I never thought I would be any teacher’s pet. I’m not that kind of student. At least in high school, it’s the outgoing kid, the class clown, who the teacher tends to buddy up with: somebody who seems a little more needy, shares personal stories, makes the teacher feel like he’s a part of the student’s life. That’s not me. I’m usually at the top of the class, but I’m quiet – I’m an ageist, that’s the secret. I’m kind of afraid of adults sometimes, if you want the real truth. I always suspect they know so much more than me.

Anyway, college seems to be a bit different. The squeaky wheel still gets a big portion of the grease, but I’ve come to know a couple of professors really well, and I’m even the favorite of one in particular, the playwriting professor here, whom I really love. But another function of knowing your teachers well is finding out that they don’t know that much more than you, and in some things you’re a lot better versed.

Like, my playwriting prof is the best writing teacher I’ve ever had, brilliant at getting beginning playwrights to understand how a play works...but she’s terrible at time management. I’ve tried to introduce her to a few ways to manage her projects better, like some web based project management tools (there’s a great online scheduling tool I showed her), and suggested maybe looking into some project management software (I’m sure she could get an educator’s discount somewhere), but she barely can use email as it is. So her project tracking skills are just terrible and it makes it really difficult for people trying to do work for her to keep themselves organized.

It’s a shame; she’s trying to do some awesome things. And things do get done – she’s getting several new plays produced this semester. Things like project manager software and PDA’s probably would just tangle the process up even more, because if you don’t know how to use that stuff properly, it just makes organization more of a headache. But if she gets this much done being the most disorganized prof in the department (and yes, she has a reputation), how much more could she accomplish if she were organized? It hurts your head to think about it.