I have been a TA for Advisor Who this past quarter. It's been a fun, startling ride. As a part of online courses at J Hop, we have these things called "LiveTalks," which are giant Skype session/webinar/live online discussions for the course. Who likes to wander into these sessions (that he leads) as close to the start time (and oftentimes after it) as possible. Partly because he's extremely busy. And party because it's hilarious making his TAs very nervous.
Last night, however, I decided not to sweat it when the clock hit 6 and Who still hadn't showed, and the studio tech came in to ask, "You said that someone else was joining you, right?" I took a "if you can't beat them, join'em" approach, and together, (well, mostly Who) thoroughly enjoyed making other students nervous. Because when Who did join, he decided it would be fun to cold call people. During online discussions, it's very easy to just put the talk on in the background and ignore what's going on in the session and focus instead on the matters at hand, like channel surfing or eating dinner. And that must have been why Kurt did not answer when Who decided to not-so-randomly call on him. Which just led Who to pick on Kurt some more. Forming a beautiful, vicious cycle.
(during a brief pause as we waited for students to respond)
Moi: Kurt is still silent on the issue.
Who How long do you think it will be until Kurt comes back from his kitchen? Or gets up from his couch and the Wii?
Moi: Kurt has a very big kitchen.
(later, after the session was over)
Who: Kurt is my advisee, and he's smarter than most, that's why I knew it was OK to pick on him.
Moi: Oh I know... I mean er, ... we have never discussed having you as an advisor before.
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