Conjunction Junction
Who: Point I(on) to Point M(arić)
When: Tuesday January 4th, around four P.M.
Where: Liberty University to the Professor's studio apartment
What: Hypothesis: It should take only one student to assist in the transport of five heavy containers. First thread yey
Insanity.
That day, that very first Tuesday of the new year, another threat to the student body's collective mental well-being had emerged within Liberty University's hallowed halls. It did not come in the form of Ethic's professor Montour's cane or his volatile glowers nor Professor Stewart and her acerbic insults.
Those who had yet experienced the madness murmured about it behind their hands in the safety of cafeteria chaos. It lurked behind a kindly smile, they said, and a mane of hair too extreme to be real. Male pattern baldness cover up? No one was certain how old Professor Mihailo Marić was. Some said fory-something, some wagered thirty-ish. A few claimed 'ancient' and left it at that; quickly, like simply a mere mention of the man would summon him to their side to begin the uninmaginable torture he was now (within a single morning) infamous for.
Lecturing.
'Professor M' had a loud, booming voice that projected through even the most stubborn individual's daydreams, hooking them and drawing them back to their seats internally kicking and screaming. There could be no in-class napping. He had hawk eyes- 'Professor Mihawk' some grumbled- pinpointing anyone stupid enough to slack with a barrage of questions that would not abate until answered satisfactorily.
No respite from it either, for three fucking hours. The lectures did not cease even during the obligatory twenty-minute break. He'd grin at them and switch mid-sentence from algebraic functions to 'return within the allotted time frame please' back to the functions, a maneuver which confused the many and entrapped the few, the fascinated, the math majors into losing their grace period entirely to note taking.
The topic was always mathematics with a side of frequently interjected physics, biology, phrenology, ornithology, audiology, the professor's little brother (whom everyone quickly came to learn was 'Nikola') and seemingly anything else that the man's mind deemed an entirely relevant tangent to the points he was making. No one had been brave enough that morning to ask him what human skull structure had to do with the course and it had been deemed impossible that any one ever would.
Until the twelve thirty time slot came. Until the class, already armed with the rumors of their peers, readied themselves to be subjected to an entire period of knowledge being jammed violently into their brains and chanced upon a break through instead.
It had been two-forty-five when, during a rant about Calabi conjecture, a student broke through the relentless wave of speech and said 'no'.
The result had been shocking. Silence. Then another smile, then a thorough explanation linking topic A to topic B in a manner that made sense to the rest of the class and a brief but heated debate between the two that launched the professor into a syllabus discussion for the remainder of the period.
Made well aware of the dangers of lingering any longer than a few seconds following a lecture's end, at the instant the Professor gave the blessed 'Vidimo se kasnije- see you later', the room was instantaneously cleared. Perhaps he was still stunned at what had happened, the back of the group flooding the door prayed. Perhaps he'd let them all go without-
"That reminds me-."
Students panicked, shoving each other through until there was but one doomed man left. "Ah, Mister Sollomovici. Would you mind doing this old man a favor?"
When: Tuesday January 4th, around four P.M.
Where: Liberty University to the Professor's studio apartment
What: Hypothesis: It should take only one student to assist in the transport of five heavy containers. First thread yey
Insanity.
That day, that very first Tuesday of the new year, another threat to the student body's collective mental well-being had emerged within Liberty University's hallowed halls. It did not come in the form of Ethic's professor Montour's cane or his volatile glowers nor Professor Stewart and her acerbic insults.
Those who had yet experienced the madness murmured about it behind their hands in the safety of cafeteria chaos. It lurked behind a kindly smile, they said, and a mane of hair too extreme to be real. Male pattern baldness cover up? No one was certain how old Professor Mihailo Marić was. Some said fory-something, some wagered thirty-ish. A few claimed 'ancient' and left it at that; quickly, like simply a mere mention of the man would summon him to their side to begin the uninmaginable torture he was now (within a single morning) infamous for.
Lecturing.
'Professor M' had a loud, booming voice that projected through even the most stubborn individual's daydreams, hooking them and drawing them back to their seats internally kicking and screaming. There could be no in-class napping. He had hawk eyes- 'Professor Mihawk' some grumbled- pinpointing anyone stupid enough to slack with a barrage of questions that would not abate until answered satisfactorily.
No respite from it either, for three fucking hours. The lectures did not cease even during the obligatory twenty-minute break. He'd grin at them and switch mid-sentence from algebraic functions to 'return within the allotted time frame please' back to the functions, a maneuver which confused the many and entrapped the few, the fascinated, the math majors into losing their grace period entirely to note taking.
The topic was always mathematics with a side of frequently interjected physics, biology, phrenology, ornithology, audiology, the professor's little brother (whom everyone quickly came to learn was 'Nikola') and seemingly anything else that the man's mind deemed an entirely relevant tangent to the points he was making. No one had been brave enough that morning to ask him what human skull structure had to do with the course and it had been deemed impossible that any one ever would.
Until the twelve thirty time slot came. Until the class, already armed with the rumors of their peers, readied themselves to be subjected to an entire period of knowledge being jammed violently into their brains and chanced upon a break through instead.
It had been two-forty-five when, during a rant about Calabi conjecture, a student broke through the relentless wave of speech and said 'no'.
The result had been shocking. Silence. Then another smile, then a thorough explanation linking topic A to topic B in a manner that made sense to the rest of the class and a brief but heated debate between the two that launched the professor into a syllabus discussion for the remainder of the period.
Made well aware of the dangers of lingering any longer than a few seconds following a lecture's end, at the instant the Professor gave the blessed 'Vidimo se kasnije- see you later', the room was instantaneously cleared. Perhaps he was still stunned at what had happened, the back of the group flooding the door prayed. Perhaps he'd let them all go without-
"That reminds me-."
Students panicked, shoving each other through until there was but one doomed man left. "Ah, Mister Sollomovici. Would you mind doing this old man a favor?"