Excuses, excuses
This post and the comments that followed reminded me of my own shennanigans in trying to con a professor. There's some discussion in there about the rash of grandmother deaths and associated excuses for not finishing up papers, taking exams, etc. towards the end of a semester.
My most shameful attempt at getting out of a paper was at Oxford, in the spring of 1995. I was taking tutorials from a woman at Nuffield College, and every week (as I had to in every one of my tutorials back then), I had to write a paper about whatever it was that I was studying (I can't, for the life of me, remember the course, though I'm pretty sure that it was something political or philosophical or both). We'd meet once a week for an hour or so, and I'd read my paper to her aloud (I think, she may have been one of those profs that made me turn it in early, so she could have more time to tear it apart. I forget. It's been a dozen years.), and then she'd quiz and poke and prod at my position on the paper and understanding of the general material.
Anyhow, the tutor and I got on fairly well. She was American or Canadian, and she wasn't very old. I'd been studying with her from mid January to mid March, and we'd chatted a lot about our adventures in Europe. She knew that as soon as the term was over, I was headed to Turkey and Greece to backpack by myself. She'd been in those areas a year or two before, and she lent me some of her travel guides on Turkey for reference.
So, Eighth* week loomed, and I had absolutely nothing on the paper I was supposed to write. I read the material. I sort of understood the material. I just had no inspiration to write. I was much more obssessed with a) a guy I'd met that term and quickly fell in love with, and b) my upcoming solo trip into the European interior.
I blew off the paper.
But I still had to go to the tutorial and sit there for an hour with my tutor. Awk-ward.
Fortune, though, sprang upon me. Religious riots started hitting Istanbul around that time, and there were a couple of bombs that went off in southern Turkey. I started (legitimately) worrying about that news of unrest there, as I was supposed to be hopping a train or boat or something to get to Istanbul in a few weeks. By myself. I started to revise my plans.
So I, with a straight face, told my tutor that I didn't write my paper because bombs were going off in a country several thousand miles away. Fortunately, I'd read most of the material and could talk about it, but that was a tutorial that I was thankful to get out of alive.
I never made it to Turkey. While I was in Greece, I kept on hearing reports that things were not well there, and a lot of people advised me that a single girl wasn't necessarily safe there. I went to Italy instead afterwards.
And I still feel guilty about blowing off the paper.
Which is your worst** attempt at conning a professor?
*The Oxford terms were eight weeks long. Calendars were more or less kept by which week you were in.
**Define as you will: most shameless, least successful, most cringe worthy, whatever.
My most shameful attempt at getting out of a paper was at Oxford, in the spring of 1995. I was taking tutorials from a woman at Nuffield College, and every week (as I had to in every one of my tutorials back then), I had to write a paper about whatever it was that I was studying (I can't, for the life of me, remember the course, though I'm pretty sure that it was something political or philosophical or both). We'd meet once a week for an hour or so, and I'd read my paper to her aloud (I think, she may have been one of those profs that made me turn it in early, so she could have more time to tear it apart. I forget. It's been a dozen years.), and then she'd quiz and poke and prod at my position on the paper and understanding of the general material.
Anyhow, the tutor and I got on fairly well. She was American or Canadian, and she wasn't very old. I'd been studying with her from mid January to mid March, and we'd chatted a lot about our adventures in Europe. She knew that as soon as the term was over, I was headed to Turkey and Greece to backpack by myself. She'd been in those areas a year or two before, and she lent me some of her travel guides on Turkey for reference.
So, Eighth* week loomed, and I had absolutely nothing on the paper I was supposed to write. I read the material. I sort of understood the material. I just had no inspiration to write. I was much more obssessed with a) a guy I'd met that term and quickly fell in love with, and b) my upcoming solo trip into the European interior.
I blew off the paper.
But I still had to go to the tutorial and sit there for an hour with my tutor. Awk-ward.
Fortune, though, sprang upon me. Religious riots started hitting Istanbul around that time, and there were a couple of bombs that went off in southern Turkey. I started (legitimately) worrying about that news of unrest there, as I was supposed to be hopping a train or boat or something to get to Istanbul in a few weeks. By myself. I started to revise my plans.
So I, with a straight face, told my tutor that I didn't write my paper because bombs were going off in a country several thousand miles away. Fortunately, I'd read most of the material and could talk about it, but that was a tutorial that I was thankful to get out of alive.
I never made it to Turkey. While I was in Greece, I kept on hearing reports that things were not well there, and a lot of people advised me that a single girl wasn't necessarily safe there. I went to Italy instead afterwards.
And I still feel guilty about blowing off the paper.
Which is your worst** attempt at conning a professor?
*The Oxford terms were eight weeks long. Calendars were more or less kept by which week you were in.
**Define as you will: most shameless, least successful, most cringe worthy, whatever.