Saturday, January 3, 2009

'Fulldozing'

This was my submission for the course mentioned in the previous post.


 3 Ways to get away with Fulldozing !

 (From the author of ‘The Great IIFTian Dream’ and ‘Count your Sheep in every Batch’)

 Every class of students has its fair share of fulldozers. Fulldozers are those students who manage to doze off in class under the full glare of the teacher. In this article, I would like to elaborate on the various types of fulldozers that I have observed over a month and a half in IIFT. The aim, of course, is to observe and learn. The art of sleeping is not a very esoteric art – with a little guidance and a lot of self-motivation, it is but a blink of an eyelid away. So, without further ado, here goes.

 The Frontline Psuedo-readers

These people have been unfortunate enough to get a seat in the front rows where there’s apparently no escape. Apparently. First invented by Pannie and later successfully copied by many others, this style makes extensive use of a rigid contortion of your forearm. You tilt your neck inwards as if you were reading your textbook, and you rest your head on the palm. Once your head is comfortably ensconced in the soft comfort of your palm, and you are sure that it will not slip, you can rest those droopy eyelids and let yourself be seduced by one of nature’s greatest pleasures.  Be warned though, this is not for the light-handed, coz once slip and you will end up headbanging to a totally different tune.

 The Spectaculars

These people are the ones blessed with glasses. The teacher’s penetrating glare is rendered ineffective due to one of nature’s most common phenomenons – reflection. Whether the student chooses to keep his eyes open or shut is his decision. Behind the safe shield of the glasses, even the most diligent of students are transported into a world of their own. There is only one catch – your body language, posture and facial muscles should radiate rapt attentiveness. IIFTians’s are quick learners, they think on their feet and also off their feet. My observations indicated that within a week’s time, this art had been mastered to dizzying depths of somnolence.

 The Improbables

These people have no special talents. They are jacks of no trade and masters of none. However, by virtue of having cornered a corner seat, they have the odds in their favour. A quick statistical analysis of the angles of rotation of the teacher’s neck enlightens one to the fact that the teacher seldom looks constantly at the extreme sides of the class. The mean, median and mode are all 0 degrees. The students also take into consideration another useful piece of info – their degree of sleepiness also varies between the states ‘awake’ and ‘asleep’. Hence, the weighted probability of the teacher catching these students asleep is really low. Thus, these students take their chance and doze off in a trance.

 With this, I conclude my short discourse. Many thanks to my classmates for their continuing support and relentless perseverance. Without their courage and innovativeness, this research article would not have been possible.

5 comments:

Balajee said...

Though I work now, I have some pointers to add:

a) You can stay awake by looking at other people nodding.

b) If you hear, "You there, wake up!" in your Prof's voice, freeze. Its an age old trap. The teacher doesn't even have to mean someone in particular. The guilty ones usually wake up with a start and gawk at the Prof, playing into his/her hands.

Wetfingers said...

@ Dhruv
Bonjour Madame??? Where you? I am doing the full run next month in Auroville Pondicherry.

Wetfingers said...

Balajee never knew the ecstacy and pain of sleeping thru a lecture. I think Dhruv should consult these two greats in this field.
Manu.S.Madhav (Currently sleeping in Uncle sam's benches)
Raghuram.H.K (Slept with distinction in Bored room meeting and got lectured)

These people are legends who not only answer a question after woken up from sleep, they can also pose a question that can confuse the teacher.

Dhruv Chandras said...

sometimes.. many times.. the comments are much more interesting than the blog post itself... whether to thank the commentor for making the post more interesting or to curse him for showing what humour truly is, that is the question

Dhruv Chandras said...

@venky

i had reached a respectable level of running at iift.. sadly, in france, all i do is walk about wearing thermals, jackets and backpacks... in sub zero temperatures.. and up an abnormally steep road that leads to my hostel... often, i feel my nose is not there.. let the weather heat up a lil.. then the marathon training shall continue