Dear Jews in Muslim Lands Professor:
This was the evaluation I sent in to my professor this past semester. It was originally posted on Facebook, but I wanted to post something so my wall didn't look so empty, and it's too late at night to write something original. I'm sure you'll live.
Dear Jews in Muslim Lands Professor:
I wanted to take this time to thank you for enriching my collegiate experience. The tireless deluge of useless knowledge that you see fit to impart during every lecture that I have attended has created an appreciation in me for early Jewish history that could only be replicated perhaps by being attacked by a mob of ancient angry Jews wielding stale matzo and screaming obscenities in Hebrew (are there obscenities in Hebrew?). You have granted me a true appreciation for early Jewish writings and poetry by providing a four hundred page course packet filled with obscure, dry writings that only a Freshman Orgo student would enjoy reading as a reprieve from countless labs and textbook work. The only sliver of enjoyment I have managed to glean from your class comes from my private musings as to the origins of your blazer, jeans, and bright red Crocs fashion statement-and even that has sadly grown stale with time and the fact that it, indeed, never changes.
Truly the best part of attending your lecture is the fact that the only people who see fit to attend class are seniors attempting to fulfill their last requirement for a History major, or the countless athletes who were sadly misinformed that your class was a gut (I also received this treacherous e-mail, and am making it a personal goal to seek out its author and inflict pain and suffering upon them to the highest degree). At least the athletes fill my daily attractiveness quotient...though they are sadly lacking in the scintillating conversation department. No matter. Facebook chat does wonders for keeping a body awake, though sadly not for absorbing your twenty minute tirades concerning Pirqoi ben-Baboi's personal family history, which would have been helpful to know for the hour test for which you so poorly prepared us.
My biggest thanks to you is in regard to the 10-12 page paper that you assigned with literally no guidelines or examples from which your students could even begin to attempt to glean any information whatsoever and utilize it in forming a thesis. Perhaps you are unaware of the basic policy of assigning a paper, so out of pity I will enlighten you. It is the point of view of those who are sane that ANY SORT OF GUIDANCE WHATSOEVER concerning paper topics is the polite-nay, the necessary thing to offer as a professor. However, I can't say that I blame your lack of knowledge in this area, seeing as how your grading of my short essay on our last exam literally consisted of your circling my essay and writing a question mark at the top. I suppose after attending your lecture I should have anticipated that words are not exactly your strongest suit, and for having the misconception that you want your students to actually learn anything I apologize. However, in my never-ending quest for knowledge I took the plunge and sent you an e-mail concerning my difficulty understanding the (lack of) guidelines for our 10-12 page paper on...nothing. I very politely detailed my struggles and pleaded for you to simply post an example of a paper you had found acceptable from the previous year. This is not a radical idea, in fact I had the pleasure of having a sane teacher just last semester (you simply don't know what you have until it's gone) who felt that his guidelines may have been a bit too confusing, so he did the very thing I requested of you-he posted an old essay that met his guidelines. How shocking and delightfully forward thinking of him. Remind me to send him a fruit basket in thanks. However, when I made my request you saw fit to respond with one sentence, without even bothering to write a greeting at the beginning of your e-mail. What was that response, you may ask? After weeks of agonizing over the topic of this paper, assaulting classmates and throwing myself at their feet, begging for some sort of insight into what they, as fellow prisoners of this travesty of a class were using as their topic? You responded with, "Reread the guidelines."
Well Professor Marcus, I did reread the guidelines. Several hundred times, as a matter of fact. I visited the Classes V2 server and meditated on your guidelines for hours, printing them out and turning them upside down, burning the paper in search for some sort of code written in invisible ink, even bringing them to my first seder, hoping that perhaps by attending a Jewish celebration I could appease God and he would take pity on me and reveal the hidden truths that as a non-believer I simply was not privy to witnessing. Alas, my attempts all ended in epic failure, and I am just as lost as the fateful day I read that useless syllabus and began my journey of pain and eternal confusion. So thank you again for destroying any interest I may have had in your travesty of a course. You have slain my naive freshman self, she who believed that all classes had interesting points of view, and that all professors cared about their students and wanted them to learn. From this metaphorical extinguishing of life has come a new me, a rising from the ashes, if you will, a phoenix of a young woman who will never again take a class from anyone who has ever met you. Thank you for making the final push towards my decision to major in Underwater Basket Weaving. You have been instrumental in my development as a human being, and for that I am forever in your debt.
Sincerely,
T.
Dear Jews in Muslim Lands Professor:
I wanted to take this time to thank you for enriching my collegiate experience. The tireless deluge of useless knowledge that you see fit to impart during every lecture that I have attended has created an appreciation in me for early Jewish history that could only be replicated perhaps by being attacked by a mob of ancient angry Jews wielding stale matzo and screaming obscenities in Hebrew (are there obscenities in Hebrew?). You have granted me a true appreciation for early Jewish writings and poetry by providing a four hundred page course packet filled with obscure, dry writings that only a Freshman Orgo student would enjoy reading as a reprieve from countless labs and textbook work. The only sliver of enjoyment I have managed to glean from your class comes from my private musings as to the origins of your blazer, jeans, and bright red Crocs fashion statement-and even that has sadly grown stale with time and the fact that it, indeed, never changes.
Truly the best part of attending your lecture is the fact that the only people who see fit to attend class are seniors attempting to fulfill their last requirement for a History major, or the countless athletes who were sadly misinformed that your class was a gut (I also received this treacherous e-mail, and am making it a personal goal to seek out its author and inflict pain and suffering upon them to the highest degree). At least the athletes fill my daily attractiveness quotient...though they are sadly lacking in the scintillating conversation department. No matter. Facebook chat does wonders for keeping a body awake, though sadly not for absorbing your twenty minute tirades concerning Pirqoi ben-Baboi's personal family history, which would have been helpful to know for the hour test for which you so poorly prepared us.
My biggest thanks to you is in regard to the 10-12 page paper that you assigned with literally no guidelines or examples from which your students could even begin to attempt to glean any information whatsoever and utilize it in forming a thesis. Perhaps you are unaware of the basic policy of assigning a paper, so out of pity I will enlighten you. It is the point of view of those who are sane that ANY SORT OF GUIDANCE WHATSOEVER concerning paper topics is the polite-nay, the necessary thing to offer as a professor. However, I can't say that I blame your lack of knowledge in this area, seeing as how your grading of my short essay on our last exam literally consisted of your circling my essay and writing a question mark at the top. I suppose after attending your lecture I should have anticipated that words are not exactly your strongest suit, and for having the misconception that you want your students to actually learn anything I apologize. However, in my never-ending quest for knowledge I took the plunge and sent you an e-mail concerning my difficulty understanding the (lack of) guidelines for our 10-12 page paper on...nothing. I very politely detailed my struggles and pleaded for you to simply post an example of a paper you had found acceptable from the previous year. This is not a radical idea, in fact I had the pleasure of having a sane teacher just last semester (you simply don't know what you have until it's gone) who felt that his guidelines may have been a bit too confusing, so he did the very thing I requested of you-he posted an old essay that met his guidelines. How shocking and delightfully forward thinking of him. Remind me to send him a fruit basket in thanks. However, when I made my request you saw fit to respond with one sentence, without even bothering to write a greeting at the beginning of your e-mail. What was that response, you may ask? After weeks of agonizing over the topic of this paper, assaulting classmates and throwing myself at their feet, begging for some sort of insight into what they, as fellow prisoners of this travesty of a class were using as their topic? You responded with, "Reread the guidelines."
Well Professor Marcus, I did reread the guidelines. Several hundred times, as a matter of fact. I visited the Classes V2 server and meditated on your guidelines for hours, printing them out and turning them upside down, burning the paper in search for some sort of code written in invisible ink, even bringing them to my first seder, hoping that perhaps by attending a Jewish celebration I could appease God and he would take pity on me and reveal the hidden truths that as a non-believer I simply was not privy to witnessing. Alas, my attempts all ended in epic failure, and I am just as lost as the fateful day I read that useless syllabus and began my journey of pain and eternal confusion. So thank you again for destroying any interest I may have had in your travesty of a course. You have slain my naive freshman self, she who believed that all classes had interesting points of view, and that all professors cared about their students and wanted them to learn. From this metaphorical extinguishing of life has come a new me, a rising from the ashes, if you will, a phoenix of a young woman who will never again take a class from anyone who has ever met you. Thank you for making the final push towards my decision to major in Underwater Basket Weaving. You have been instrumental in my development as a human being, and for that I am forever in your debt.
Sincerely,
T.
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