This semester, finals have been much closer to Christmas than usual, slowly eating away at students’ winter break time. For athletes who have to return to campus even sooner, their break will be only a moment’s pause before jumping right back into a new semester. Many professors have been considerate in this time, knowing students want to head home as soon as possible. Professor Skroodje, however, has postponed his finals even beyond the end of the semester. To get a glimpse of Skroodje’s twisted mind, we interviewed him about a week ago. However, after a surprise visit from three ghosts of students past, he had an abrupt change of heart, and we did a follow up interview.
“Sometimes, you have to work overtime,” Skroodje insisted in our initial interview, adjusting his monocle. “Kids these days…they do not understand that. In the real world, sometimes you have an 8-10 paged research paper, a forty-five-minute presentation, and a cumulative test due on the same day. Did Mary and Joseph rest on Christmas Eve? Did the wise men, or the shepherds? No! If anything, we should have finals in a barn around a manger, for a more immersive Christmas experience.”
When asked if he will grade all of this in time, he said, “Oh, uh…no.” He then said, “when did wearing a long nightgown and a cap to bed go out of fashion? I asked my students, and they looked at me like I was crazy. What happened to walking around at night with a candle and going ‘Who goes there?’ Those were the days.”
At this point in the interview, he paused to pull up a student’s email asking if she could get an extension on an assignment. This endeavor took about twenty minutes of fumbling around on his computer and tapping aimlessly at the screen, and I had to help him before any progress was made. As soon as he figured it out, he immediately denied the request. “I don’t accept late work,” he said, “…and technical difficulties are not an excuse.”
Despite my own prodding, he refused to change the final date, and his students resigned themselves to a Christmas Eve of misery.
A couple of days later, Professor Skroodje emerged a changed man.
He wore an ugly Christmas sweater to the interview and brought a tray full of cookies. “I’m starting to think there’s more to life than organic chemistry,” he noted thoughtfully. “And I was shocked to learn, students have lives outside of class. Did you know that? I guess you learn something new every day.”
His students rejoiced, thrilled to get to return home for the holidays. The day he changed the final date, soft snow fell from the sky, the first snow of the year lingering on the ground for more than an hour. We may never know for sure what happened to the professor that day, but we can safely say it was a Christmas miracle.
DISCLAIMER: The content expressed in Satire articles are for comedic purposes only. The content is loosely based on events, and not to be taken as news or facts.
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