Sneaky Bastard of a Professor – October 5

Obviously I did consider the potential repercussions of calling one of my professors a “bastard” in the title of this blog. But it’s just so true that there was no way around it.

Here’s what the sneaky bastard did: we were given a group assignment to make a five minute presentation on what monetary and fiscal policies we would recommend to South Africa @NOW. The assignment itself was pretty neat because he told us about it before we docked in Cape Town, so we had our whole time there to collect newspaper articles and ask around about what people generally though of the financial standing of the country. Plus, the situation in South Africa is almost as extreme as in the US, so our policies could kind of be on the order of a $700b (or is that “t”?) bail out plan. Actually, that’s a lie. But their president did just “resign” and the guy that will probably replace him did have and “affair” with his fifteen year old niece. (Some might call it an affair – others might call it rape. Either way, good thing he showered afterwards because she had AIDs.)

(If you don’t get the last parenthetical – get your head out of the US section and start looking at what’s going on in the world. For example: our ship had to change course in order to avoid the pirates that are only asking for $5m ransom. And we might be going to Thailand instead of India if they have any more bombings in the next week. Yeah…the world is a pretty fun place.)

Woah. Lost myself there for a bit. Group project. I don’t have ADD. Okay.

So I hate group projects because, obviously, nobody else can be trusted. Like I’m just such a better student than all of my peers that I’d prefer to just do the whole thing myself and slap their names onto the first slide of the presentation. That’s the only way to guarantee an A. (Hi people that interviewed me this summer – all those stories I told about being a team player. Yeah – well practiced lies.)*

Thankfully, Stanford Boy was in my assigned group. It was perfect. The five of us met, Stanford Boy and I agreed on a proposal, he made the slides, I wrote up the summary, and we told the rest of the group that we were done. Half an hour tops and we were ready to go.

This is around when sneaky bastard whipped out his sneakiness. He called up the first group to present, and then told all the members except for one girl to sit down. “Okay, now give your group’s presentation.” No. Fucking. Way. He expected us to work. As. A. Group.

Around now was when I switched into panic mode. There was a 60% chance that he’d call on somebody in the group that had no idea what our presentation even said. Stanford Boy and I were just planning on giving the whole thing. Ohmygod.Ohmygod. I broke out my laptop and started sending very detailed instructions to the rest of my group members. We were all going to be graded on one person’s performance. Ohmygod.Ohmygod. This project was no longer a guaranteed A. Ohmygod.Ohmygod.

I honestly have no idea how long I was in freak out mode for. Our classes are 75 minutes long (KILLER) and my group was 7 out of 8. But as I was furiously typing away to my group mates, largely ignoring every other group’s proposals except for when I looked up and made very pointed critiques about how further devaluing the rand with screw over their small open economy, and then telling my group why we made sure that in our proposal the rand would appreciate and then explaining to them exactly how this would happen and then ohmygodtheyknownothingaboutecon- “ELI!” “Umm…yes?” “How about you go up there and give your group’s presentation?”

Oh. My. God. Halleluiah and praise the day. I don’t know if I was saved by luck or pity, but I amazingly got to do the group project exactly how I like doing them: alone.

But there may have been a lesson learned there. And in the future, I may collaborate with my group. Maybe.

*Hello again people that interviewed me this summer – this is actually a joke that I inserted for poetic humour. I swear. I’m a great team player. Lacrosse. Group Projects. Sorority. Love them all.