| Lost in Translation |
[18 Mar 2004|09:15pm] |
I like Dr. Zeller, I really do. He has an adorable fixation with vacuum cleaners, he calls Bush junior "Baby Bush", he uses Filipino expressions, and he gets teary eyed when he talks about the reunification of Germany. How can I not love him? But he is hands down the most exhausting professor I have ever had.
I don't understand him, and it isn't just his thick German accent. It's the way he constructs his sentences. And it's so exasperating because a lot of the time I know what he's talking about, I just can't decipher what he's saying until after the opportunity to participate in the discussion has lapsed. He must think I'm such a moron because I have to ask him to repeat his questions at least thrice before I even have the faintest idea of what he's talking about.
And he must think I'm psychic, too, because he keeps asking me to read his mind.
"Aissa. Two things, two things about Pakistan. Yes?" I don't know why it's always me and why it's always two things about something. Two things about India. Two things about Japan's bureaucracy. Two things about NATO. Two things about China's economy. Two things about Chiang Kai-shek.
And if it isn't two things, it's some obscure date in history. "What happened in 1453?" When he asks questions like that, we just take wild swings at the target. "Uhm... the opening of the Suez Canal?" We hardly ever get them right, but at least sometimes we make him laugh.
He gave me a 1.50 for my paper on Taiwan though, so I forgive him for an agonizing semester of Comparative Foreign Policy 3 (often 4!) hours a week. Though I'm still reeling from yesterday's hour and half grilling, which was almost as painful as the time I had pharyngitis and he was arguing with me about China's GDP. But two weeks later I had my voice back and he conceded that I was right about purchasing power parity. It's all good.
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