Stoic on the outside, ROFLing on the inside

Your professors are still in that cute “let’s make the class like me” phase, saying the darndest things to get a laugh during the first few days of class. Before they actually assign homework and their jokes become less endearing, send the inspiring/crazy/out-of-context stuff they say to tips@bwog.com or comment on this post. Here are some of yesterday’s jewels.

Richard Billows, Romans and their Empire

“Judaism, especially in the ancient times, is a particularly hard religion to convert to, especially for adult males, because you had to cut a piece of your penis off. Christianity had all of the intrigue of Judaism without that nasty self-mutilation bit.”

Edward Mendelson, British Literature

“If you’re going to sleep, at least get pupils tatooed on your eyelids so it looks like you’re paying attention.”

Salvatore Stolfo, Artificial Intelligence

“The thing about intelligence is that you know it when you see it. Just like pornography. Very hard to describe, but you know it when you see it.”

Paul Siegel, Calc IV

“Come to my office hours, that way I can tell my mom I had friends over!”

George Saliba, Contemporary Islamic Civilization

Just after attaching his lecture-hall mic: “There are no secrets now. I can’t even whisper. You will hear everything.”

Nathanael Shelley, Lit Hum

Referring to the Babylonian class he teaches at JTS: “You guys take priority over my other class during office hours…I mean, they want to learn Babylonian, you guys want to actually get jobs someday.”

 

Barbara Fields, History of the South

“We have too much opinion in this country. Opinions are worthless in this class. What I value are judgements, not opinons.”

David Bayer, Linear Algebra

“All of calculus is basically just a bag of tricks to avoid thinking in imaginary numbers.”

Caterina Musatti, Principles of Economics

“What do you do on the weekend? It’s the beginning of the semester; don’t tell me you study! Maybe you study the anatomy of someone’s body.” She then motions an hourglass figure.

Nerd Man via Shutterstock