My first faculty advisor in college was a very mellow, sort of vaguely Capote-esque art professor named Bill. We met during freshman orientation, while he surveyed my high school transcripts. He seemed confused by what he was reading. Finally, he scratched his head and said, “Well…I’m looking at your SAT scores and they’re perfectly fine. But then I’m looking at your grades and…what happened?” To which I replied, “Y’know, if I knew the answer to that question, I’d probably be going to a better school.”
The simple truth is, that being a committed young under-achiever, I did fine in the subjects and classes I was interested in. But the classes I wasn’t interested in…? Well, there’s no bigger obstacle to teaching than a smart-ass 16-year-old with time on his hands. And since I spent the hour trying to think of what I could fuck with next, it left precious little space to listen to the lectures and read the textbooks. As a result, when it was test time, I was at a real disadvantage, cuz’ I knew, well…nothing.
But we were raised with the credo “if you’re going to fail, fail spectacularly and enjoy it”. Sure, I could’ve just signed my name on the test and handed it in blank – but where’s the fun in that? Much more entertaining to use the test as a comedy exercise and offer some ‘creative’ answers. Unfortunately, while our classmates were delighted with the results, our teachers were definitely not. This is a test from an Advanced Biology class (why I was in, I have no idea) that an unamused teacher sent home to our parents.
