Collision Course. Part 1.
Incoming.
Consider two objects about to collide.
The objects were people: an excited 18-year-old undergraduate on the way to her first meeting with her academic tutor, and the tutor himself, who was most definitely not excited.
Of course Deborah was excited. Today would mark not just the first day she met her tutor – a figure she interpolated from a long line of literary and cinematic teachers and mentors and gurus into her wise and trusted guide to academic life, her Dumbledore, her Ben Kenobi – it was also her first day of classes. Only two weeks ago, when her parents drove away from the university residence hall, she calculated that after somewhere between forty-five and sixty-five minutes, they were now further from her than ever before in her life. That night was the first time she had slept more than 6.5 metres away from them. It was hard to believe, but she checked her calculation. That was the approximate direct distance from the bed in her bedroom to the one in theirs', and it was a reasonable assumption that they always slept at least as close as that on holidays, which were the only times any of them had slept outside their own house since she had been born.
It was beginning to dawn on her that this might define a particularly sheltered early life.
Nonetheless, she had successfully transformed all of her fear and anxiety into vast excitement. She had now attended her first lecture, which only increased her sense of exhilaration. There were over 100 people there. The lecture covered some of the most advanced topics she had studied at high school, yet was modestly titled “Introductory Physics”. If this was only the introduction, just think how much more there must be! She already knew about some of it, but now she was going to be properly taught it, and not just by some high school teacher flailing at her questions that went beyond the confines of the Teacher's Manual and YouTube videos, but by real professors, real scientists, just like she was going to be.
The lecturer was so badly prepared and incomprehensible that she knew he must be a bona fide scientist. No mere school teacher would ever achieve such a thrillingly poor delivery.
Afterwards she went to a coffee shop, as scholars and intellectuals do, and pondered what she had heard, and prepared herself for the meeting with her tutor, which was sure to be a pivotal and unforgettable moment in her life.
She understood that it might not feel like that at the time. She knew how it worked. He might be aloof and dismissive. Why was he sent these young fools? Begone! That would be the first test. She would have to prove herself. Or maybe he would be quiet and understated and dignified, and the meeting would be businesslike and stiff? That was fine – scientists could be eccentric, and awkward, and it would take time before they were comfortable with one another.
All she needed to do was stay calm. Don't look like you're trying too hard. Don't name-drop all the concepts you've heard of or all the books you've read. Just be open to whatever happens.
When she left the coffee shop fifteen minutes before their scheduled meeting, she thought she was ready.
When the day's first urgent email arrived Dr Morrow had been awake since 4.45am.
He was always awake that early, unable to sleep, but today it was worse: at 5am he had to join a research video call hosted on the other side of the world. He had no interest in the research that was being discussed, and hated all of the other people discussing it, but he was part of a collaborative grant that paid an entire two percent of his salary. He was well aware that a one-hour weekly telecon took up far more than two percent of his official work week. He had three things to say in response to that. (1) the telecon happened outside official working hours, (2) if he could ever sufficiently assert his importance on these telecons the level of funding might balloon to astronomical levels, even though it had not done so in the last six years, and (3) fuck off. His life was shit and it was all his fault and all he ever did was make it worse. Thanks for the reminder.
The call went 25 minutes past the hour, and by the time he got in the shower there was only cold water, and the only positive thing he could say about his cycle to work was that today it included only two near-death experiences.
Nonetheless, when he arrived in his office he was determined to have a productive and rewarding morning preparing lectures.
(At this moment Deborah had found an ideal spot in the fourth row of the lecture theatre, and was savouring the anticipation and excitement before her first ever university lecture.)
Then the first urgent email arrived, from the Head of Undergraduate Studies. Where was his fully detailed class teaching schedule, which was supposed to have been uploaded by last Friday?
No problem – he could take the teaching schedule from last year and change the dates. It would be five minutes of work. Ha! They wouldn't ruin his morning that easily!
But no! A simple pdf document was no longer sufficient. Now he had to follow a template. The empty template alone was three pages long. The titles of most of the sections were incomprehensible. There was accompanying “guidance”, meaning instructions, but they were in a document fifteen pages long.
He took a deep breath. He just had to work out how to map what he did last year onto this year's template.
Except that nothing fit. There were now restrictions on the number of assignments and tests and pop quizzes he could give, and how they had to be spaced throughout the semester, and how they had to mesh with the assignments and tests and pop quizzes that were assigned in all of the other classes, which were documented on a series of web pages that he discovered he did not yet have access to.
Nonetheless, by 10am he had a draft plan following the style of the template. It had required a furious burst of activity, but he reassured himself that if he had known about this earlier it would have taken him days, so really this had been the most efficient approach.
(Just now Deobrah was floating out of the lecture theatre, and had the glorious idea of going to that coffee shop she had passed on the way to her class.)
Then he discovered that his new course plan was inconsistent with what had already been published on the Department's Course Catalogue. And what was published in the Department's Course Catalogue was in violation of the new course design guidance.
In despair he ran across the building to the Department Office, to talk to the Course Administrator, who was not there.
“She's working from home today,” he was told.
“But it's the first day of classes!”
“Exactly.”
He ran to the Head of Undergraduate Studies. Who was in a lecture.
He went next door to another colleague, who appeared to be having exactly the relaxed kind of morning that Morrow had been hoping for. She was hand-grinding some coffee beans for her fiddly hipster coffee maker.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” she asked.
“No!”
He explained his problem.
She said, “You wouldn't have this problem if you had finalised your course plan back in April.”
“That was six months ago! What sort of person has their course finalised that far in advance?”
“The sort of person who knows the consequences of leaving it too late.”
She turned away from him to carefully measure ground coffee into the coffee maker. She did this with immaculate calm.
Morrow wanted to dash the fucking thing out of her hand. He quivered and twitched and shook with impatience. Finally, when it was clear she had no intention of saying anything more, he asked what those consequences were.
“You have to apply for permission to deviate from the course design guidance.” She looked back at him with a smile. “Don't worry, it's just a formality.”
The “formality” required completing a detailed online application, and securing a letter of support from the Head of Undergraduate Studies.
Morrow stormed back to this office and began to search the university's internal web pages for the application instructions.
Before he had a chance to read them, there was a knock at his office door. It was Deborah.
Thrilling stuff. Not even being sarc
I’m intrigued!