A phase is a phase too

So here's the story.

It was over a week ago now, on a Wednesday night. I have a class in “Software Engineering” at 7:15PM. So far the class has been going alright. The professor is German and is new to our school. He's a bit eccentric at times and still has an accent, but he's easier to understand than some of my other professors have been. So this particular Wednesday night I was sitting at the back of the classroom talking with a friend about the class.

We were rather surprised when suddenly we heard our professor to our right; he was standing just inside one of the two doors in the classroom, wearing sunglasses, and made some comment like “wow, the class sure does look different from back here.” He stood there for a few seconds before he went up front. Things started to get strange.

First of all, he didn't take off his sunglasses right away. There was some discussion between him and one of the students, I missed the student's question, but something got mentioned about Monty Python (by the professor) and he quoted a line or two along with a flamboyant arm gesture. It was pretty funny, honestly. At this point I don't think anyone suspected anything, just that perhaps the teacher was in a bit of a different or silly mood than before. Well, that was kind of right and kind of wrong.

See, he was in a rather “intoxicated” mood. It actually started out pretty well. He started by telling us to take our homework which was due that day, and throw it in the trash [good thing, because I totally forgot it was due that day, heh heh]. He then tells us we won't have homework in this class, because “we're not in kindergarten.” Since he inherited this class from another professor, he was still working out his changes to the syllabus, and that was one of them. Fine by me. :-]

Things started to go downhill. When he attempted to teach and students raised their hands - usually he'd point to them and say “zip it.” He asked us at various points why we were so quiet and not interacting in the class, and “are you all mentally retarded?” He kept hammering on the one thing he'd basically been teaching us the first few class sessions, that software engineering is a different discipline entirely from computer science. Great, we get that, so let's move on and learn about software engineering.

He swore a lot, too. Not really at any of the students, but after he said “zip it” to one of the students he told this little story about how it's different in America and in Germany because in Germany you can tell a student to “shut the @#$! up.” Yikes, this guy was drunk, or high, or something. Oh, he's still wearing sunglasses, too.

So finally after quite a while of nonsense, and laughing (hey, this was pretty darn funny to see, most of the class was cracking up), he actually attempted to teach us. He started to write on the chalkboard “A ” then he wrote and erased a letter at least 10 times. Turns out what he was writing was “A phase is a phase too.” Software engineering is deep, I'm tellin' ya. Oh, and while he was writing on the chalkboard, about every 30 seconds he was saying “oh god” and rubbing his forehead. It was crazy-go-nuts.

I wish I had a video camera with me at the time; that would have been a hilarious video.

Oddly enough, come next class session, we had a new professor. I like the new professor; he's a pretty funny guy and has remained sober, so far.