Ode to Lecturers
"Chicken Wing" was so called because of his surname. He was also given the nickname of "Backside Man" later on during the semester because that was all we saw of him. He talked to the white board, with his back facing us, all throughout the one-hour long tutorial. The Wing would come into class, spend half the period writing out the answers on the board, ponder over them (all this time, back facing us), and then proceed to erase the entire board, mumbling to himself, "Wrong, all wrong!" only to realise later on that it was all correct. We also haven't quite forgiven him for telling us that the Convolution Theory would not be tested in the exam, because, well, it was. Imagine our disgust -- and sudden drop in class attendence -- when he walked into class the first lesson of the following semester.
"Taxi Driver" was an elderly figure, and although I did feel a little guilty for stereotyping, even I had to admit that he fitted the taxi driver demographic to a T. He was chatty and constantly spraying his saliva all over the overhead projector. My grandfather fell ill, and during one lecture, the T.D. reminded me so much of him, that I couldn't hold back the tears. I've had a soft spot for him ever since.
"Sergeant Tan"'s last name wasn't even Tan, but we called him that because of his uncanny resemblance to Marcus Chin's character of the same name. "To get to Pond A (Point A) to Pond B (Point B), we have to heat it to 100 degrees Celsius," he would say, with a straight face. To which you could hear responses of "Wouldn't that kill all the frogs?"
"Terry" tutored us for one semester, and his nickname was coined within five minutes of the lesson, because of how much he looked like Huang Po-Ju's character in Jack Neo's I Not Stupid. His lessons were always a cause of distress for me, because I got made fun of the most. The only comforting thing, I guess, was that he called me his "favourite student," but then he also called me a lot of other things. Hey, that is a story for another time, because this entry is about making fun of the teachers.
"Char shao bao" (because of that paunch) or "Chihuahua" (because of his, um, name) set the best tests ever. Almost everyone got full marks for his tests, and I doubt anyone scored below 95%. It wasn't possible. Open-book with the questions identical to the textbook questions? I don't know what he was trying to do, but I did well for his module, so I have no complaints.
"Wu ding," or "Rooftop" in Chinese, was so called as a pun on his name; it didn't help that he had a shiny bald plate that you could spot from a mile away. To this day, my classmates still break into the Jay Chou song of the same name whenever he walks past; the rest of us would break out into not-too-subtle guffaws, much to the bewilderment of Prof "Wu ding."
"Yang yang," or "The Psycho," had a smile that could send chills down anyone's back, and not in a good way. He chose the most perculiar anecdotes to share, and even more perculiar moments to flash his lop-sided grin. Like the time when he told us of how an engineer got doused with hot phenol during the course of some routine inspections; something about how he ended off the (tragic!) story with that smile of his made us want to call the police.
"Laksa" is the best lecturer/tutor we have had by a mile. It is not possible to find anyone in the cohort who would dispute this. But this, apparently, did not stop us from finding nicknames for the guy. We did, also, start to call him "Woodstock" towards the end of the semester, because of a tuft of hair that perpetually stuck out at the top of his head, despite apparent attempts to gel it down. The cutest.
"Micro-mini underwear" was one of our favourite tutors, until he sank us all during the Question and Answer section of our lab presentation weeks before the final exam. His miniscule handwriting on the board prompted a friend to grudgingly mumble, "Do his words have to be that small?" To which I answered (unthinkingly, and a little too loudly), "Maybe it's because his underwear is too tight." To this day, we still call him "Micro-mini underwear," even though it's almost four times as many syllables as how we would otherwise address him.
"Tu di gong gong" was the creepiest lecturer, with his leering glances, slimy "heh heh heh"'s, and constant licking of his lips. His lectures were constantly half full (or half empty), and understandably so; all his lectures did was to confuse us. We were even advised, unofficially, of course, by a tutor, to "just read your textbook lah." Oh yes, and he really did look like a tu di gong gong.
Finally, "Ka-chng," or "Backside" in Hokkien, was only called this as a pun on his name. He would take 10 slides to talk about something that could be summed up in one, and we had to have constant make-up lessons that ran as late as 8 PM, just because he couldn't finish his lessons on time. But I liked him anyway, and on the first lesson, found myself looking out for a wedding ring, which he -- much to my disappointment -- had.
"Taxi Driver" was an elderly figure, and although I did feel a little guilty for stereotyping, even I had to admit that he fitted the taxi driver demographic to a T. He was chatty and constantly spraying his saliva all over the overhead projector. My grandfather fell ill, and during one lecture, the T.D. reminded me so much of him, that I couldn't hold back the tears. I've had a soft spot for him ever since.
"Sergeant Tan"'s last name wasn't even Tan, but we called him that because of his uncanny resemblance to Marcus Chin's character of the same name. "To get to Pond A (Point A) to Pond B (Point B), we have to heat it to 100 degrees Celsius," he would say, with a straight face. To which you could hear responses of "Wouldn't that kill all the frogs?"
"Terry" tutored us for one semester, and his nickname was coined within five minutes of the lesson, because of how much he looked like Huang Po-Ju's character in Jack Neo's I Not Stupid. His lessons were always a cause of distress for me, because I got made fun of the most. The only comforting thing, I guess, was that he called me his "favourite student," but then he also called me a lot of other things. Hey, that is a story for another time, because this entry is about making fun of the teachers.
"Char shao bao" (because of that paunch) or "Chihuahua" (because of his, um, name) set the best tests ever. Almost everyone got full marks for his tests, and I doubt anyone scored below 95%. It wasn't possible. Open-book with the questions identical to the textbook questions? I don't know what he was trying to do, but I did well for his module, so I have no complaints.
"Wu ding," or "Rooftop" in Chinese, was so called as a pun on his name; it didn't help that he had a shiny bald plate that you could spot from a mile away. To this day, my classmates still break into the Jay Chou song of the same name whenever he walks past; the rest of us would break out into not-too-subtle guffaws, much to the bewilderment of Prof "Wu ding."
"Yang yang," or "The Psycho," had a smile that could send chills down anyone's back, and not in a good way. He chose the most perculiar anecdotes to share, and even more perculiar moments to flash his lop-sided grin. Like the time when he told us of how an engineer got doused with hot phenol during the course of some routine inspections; something about how he ended off the (tragic!) story with that smile of his made us want to call the police.
"Laksa" is the best lecturer/tutor we have had by a mile. It is not possible to find anyone in the cohort who would dispute this. But this, apparently, did not stop us from finding nicknames for the guy. We did, also, start to call him "Woodstock" towards the end of the semester, because of a tuft of hair that perpetually stuck out at the top of his head, despite apparent attempts to gel it down. The cutest.
"Micro-mini underwear" was one of our favourite tutors, until he sank us all during the Question and Answer section of our lab presentation weeks before the final exam. His miniscule handwriting on the board prompted a friend to grudgingly mumble, "Do his words have to be that small?" To which I answered (unthinkingly, and a little too loudly), "Maybe it's because his underwear is too tight." To this day, we still call him "Micro-mini underwear," even though it's almost four times as many syllables as how we would otherwise address him.
"Tu di gong gong" was the creepiest lecturer, with his leering glances, slimy "heh heh heh"'s, and constant licking of his lips. His lectures were constantly half full (or half empty), and understandably so; all his lectures did was to confuse us. We were even advised, unofficially, of course, by a tutor, to "just read your textbook lah." Oh yes, and he really did look like a tu di gong gong.
Finally, "Ka-chng," or "Backside" in Hokkien, was only called this as a pun on his name. He would take 10 slides to talk about something that could be summed up in one, and we had to have constant make-up lessons that ran as late as 8 PM, just because he couldn't finish his lessons on time. But I liked him anyway, and on the first lesson, found myself looking out for a wedding ring, which he -- much to my disappointment -- had.
posted by Laughingcow at 1:59 pm
3 Comments:
Finally I understand the origin of the name "Terry"... Thks favorite student!
I used to have nicknames for some of them as well... & I can guess the identies of most these ppl written here. Maybe I should show it to them?
Oops, maybe I should think twice when I write about other people next time. I totally forgot about this post! ;) Cannot show to other people lah! I still want to graduate, okay!
Alright. Blog something nice about Terry then...as a bribe...
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