You are getting sleepy…

In this Master’s program I am doing computations in French that I never imagined I’d do in English. Me? I like to compose; I like to read sentences that have subjects, predicates and plain-as-day sarcasm. In fact, unless there’s a gun to my head, I am not inclined to get up close and personal with symbology resembling anything like this: 

∑ θ α x σ. 

Don’t get me wrong, I know that I can do these calculations- it’s just that I don’t want to. Ever. 

Alas, I am getting paid to live in Senegal and learn about the culture, and presently this means showing at least a passing interest in the subject matter accompanying this curriculum. It’s really hard for me to be motivated about statistics, and I have already claimed victory by dragging myself to this torturous class on a Friday night.

“C’est la formule!” (It’s the formula!)

My teacher is a bit of a proclaimer.  Excessively tall by American standards, he is hunched over the teacher’s desk and staring into his laptop as makes edits to a word document that is projected on the white board. This guy looks as bored as me as he goes through the tutorial, but he looks slightly more interesting in his appearance. Dr. X walked into class wearing a business suit that looks like it could be made out of sharkskin- very shiny and clearly custom tailored- which means he must have picked out this style himself. That’s not the weird part. The distracting detail that really intrigues me as I space out is that this is the first suit I have ever seen where the sport jacket is cropped at the elbows.  

“Je ne vais pas démontrer!” (I’m not going to demonstrate!)

I stop mentally snickering at my prof’s jacket as I notice that I am starting to feel hot.  I glance around the class and see my fellow students mildly perspiring, with some fanning their faces absent-mindedly. I look up at the air conditioners and see that they are both inexplicable displaying a comfort zone of 31 degrees Celsius. “Where is that fricking télécommande (remote control)?!” I think to myself as shift about in my jeans. Milk was a bad choice!….

 I so wish I could have taken a photograph of Dr. X. This Google search result doesn’t adequately capture the impromptu math and fashion show I got to attend last night…

I am no longer paying attention to the bombastic word salad coming out of my professor’s mouth, and I start to suspect that he is only marginally more interested in the material than I am. Which leads me to wonder: why would anyone in their right mind ever get their doctorate in statistics? My teacher is wearing a short-sleeved sharkskin combo for Dress Up Day in Senegal (that’s every Friday), so I’m inclined to think that maybe he isn’t all there. That would help to explain the undeniably criminal way I am spending the end of a long week. 

“Now we take our variable and put it into Excel! It’s easy!”

I don’t want to further bore you with the tedium of this class, but as I sit and scratch out a blog entry as I simultaneously transcribe his word document, I can’t help but question the utility of this three hours. Dr. X keeps giving us scenarios to calculate, but he then “teaches” us how to break down the results by telling us to just put everything into Excel. 

“C’est élémentaire!”  

Really? I need to sit here on a Friday night and be told to just open up MS Excel if I want to be a good statistician?  You couldn’t have sent that one line of instruction to me in an email?