The Sandlot

Ok so maybe it wasn't that bad, but it was damn close. Perhaps one of the first times I've ever been scared in a classroom.

As I mentioned in a previous entry, one of my professors is this somewhat elderly gentleman. He has a heavy accent and is pretty soft spoken. The class I have him in is a decent sized lecture hall, probably seats 150 people give or take. Most teachers use a microphone for such classes, this guy being no exception. However, Mr. Hong or whatever his name is, happens to struggle a bit with the mic. Everytime he uses it, it makes this harsh- high pitched squealing noise so he's forced to turn it off and try to be heard normally, which usually never works and results in no one paying attention.

So that happens today and he's babbling up front for about 5 minutes. I'm sitting toward the back not paying attention, talking to Mario and emilie and next thing we know we're supposed to be taking some quiz. So we're like what the fuck. So we do the quiz and guy starts going over the answers. This is where the fireworks begin. Some kid raises his hand to ask a question, next thing we know him and the teacher are in a somewhat heated argument. We can't really hear what's being said for awhile cuz a lot of people are talking. Next thing we know, Wang pulls out the race card and just starts shouting at this kid. "I taught this blah blah, I'm not gonna say what you are saying but you know what I'm talking about etc etc." I swear he was like 5 seconds away from spin kicking someone in the head. We're all like whoa.

So then the professor is about to launch into his lecture and power point. He starts flying through these slides that are just loaded with shit we're supposed to write down as notes but he's going too fast and no one can keep up. So someone raises their hand and asks if he can slow down or that they cant understand. Dude really loses it this time. Tells this girl to shut up, so she walks out. Meanwhile everyone else is laughing or talking and he's getting more pissed. People are trying to ask him things or help him settle the situation but he keeps mis-understanding everything and getting more upset and lashing out at more students. More people get up and leave, there's like 45 min left in class at this point and he's all like "good go I don't want you here."

I'm just sitting there, transfixed in awe as the situation keeps deteriorating. People keep saying shit and hes nearing the breaking point. Next thing i know hes not even speaking English anymore and he rants in Korean or whatever for a good 90 seconds. Finally, things start to calm down slightly as most of the pissed kids left and Wong is relaxing slightly. So he lectures for about 30 min or so then class is over and theres a whole line of people who go down to talk to him after class.

Some girls video tape all this on their cell phones. I later came to find out that he had a blow up episode like this in the other section of the course on Tuesday, in which he kicked a girl out. So as of now, i know many people have gone to the department head and complained about this guy and are doing whatever it is scorned college kids do in this situation. Me, i just sat n watched and really didnt care much. I mean what can i do? Its a required course to graduate and hes the only person teaching it... for the moment anyways. But yea, things got hairy for a few moments there. Who knows what tuesday will bring.