As seems to be common with most of the professors I end up adoring, The Professor is almost universally disliked amongst my peers. There are a few other students who greatly admire him, while the rest attempt to avoid taking his classes and complain endlessly about his strict rules and no nonsense attitude. Admittedly, his rules are sometimes slightly pedantic (if we elect to do a paper for our Capstone (BA thesis, essentially) class, it has to end on the 10th page, no more or no less). People have often accused him of being too strict and unbending; I think this has more to do with him having a great bullshit meter and knowing when students are trying to get away with things, as I've asked for some very inconvenient accommodations for very valid problems and he's bent over backwards to make things work fairly for me. He's rearranged his entire schedule for our test days so I can have my time and a half, and completely modified my final project and presentation so I would be able to actually share my knowledge rather than having a panic attack in front of the class. I've enrolled in his Capstone class for the next semester and I've decided I want to do interviews for the research, so he and I have spent already maybe 5 hours together to complete and turn in the approval paperwork for the interviews.
During these ridiculously long meetings, I've learned a lot about The Professor. He's the one I mentioned in my last post who I can nearly always make at least a few moments of eye contact with now that we've spent so much time together. He crosses his legs like a woman (woman cross their legs at the knee, while men typically cross at the ankle, sit with their legs apart, or put one ankle on the opposing knee), and has very delicate finger. He plays with his tongue when he thinks and chews on his lower lip. He has a tendency to think, well not aloud, but think on his hands, and he can always tell when I'm nervous. I would be willing to guess that he falls into the genius levels on the IQ scale, and definitely would not be surprised if he is on the autism spectrum somewhere. He doesn't seem offended that I end up staring at his nose most of the time to make a facsimile of eye contact, and he only seems to own six shirts (tan, purple, burgundy, hunter green, light blue, and navy) which never coordinate with his black slacks and brown shoes. He has very strong preferences for both capitalizing Capstone when we write it and using his preferred sign for it (the student-used sign is based on the fact it strangles us while his is the equivalent of conclusion), but I think it's adorable. He was obsessively worried about me the time I had a full blown panic attack in his class, and extended the break to over 20 minutes so he could make sure I wasn't alone while we waited for someone to come sit with me. He's a Christian and, according to another professor of mine who actually despises The Professor, he's gone to seminary. He also happens to be fluent in British Sign Language and knows the ASL sign for just about every country. His small talk skills are very much totally nonexistent, which leads to a lot of awkward pauses (because God only knows that I can't continue a conversation well), but he goes out of his way to start conversations with me now that he actually likes me. I feel safe in assuming he can continue to be a favorite professor of mine without ending up asking me to be in a threesome as a young teenager (true story), which is always reassuring.
I'm not sure why I'm bothering to write all this down, other than the fact it's so nice to finally have a truly wonderful professor. He and I get along really well, even if we're solely on a collegial level (I'd love to actually befriend him, but something tells me telling him that I have a man crush on him and want to cuddle him in my pocket just isn't the way to go about that...), and it's nice to be around someone who actually realizes I'm intelligent instead of getting hung up on the fact that, when my PTSD gets bad, I end up looking and acting like I am severely developmentally disabled (which, admittedly, in that moment, I essentially am since all my higher thinking ceases). I've got two of his classes this coming semester and, although I'm dreading the topic of my non-Capstone course, I'm really looking forward to getting to learn all the personal anecdotes he apparently typically tells in that class.
During these ridiculously long meetings, I've learned a lot about The Professor. He's the one I mentioned in my last post who I can nearly always make at least a few moments of eye contact with now that we've spent so much time together. He crosses his legs like a woman (woman cross their legs at the knee, while men typically cross at the ankle, sit with their legs apart, or put one ankle on the opposing knee), and has very delicate finger. He plays with his tongue when he thinks and chews on his lower lip. He has a tendency to think, well not aloud, but think on his hands, and he can always tell when I'm nervous. I would be willing to guess that he falls into the genius levels on the IQ scale, and definitely would not be surprised if he is on the autism spectrum somewhere. He doesn't seem offended that I end up staring at his nose most of the time to make a facsimile of eye contact, and he only seems to own six shirts (tan, purple, burgundy, hunter green, light blue, and navy) which never coordinate with his black slacks and brown shoes. He has very strong preferences for both capitalizing Capstone when we write it and using his preferred sign for it (the student-used sign is based on the fact it strangles us while his is the equivalent of conclusion), but I think it's adorable. He was obsessively worried about me the time I had a full blown panic attack in his class, and extended the break to over 20 minutes so he could make sure I wasn't alone while we waited for someone to come sit with me. He's a Christian and, according to another professor of mine who actually despises The Professor, he's gone to seminary. He also happens to be fluent in British Sign Language and knows the ASL sign for just about every country. His small talk skills are very much totally nonexistent, which leads to a lot of awkward pauses (because God only knows that I can't continue a conversation well), but he goes out of his way to start conversations with me now that he actually likes me. I feel safe in assuming he can continue to be a favorite professor of mine without ending up asking me to be in a threesome as a young teenager (true story), which is always reassuring.
I'm not sure why I'm bothering to write all this down, other than the fact it's so nice to finally have a truly wonderful professor. He and I get along really well, even if we're solely on a collegial level (I'd love to actually befriend him, but something tells me telling him that I have a man crush on him and want to cuddle him in my pocket just isn't the way to go about that...), and it's nice to be around someone who actually realizes I'm intelligent instead of getting hung up on the fact that, when my PTSD gets bad, I end up looking and acting like I am severely developmentally disabled (which, admittedly, in that moment, I essentially am since all my higher thinking ceases). I've got two of his classes this coming semester and, although I'm dreading the topic of my non-Capstone course, I'm really looking forward to getting to learn all the personal anecdotes he apparently typically tells in that class.
Aww. He sounds adorable!
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