The last time it happened, (I wonder whether I should mention it), was with my TA for...a class. I don't know exactly who is reading this blog , but I do know that since the blog is in my email signature there are a lot of people who have access. So, I will just leave it at TA for a class. Though, he probably knows who he is and so will anyone who was there.
Anyway, we had just been handed back our midterms. I did well. (See B-Disappointed post from earlier to better understand how I'm feeling in this moment.) Anyway, I was talking to four or five other people who got the same grade. Some were excited, some were about at the level I was at.
When we got on topic of another girl in the class. She is nice, but she also can be soft-spoken. Which makes it hard to judge how much she knows about the topic. She said she got an A. An 18, (we had all gotten about a 15.) And the first thing she had said to us after she looked was that he was really happy with it considering she didn't do any of the readings.
Now, I did the readings and while I didn't understand everything, I felt had a decent grasp on what we were being asked for, so this was a little frustrating to hear.
(Though, I suspect she wasn't being 100% honest because according to the site where our grades were posted 17.4 was the highest input grade.)
Now, while it was frustrating, I didn't give it too much thought. It wasn't my mark and there was no way to go back and change what I had gotten, so I was focused on future things. Some of the others in the group I was talking with were less than satisfied that she did so well.
They were talking about how well she had done and one of them threw out the comment, "Well, [the TA] likes [her]." In a manner that would suggest the grade was tied in with personal, potentially romantic, feelings towards her instead of her work. And he just happened to be walking behind us when she said this.
He smiled at us, we exchanged slightly awkward eye contact and pretended like nothing happened. He didn't say anything. Maybe he didn't hear her. I don't know. It was still awkward on our end.
This isn't the first time this has happened with this TA. He must honestly think we are the strangest class.
The first time it happened was before the second tutorial when I was asking about what had happened during the first tutorial (which I missed for medical reasons) and the person who I was talking to started talking about him as he walked up behind us. She didn't say anything bad.
Maybe it is just me that finds it incredibly awkward. And I don't just mean being talked about but talking about someone and finding out they've heard whether it is good or bad. If I wanted them to know or hear it, I would wait until they were around. If I don't want them to hear it...well, that one is kind of self-explanatory.
For this reason I have been known to (what could be said to be) obsessively check the area I'm in when talking about someone. Actually, I do this even when it isn't me talking about someone just to be safe. But there is no accounting for people coming around corners unexpectedly or people lurking in the shadows eavesdropping.
Anyway, I just felt like talking about this a bit. It hasn't really come up much since high school when people would talk about a teacher and the teacher would come in. I liked 95% of my teachers so this wasn't an issue for me. And the other 5% I feared too much to talk about.
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