Friday, October 25, 2013

Friday Thirsty: "Let's Be Honest, Prof, What Is the Most Proffie Thing About You?"

Q: We all probably suffer a bit by being a bit TOO proffie at times, from the way we talk to what we wear.

What is the most "proffie" thing about you?


I'm still wearing what I wore
when Nixon was President.



42 comments:

  1. I can speak for 50 minutes without interruption and without the need for any signs of listening from my audience. This is why I am not invited to dinner parties often.

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    1. BTW, your Friday Thirsty is about 12 hours early. I would also agree that the alternative explanation that Friday is 12 hours late has some merit.

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    2. Yes, there is something so sticky on the compound keyboard. Those boys are awfully messy.

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    3. I do the complete opposite when not at work; I'm so grateful that no one expects me to get up front to talk that I completely retreat. Perhaps that's what introverts do...

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  2. I hate wearing suits, any sort of business wear. In about 20 years with another 30 pounds on my frame and a long grey beard I'd be a really good candidate for the Hobo or Prof webpage.

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    1. I just scored 9/10 on that page. Really wish it had been 10/10. Maybe that's the most proffie thing about me.

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  3. I drove a Honda Civic from 1988 to 2011. And up until two years ago, my furniture needs had basically stopped at the graduate student level (futon mattresses on the floor, etc.)

    But then my new partner decided enough was enough.

    I own a prepaid cell phone, but it is never charged. The idea of a "smart phone" still creeps me out a little. I have never sent (or received) a text message in my life, or gone on Tweeter. I have 30 friends on Facebook, but half of them are family members.

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    1. That is called a "burner phone" in law enfarcement. Saul Goodman constantly demonstrated proper illegal burner phone etiquette by smashing his cellphone every time he spoke to Senor Sombrero Negro.

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    2. "I drove a Honda Civic from 1988 to 2011."

      I still do. . . of course I am a 41-year old who just got a driver's license three years ago (is that the most proffy thing about me?)


      "I own a prepaid cell phone, but it is never charged."

      I do as well-- it still has the number/area code of the town on the other side of the country that I lived in seven years ago, and I mostly use it when I go a'conferencin' (and to which I receive the four-texts-a-year, all at said conferences from the same good friend from grad school, coordinating drinking engagements)

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    3. @Strel, when I retire to a Kaczynski cabin in New Hampshire, Saul won't join me. And I promise I won't come back to visit with a Kalashnikov in the trunk (though oh how tempting it is.)

      @Lemurpants, I forgot to say it was the same Civic. It was a hatch, so I was able to put everything I owned in it when I moved across the country to take up this job.

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    4. @Lemurpants - I was mid-30s, not early 40s, but I got my driver's license the day after I started at my proffie job, so that I could drive to work.

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    5. I, too, have the Honda and the futon. I'm not sure when I'll be able to get rid of either. They're almost inextricably linked to my identity now.

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  4. Much of my wardrobe comes from Goodwill.

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  5. I am very, very absent-minded about things not related to research.

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  6. My wife complains that I can remember "pointless trivia" about almost anything, but I have to ask her where my <insert personal item here> is.

    But that might be a "man" thing rather than a "proffie" thing.

    I also like to dress like a lumberjack.

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    1. Incidentally, that does NOT include high heels, suspendies or a brar.

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    2. Nope, that's a female Proffie thing, too. Even the dressing like a lumberjack part (cork boots, not heels).

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    3. Can't remember where the classroom is after the summer break, or the code for the copier, but can recite random facts about Pet Topic until your ears fall off. Gender immaterial!

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    4. Argh, hate the tea partying copier code! I also regularly set off the building alarm--even though security changed it to a number they asked me to choose because I couldn't remember the original one.

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  7. I ride a bicycle to work, tucking my right trouser hem into my obnoxiously brightly colored argyle sock. I make hand signals to turn and wear a helmet. Total Fred.
    On Fridays my school has school-pride-propaganda-clothing day, so I have a pair of Converse in the school's color that I feel justified wearing that day.
    I frequently think that I've run our of any empathy or patience for students involved in the Greek system, and then I remember that I already felt this way as an undergraduate.

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    1. Oh how I envy you: the biking to work thing. I did that at my previous job, and whenever I go on sabbatical. And I live close enough to the U, but there are no bike lanes in this town, so it would be suicidal.

      On Fridays before home games I very carefully avoid wearing the U's colors.

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    2. The bike (a Peugeot) is my most beloved possession. I bought it in 1982, when I started grad school. Still going strong.

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    3. When I can ride my bike to work, I also make hand signals and wear a helmet. My right trouser hem is cinched with an obnoxiously brightly colored reflective strap. But I didn't think this was a proffie thing. Maybe that's part of my proffieness.

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  8. This week I handed back an exam, but forgot to record the marks. I also found a three year old bottle of Coke Zero in my office and attempted to drink it. That may, or may not, be related to the first point.

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  9. The longer I have had my PhD., the more forgetful I have become. I often have to ask where did I leave off after the last class...or I hear "Dr. Frenna, you told us that last time." Only then to I actually remember doing it. *sighs*

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  10. I can go galloping off down a verbal side trail and circle back around five minutes later, right where we left off in the lecture.

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  11. Hmm. . .my wardrobe pretty closely resembles what I wore during the Johnson administration (before I entered elementary school and had to start wearing things that would also work for PE -- it was a small cooperative school, with no changing facilities). Much larger size, a bit more professional, and some allowance for the fact that I now have curves, but otherwise pretty similar.

    I think I'm considerably more organized/less absentminded than the stereotypical proffie, but I'm not sure that has worked entirely to my benefit (those who are willing/able to create the sort of carefully-scaffolded, detailed-instructions-for-everything courses that intro-level students these days need end up teaching such courses, forever), and I'm finding such work increasingly exhausting (whether as the result of age or pure exhaustion, I'm not sure). I aspire to be an absent-minded proffie whose head is filled with thoughts of obscure events and ideas current a century or two ago, but I'm not sure I'll ever have the chance.

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  12. the books I read for fun generally come from a university press...

    and my wife tells me that I slip into "lecture mood" very easily. I told her that it wasn't quite that simple, that there are several factors that needed to be considered.....that's when she hit me with the wet dishtowel.

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  13. My NPR listening has increased exponentially since I got my Ph.D. Never listened to it once in grad school, now I turn it on as soon as I'm in the car.

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    1. Ah, yes, NPR listener. That's true of me, too, and a better answer than the one(s) I came up with.

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  14. Doesn't work for me. I've been listening to NPR since I moved away to college.

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  15. probably a tie between my love of pun-based jokes about my field (which I of course share in class as helpful mnemonic devices) and my multi-cat household

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  16. I thought it was my graying hair and glasses, but my sister told me it's my long skirts and boots.

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  17. Nothing about my outward persona screams "professor." But my mother tells me that my know-it-all way of analyzing both sides of each issue carefully is slowly killing her will to live.

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  18. My impostor syndrome. Or is that a grad studenty thing?

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  19. I always repeat instruction or directions when talking to people, just as I do in the classroom.

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