(Pun courtesy of Robert, who said last night that he didn't realize that the rabbit's name Leopold Rex was actually a complete sentence.)
Last night, because Leo had been acting very "I'm not getting enough attention around here lately with all this idiotic school business," I decided to do some of the studying for my marketing exam in his room. I sat on the futon with my book and papers and told Leo, "If you come up onto the futon, I will pet you." Leo, despite having no apparent grasp of English in any circumstance, did jump up on the futon, bite the corner of my book (which was on my lap), and attempt to fling it out of the way. When I pulled it away from him, he got into my lap and reared up in a way that I have never seen him do before to tell me "Put that stupid thing away and pet me now!" Of course, I had no alternative put to comply, for a time, and then I gathered my things and studied in the living room. My book has scars now to attest to the encounter. Maybe it will end up on the shelf next to my social psychology textbook that has a corner totally chewed off from a previous confrontation.
My test this morning was okay, but not great, and unlike the other two tests, I don't have a good sense of how I did. 10 of the 50 problems did not have immediately obvious answers to me the first time through, which is not encouraging, but looking through the book when I got home, I found that I had selected the correct answer for many of those. (One of these was the ABCD or All of the above type, and I knew that D was correct and that A-C were possible, but would be stupid. It's encouraging that when reviewing the book, I find no evidence for the stupid options A-C.) Others, I still am not sure what he was looking for.
And the one that took me forever to decide on an answer, and in which my first instinct was correct but I think I eventually talked myself out of it, was a straightforward economics question. I had told Robert that I knew I would get an economics question wrong and last night had basically decided that the question would involve the competitive market types of monopoly, oligopoly, monopolistic competition, and pure competition. Indeed, I waffled on the issue of whether the packaged cereal industry is an oligopoly or monopolistic competition. I hope I was smart enough to go with oligopoly, which is increasingly obvious in retrospect. (And my thoughts about why the answer might be monopolistic competition seem lamer and lamer as I try to remember them.)
Getting this wrong is sort of embarrassing because I know that my professor already thinks I am an economics major (in context of my various contributions in class one particular day about elasticity of demand and other micro-economic topics, he asked me if I was an accounting major and I said "economics major"), but it would be worse if he knew that I actually already have a degree in economics.
Of course, I have never admitted to having worked in the marketing field for the last 9 years either.
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4 comments:
By admitting to anyone, but especially your professors that you have an economics degree and 9 years of marketing research experinece would raise the bar it would take to get an A, I'm sure. They would have very high expectations of you and would grade accordingly. Of course, in a fantasy world of fairness that would never happen.
Yes, I am being cagey about my background. Kind of like at the Colorado State thing where I let that economics professor think I was a wildlife manager who just had a genius for economic analysis rather than somebody who actually has some training in the subject.
Once I'm no longer in his class, I might schedule to meet with him to discuss his take on marketing PhD programs, but this will only happen AFTER the grades come out.
Multiple Choice class. Unless he futzed with the curve, which would be manifestly unfair, it would be difficult for him to mark her down for that. No sense taking chances, though. He may be a future reference.
Also, as I just told Robert, there is a possible 4 point bonus based on factors like attendance, etc. And even though that bonus is supposed to be "objective" who knows what might impact it. (4 points out of 400 could make a difference between an A and B for me, based on my performance so far.)
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