{"id":1839,"date":"2014-01-09T09:15:01","date_gmt":"2014-01-09T08:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=1839"},"modified":"2024-11-18T16:03:43","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T15:03:43","slug":"story-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=1839","title":{"rendered":"Story Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"At<\/a>I came into my office on Monday morning, January 6th<\/sup>, 7:45 am. It was my first day back after the holidays. I was so jetlagged that I had begun understanding Radiohead lyrics. I wanted to be dead. Coffee.<\/p>\n

It was still dark. I could hear the occasional student shuffling into our classroom next to my office with all the vigor of a Walking Dead extra. I booted up the computer, which groaned to life and started crying. My mind was only consoled by the fact that this is the last week of classes before our exam period. One more week.<\/p>\n

I opened my university email: 19 messages.<\/p>\n

Sigh. So, this year it\u2019s illness.<\/p>\n

The week before exams is a fascinating time at a university. The teachers and professors are doing review lessons, closing in on the light at the end of our tunnels. Happening upon an academic lost in euphoria as they stare at that light is not an abnormal occurrence. Sometimes we cry. The photocopier is printing nonstop \u2013 at 7:45 am on Monday, it was already pumping out exams. And it\u2019s the week you start hearing from and meeting students that you didn\u2019t know existed.<\/p>\n

And then there are the stories. We call this week Story Time.<\/p>\n

As a man who enjoys reading and writing fiction, the week before exams is a glorious opportunity to hear some of the outlandish tales that explain why this person couldn\u2019t visit a ninety minute lesson once a week. Or visit office hours. Or send an email. Once. To anyone.<\/p>\n

The overall theme of these stories rotates. A year ago it was injuries, and not just injuries, but injuries that couldn\u2019t be proven. \u201cMy dad broke his foot in a motorcycle accident,\u201d or \u201cMy mom\u2019s sister (aunt) bit her tongue when she was eating mushrooms.\u201d Two years ago it was personal animal tragedies. \u201cMy third cousin\u2019s dog was eaten by a wolverine,\u201d or \u201cMy Chihuahua was molested by a large rodent.\u201d It was something like that; I have completely stopped hearing them.<\/p>\n

This year it\u2019s illness.<\/p>\n

Wednesday. As my emails mass like Larry Flynt\u2019s hate mail, I realize that there has been a medical epidemic of which I was unaware. Many of the students have been in the hospital; others have been hit with the lesser known three and a half month flu. Some have been so sick that they have only been able to scan Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, Pornhub, and Stumbleupon, with no strength left over to write a one sentence email to the man who\u2019s going to hand them a test and force them to conjugate shit in January.<\/p>\n

Oh well. It serves me right. I have a vague recollection of telling a professor something about a possum mauling. So these weeks are when what comes around meets what goes around. Still, next week at the exams, I will surely be surrounded by the diseased and the ill. My classroom will be full of ragged, pale people barely strong enough to slip their cheat sheets out of their pockets.<\/p>\n

Maybe instead of the exam I\u2019ll give them a story contest. Fiction. 250 words. Why haven\u2019t you been in class this semester?<\/i> First prize wins a passing grade and wolverine spray.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I came into my office on Monday morning, January 6th, 7:45 am. It was my first day back after the holidays. I was so jetlagged that I had begun understanding Radiohead lyrics. I wanted to be dead. Coffee. It was still dark. I could hear the occasional student shuffling into our classroom next to my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-tF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1839"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1841,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839\/revisions\/1841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}