Other possible title: The cat may just kill those with too much curiosity
When you are part-time faculty, you don’t get much choice in the classes you teach. Full time faculty get first pick (hence one of the benefits of being full time) because they are higher up on the academic food chain. The chain looks something like this, from lowest on the chain to highest: undergraduate student, graduate student, graduate assistant, teaching assistant, intern, part-time faculty, full time faculty, tenured faculty, assistant to the chair of the department, chair of the department. There I am, sixth on the chain.
Being where I am on the food chain, and considering these hard economic times, I take whatever classes I can get. So, when asked if I’d be interested in a Tuesday/Thursday 8:00-9:15 AM Brit Lit II class, I said yes. It wouldn’t interfere with my running (MWFS) and, as I live spitting distance away from campus, getting to my office by 7:00, 7:30 wouldn’t be a problem. No, I’m not required to be at my office an hour before my classes begin–I just like to be at my office at least an hour (no less than a half-hour) before classes begin.
I really liked the class. I developed a good rapport with the students, the material was interesting, and I only had to grade tests and not papers. The majority of the students who started the class made it to the end–a rare occurrence.
It was a Thursday. The class went well. I dismissed the students, reminded them of the reading for Tuesday, and began to erase the blackboard (side note: one of my pet peeves is going into a classroom where the instructor before me has not erased the blackboard). Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed one of the students waiting.
“Did you have a question?” I asked.
“No,” she replied, “but I think I’ve seen you a few times this past week.”
Perhaps it is a Pavlovian response from my adolescent years, but when someone says “I’ve seen you” I experience a momentary sense of panic. I did so this time as well. Madly, I mentally flipped through my memory files of the week–where had I been? I hadn’t gone out to a bar or club in quite some time, didn’t remember acting out in public anywhere recently, wasn’t rude to any servers, hadn’t pinched any wayward children, or physically harmed any students.
“Really?” I was a bit wary. “Where?”
“I think I’ve seen you running down Museum Drive at the park.”
“Oh, yes.” Relief. “I run there four times a week.”
“I thought that was you! Well, have a nice weekend,” she said and left the classroom.
Relieved, I turned back to the task of erasing the blackboard…then it hit me.
She saw me running in the park.
If she saw me running in the park, that means she’s seen me in spandex.
Well, I thought as I packed up my briefcase, she has to die. No student can see me in spandex and live.
Pity too as she was a really good student.
That is DEFINTELY reason for justifiable homicide…