Europhile: C'est ma vie!

Meet the Parents (Part I).

Last night was "Back to School" Night, where parents come and sit through a mock "day at school," going to each of their son or daughter's classes for 10 minutes and listen to the teacher talk about the class. This had the potential for a number of tragedies, all of which I envisoned in my head before the thing started.

1) I show up to class late, forget my syllabus, and accidentally insult each parent in an unintentional yet grave manner.

2) The computer with my presentation crashes just before class.

3) The demos I'd planned go all wrong and something explodes.

4) I spill ketchup on my tie at dinner, and coffee on my slacks after it.

5) The parents ask me why the class failed my quiz.

6) Someone asks, "... and what did you teach before you were here?"

7) Someone presses me for qualifications.

8) Embedded in my chemistry audience is a real-life chemist, and embedded in my physics audience is a Doctorate in Physics.

Thankfully, aside from #5 (which actually went off OK), the thing went well. One student told me today that his Mom couldn't stop talking about how cool I was when she got home last night. Yes! (err, wait, was 'cool' what I was supposed to be going for???)

posted by europhile @ 16:10