The Isolation Journals - Day 48

The one where we invoke the 15 minute rule when the professor doesn't show up?

Please stand by.

The prompt came late today.  In the meantime, I wrote something on my own, like the consummate brown-noser.  The response to the real prompt will follow later today in a bonus post.

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Today the training wheels come off.  It appears no one has received the writing prompt.  There is comfort in knowing we are all feeling rudderless and adrift, separately, together.  No FOMO here.  I've come to rely on this practice so heavily, and I sincerely enjoy making it a mandatory part of my daily routine.  

I wouldn't dream of bailing, skipping out on today's practice just because we weren't given explicit instructions.  I wouldn't dare invoke the 15-minute rule just because the prof didn't show.

I'm reminded of an incident that happened in the 2nd semester of my freshman year at UArts.  My foundation section had a 3-D design class in the morning, which is a difficult time to be alive when you're 18 or 19.  The 1st semester, our instructor was, to us, brilliant.  To our dismay, he left and was replaced in the 2nd semester by this poor schmuck who clearly had the best of intentions but did not know his ass from a hole in the ground, a deficiency that bodes especially poorly for a class that focuses on spatial understanding.  He spent most of each class regaling us with stories of smoking pot in a fire tower in the Pine Barrens, and not teaching us much of anything other than how to run from the cops without getting murdered by Pineys.  

One morning, all the students convened, draping our hungover bodies across the cool metal studio tables.  We waited for the instructor, and waited, and watched the minutes of our morning slip by.  "You guys know about the 15-minute rule?" someone asked.  "If the instructor doesn't show in 15 minutes, it's cool to leave.  They can't mark you absent."

So at 9:15 on the very dot, we pushed back our stools, metal scraping against concrete, and walked out.  As we trudged in a herd towards the bank of elevators, we crossed paths with our instructor. He was clutching an armload of Krispy Kreme boxes, the still-warm donuts perfuming the hall.  His big dopey grin inverted to a drooping slash, disappointment and hurt painted plainly on his face.  

I'd like to say with full confidence that I turned around and went back to class, not for the donut but because I was moved by the sheer pathos of the situation.  Honestly, though, I can't remember whether I turned around at all.