Thursday, August 31, 2006

Students (and boyfriends) say the darndest things

Once again I've gone unintentionally silent for longer than I meant to. Chalk it up to the following: Bullock's going up for tenure and the file's due tomorrow; the university is doing "prioritization" and every department has extra weekly meetings; I'm still not done with those fraking encyclopedia articles and they're due tomorrow; and, dammit, graduate students are freakin' needy and being graduate advisor seems to take up more time than the one course I traded for the job.

Anyway...while helping Bullock go through his file one more time, I came upon the Best Student Evaluation Comment Ever, at least from this medievalist's point of view. Keep in mind that Bullock teaches in a social science and the reading material for the course is primarily 20th century. OK, you ready? Here it is:

The cases are written in Old English prose, so hearing the lecture in today's English language definitely helps me understand.
Well...at least s/he got "prose" right. And Bullock's response (to me, that is, while I was laughing)? He said this: "I think what the student means is prose steeped in stinky cologne."

Te-hee!

3 comments:

Karl Steel said...

Oh, that's funny.

Speaking of Old English, have you seen this?

If Bullock writes Old English prose, maybe that's the next step in getting us closer to the real Beowulf.

Anonymous said...

Are any of you old enough to remember that cologne?!

Fingers crossed, Bullock.

Dr. Virago said...

Why yes, oh condescending older sister, we *are* old enough. Scary, huh?