A distinguished scholar visited our department recently. She gave a talk that was well received. I had a face-to-face with her a few hours later.
I was not comfortable in our face-to-face. I got the impression that she had better things to do. She seemed put out that I did not use her textbook in one of my classes. She seemed put out that I still use a traditional lecture format, although she allowed that in classes numbering over a hundred students it might be difficult to move to an interactive format. She looked at her watch a lot. I was happy to pass her off to her next face-to-face.
Today I got a letter from her, in which she talked about how much she had enjoyed meeting me. She sent me a few web links relevant to one offhand comment I had made concerning a matter of mutual interest.
I must reinforce a point Becky made some time ago: cats are less confusing than people.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
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11 comments:
Well, they do have brains the size of a walnut, so they are more straightforward. AND some people, even some smart people, have no social skills whatever. Cats, as solitary apex predators don't really need social skills.
There's nowt as queer as folk.
As difficult as some people can be, it may be that this person didn't have the ability (or just wasn't paying attention in the right way enough) to think about body language and voice tone when she was saying certain things. People can be imperfect in a variety of weird ways.
Or she's just trying to make up for a meeting she realized later was somewhat offensive to you, even though she didn't intend it. Who knows? :)
Maybe she had the Ass Burgers. (I've noticed a decline in civility amongst a lot of my academic confreres lately, FWIW.)
Maybe she figured out who you were after you met, not before.
I thought that same thing as Lost A.: maybe she felt guilty because she knew she was distracted and wanted to set it right. Maybe there's something going on in her life that is a distraction aside from her meeting at your school...
I think she wants me to adopt her textbook, and figured she should try to be nice as long as she didn't have to look me in the face.
I used to sell textbooks. My money is there.
How else does one teach a large class? Little tables of 4?
she probably just had to go to the washroom urgently.
what do you have that she decided she wants?
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