Umesh old boy, I think you've met your match

*disclaimer* This post is full of vitriol

I hate tutorials. I don’t think there’s anything worse in the university experience next to tutorials. Sitting there in a room full of pseudo-academics who actually think I care to know what they think. Oftentimes the poor un-offending PhD student who has to mediate these sessions of verbal diarrhea get caught up in the crossfire. You’d think that if these undergrads who are actually there to learn they would listen to the freaking PhD student at least right? But no.

I have discovered that there is one thing more heinous than a 50 minute tutorial. Enter the two hour tutorial. Some of you might not be familiar with the way the tutorial system works at U of T. So I shall enlighten you. Usually there’s fifteen students and one teaching assistant, we’re supposed to discuss the course readings for the week in a 50 minute session. Out of the fifteen students there’s usually about 5 who think they’re experts on whatever topic is being spoken about. They’re longwinded, egomaniacal and downright boring. Most of the time I just sit there and space out. Sometimes someone will be so exceptionally irritating that I find the need to wade into the fray.

Meet Umesh. He was in my politics of development course last year and I had the unwanted pleasure of being in a tutorial with him. There are a lot of things that bug me about Umesh.
1. The use of rhetoric: I’m sure that he’d LOVE to think that he’s an original thinker, but everything that Umesh said was just rhetoric. He’d make a good spin doctor after he graduates
2. The use of ebonics: Umesh is Indian. I wasn’t aware that Indians could speak in ebonics. I don’t think I need to elaborate on this point
3. Nobody cares Umesh: Going along with the general vibe of bs-ing in tutorials, ultimately no one cares what happens in them. (Myself discluded I guess, if I’m making a post on them.) My little friend would often think it his duty to apologise for his in tutorial behaviour, and to tell people not to “take it personally.” Maybe if he was saying something that was totally controversial and offensive then I could see the need to apologise. But no. He just talked out of his arse. And while that is a sin that deserves years spent in purgatory, no one wants to keep hearing his voice, even for an apology.

You get the drift. Now you can imagine my horror when Umesh walked into the summer course that I’m taking, intro to African history. I was thanking God when the first day of tutorials rolled along and he was absent from mine. My joy was short-lived. Since it’s a summer course, the tutorials are 2 hours long, and my current tutorial only has FOUR people in it. Four people and one of the students happens to be a female version of Umesh. But more irritating, if that’s even possible. Her downfall is her ‘friendliness’

Umesh-a-like: So, are you an anthropology major?
Me: *wondering what sin I had committed to deserve a conversation with her* Um. No, I’m doing a joint specialist in political science and history
Umesh-a-like: Oh cool, so are you doing developmental studies?
Me: Yeah I am.
Umesh-a-like: I could totally tell.
Me: *suddenly warming up to Umesh-a-like. Maybe she could tell through the amazing comments I made in tutorials that I’m down with the third world?* Wow. How did you know that?
Umesh-a-like: You just look like it. You know. The way you dress and stuff
Me: *Suppressing feelings of homicidal rage* The way I ‘dress and stuff’? *fake laugh.* You’re lucky that I have to go now, or you’d have to explain that one to me

And with that I made a hasty and contrived getaway. Can you imagine? People still get typecast by the way they dress! And it’s not even like she’s an old person either, you’d expect such prejudicial behaviour from someone who’s 80, not 21!

Eek.

I have finished.