brain as I was running out the door actually stuck. I was all over that exam. I actually said “yessssssssssss” in that hushed way that’s quiet and under your breath, but just loud enough for everyone to hear you and rightly mock you.

End of the story – I did well on the final and ended up with a B in the class. Truly a miracle. It sucked that my last final had to be the hardest final I’ve had to date. It sucked that it has to have the most riding on it, but I did the damn thing, and I did it pretty damn well if I do say so myself. So fuck you Kant. Fuck you Marx. Fuck you Hegal, Hume, and Mill. If I never have to read your shit again it would be too soon.

AN EXAMPLE OF ME BEING AN ASSHOLE

We’ve all had those moments in life that you just wish never happened. I’m not just talking about embarrassing shit – not the stuff you’ll be able to laugh off in a week with friends. No unzipped flies. No slips on the stairs of Cabell. No, I’m talking about the stuff that will wake you in bed from a peaceful sleep and cause you to shiver. I’m talking about the time in middle school you threw up on the most popular girl in school and made her cry. I’m talking about the time you mistakenly thought it would be funny to freak-dance your grandmother at kitchen table. That’s the shit I’m talking about. (And coincidentally, I’ve done both. And it was not funny)

Well today I had one of those moments. Honestly, it pains me to relive it long enough to write this blog entry, but I thought it would be best to just get it out of the open.


So let me first set the scene for you. Today I had a final in this bullshit class I’m taking – Soc of Death and Dying. Now, surprisingly for a joke of a class, this final was pretty damn intense, and I knew that coming into it. I wasn’t going to worry about it though. I could give two shits about this class, so the game plan was to intentionally fail in flames of failing glory – just because I could. However, that UVA nerd from within kicked in last night, and I decided to pull an all-nighter to cram in a semesters’ worth of reading.


Sad to say, I’m not the young and spry kid I once was. This was the most difficult all-nighter that I’ve endured to date. It was a painful, painful struggle, but I made it – just barely though. I was a mental wreck by 8:30 when I left to take the exam. My hands were shaking from all the caffeine I had downed. My legs were trembling from the lack of sleep. I tried to speak to my roommate on the way out, but words didn’t come out - just a mixture of consonants and spittle.


I remembered on the bus ride over that I needed a bluebook, so on my way I ran into the bookstore to grab one. I got one and hauled ass to my exam – as hauled as this ass will go anyway. However, the detour ate up too much time, and I was late.


So I get to the class about five minutes late. In a sleep-crazed delirium, I rushed into the classroom. Now, this is where things get blurry. Don’t ask me to justify my actions, because I can’t. I honestly can’t. It was as if I left my body and some other socially retarded entity took control.


So here’s what went down.


The room is packed. The professor is standing at the front of the room doing the usual drill. “Write your TA’s name under section” he’s saying. People are scribbling away. I walk around, when I see on someone’s desk what looks to be an exam.


“Maybe they’ve already handed out the exam” I think to myself.


So I walk to the front of the room – the very front, and stop about ten feet away from the Professor. And there I stand. He’s still talking about names and dates etc., when he notices me standing there, staring at him.


While in mid-sentence, I interrupt him. “Have you passed out the exam?” I ask. He stops. Everything stops. People stop scribbling. No whispering. No rustling. It’s silent. They’re all looking at me. The TA’s are looking at me. The professor is looking at me – his mouth agape.


Moments pass in silence.


“What?!” he says. It wasn’t exactly a “what the fuck did you just say to me” kind of what, but it wasn’t a “pardon me sir, but I was unable to hear what you just said” what either.


“Did you…” – up until this point I was still in my daze, but this is about the moment when I realized what I was doing. It was too late though. It was too late to turn away. “…pass…out the…exam?”


People are laughing at me. The professor is still staring at me with disbelief. “…No” He finally responds.


I quickly turned away, horrified at what I had just done. I heard the professor make a sarcastic-filled nose snort (you know just what I’m talking about! I HATE THOSE), and more people laughed. I kept my head up though, trying not to wear my embarrassment on my face. Although, thinking about it now, that probably only made the situation worse. People probably thought to themselves “look at that tool! He’s an idiot and he doesn’t even know it.”


The worst part was there weren’t any seats, so I had to walk around with everyone still looking at me. I finally found a seat in the back next to some douchey looking frat boys. I quickly buried myself deep into the seat, and took off my sweater with the hopes that people wouldn’t recognize me without it.


They finally DID pass out the exam, and the TA handed me like 20, probably to add insult to injury. I took my exam, but all I could think about the entire time was about what an asshole I had made of myself. I looked to see if people were staring at me and saying to their friends “Look! There’s the asshole who asked if they had passed out exams already! What an asshole!” I tried to devise a plan that would allow me to turn in my exam without going back to the front of the room. "Perhaps I could make it into a paper airplane and see if could land it into the box" I thought to myself – doubtful considering I throw like a girl.


When I finished, having failed to devise a decent plan, I shuttled quickly to the front of the room and dropped off my bluebook. I left the room, never having to face those people again, thankfully. And yet, they’ll always be with me. They’re leering faces and snarky laughs will probably haunt me till the day I die.


Or at least the end of the week.

EVALUATION TIME

The end of the semester is upon us, and you know what that means – EVAL TIME! Professor Evaluations are seriously one of my favorite things in the entire world – up there with masturbating and Angela Lansbury. I take them VERY seriously. From the first day of class on, I begin taking notes in the back of my notebooks – extremely extensive notes. Every late arrival, every inane comment, every poorly worded test question, every unfunny joke, mispronounced word, ugly sweater, cough without covering mouth, funny odor, EVERYTHING goes in the notes.

Over the entire year, I’ll spend 50% of class time formulating the precise zinger I’m going to end my eval on (the other 50% is a combination of doing Su Doku and thinking if I were to create an Amusement park what it would look like). At the end of the year, when I’m handed that eval, I think to myself “thumbs up, or thumbs down?” I’ll look over my notes, and barring any major offensives, I usually will let them off easy. But if they’ve pissed me off…well…you better WATCH IT.

When a teacher has wronged me, I write my evals with one goal – make them cry. No shooting to wound here. In two to three lines, I want tears strolling down their face.

I’ve saved some of my best works, and I thought I would share them here with you. Some of them are a little harsh, so please be warned. If you’re the sensitive type…or one of my professors, you might want to look away. To the rest of you, please, enjoy.


A.B.-
I find the irony of a media studies professor that can’t work a VCR almost as amusing as her sweaters.

J.D.-Did you know that there are 358.5 tiles on the ceiling in your classroom? I did!

T.D.-
I was genuinely surprised that a TA that struggles with the basics of English as much as he does - was able to pick up on how truly crappy my papers were. Well done.

L.B.-
You’re a little man.

C.H.-
The problem with this eval is that it has only given me one page to write on.

C.B.- 
You think just because you have a PhD and a fun British accent that your shit don’t stink?

C.D.-
I calculated the ratio of questions asked to questions answered during his discussion group. For every 10 questions asked, Craig answered four. The other six were generally a combination of “I’ll turn that one over to the class” or “I don’t think you need to know that,” or my personal favorite, “scholars are unclear on that. Next question?”

S.M.-
Stephen Macko, you rock my world. I would bear your children if that were even physically possible.

H.E.-
I say this is all of my evals, but this time I think I actually mean it. She was the worst TA I’ve ever had.

J.P.-
Please buy another shirt.

J.LaP. -

I don't think I've witnessed a teacher yell at a student in the middle of class since elementary school. Thank you for that.

So okay, some of them were a little harsh. I mean, I may be callous, but I am definitely a just man. A fair man. Yes, some of these may had been made mean spiritedly, but you’ll just have to trust me that they got what they were owed. So spare them your pity.

[at the advice of one of my overly cautious friends, i took the professors names down and replaced them with their initials. I figured it would probably be best to at least wait AFTER I got my grades to start publicly mocking them]