Last year Joe the plumber prophetically announced that if Obama were elected there would be socialism in the United States. Looking back at 2009, I am convinced that socialism has arrived. Consider the following: I post on facebook that I misplaced my house key and I get a couch to stay in. I need to go shopping, and I get free shuttle service that too with charming chauffeurs. I wish for food and my housemates respond, and I feel like drinking and I get invited within two minutes of writing it on facebook. Cupcakes and cookies appear magically in the […]
Monthly Archives: December 2009
It is often assumed that Teaching Assistants are powerful, vested with institutionalised power to instruct, monitor and evaluate. No doubt, these represent power over the students. But this is nothing compared to the power that students have over the TA; a kind of power that is silent but brutal. When a hundred notebooks close silently, it can bring the mightiest professor to a halt. A few glances at the clock or one row of blank expressions can freeze the vulnerable TA and crush his ego at the same time. There is no experience more humbling that the knowledge that you […]