Quality Concepts

In the story of my RIT career, a special place will have to be dedicated to my nemesis, one of my business professors, let's call him Mr. P.J. He taught several of the Quality Concepts classes, a series all incoming business students were required to take.

Mr P.J. professed an informal approach to teaching, but decidedly didn't get it when I, trying to learn, reflected back to him the informality that he projected. Note the use of fonts in his assignment and the particular request at the end "to explore hitherto unexplored attributes and traits of your own self." I got in trouble with him (in another paper) for using funny fonts, and I daresay my reference to Voltaire here, in the futile attempt to describe my personality, didn't gain me any points with him.
He gave me a C for this draft, which was not acceptable. If I remember correctly, I got the whole dorm helping me revise this draft. It worked so well that then Mr. P.J. accused me of plagiarism. I was angry. In a personal meeting, I tried to explain to him how much work I put into it. I guess he believed me, though I don't remember him outright saying so. He let me pass the class with a B. This was one of only two Bs in my college career. The rest were As, and I graduated with the highest honors at the top of my class.
Mr. P.J.'s biggest offense though was that he decidedly did not get my sense of humor. I found myself pretty hilarious and made sure to spice each paragraph with a joke or two.

ESL

people frequently want to know how well i knew english when I came to the US in 1996.
here's an email conversation with Dave from October 25, 1996, two months after my arrival.
Dave> i woke up late today and only when my friend ted came in and told me he found a girl becky in the hallway at 4:30 in the morning, puking and bleeding out her nose, and covered in mud, and convulsing (shaking), and not speaking english, and he took her in his room . . . and she is almost conscious!

Olga> The story Ted told you was really nice, exept one moment which i didn't understand well: what was she doing in the corridor at 4:30? I mean, what had happened with her, that she was in so bad condition?
(AKA: Dave thought I wouldn't understand the word "convulsing" and so explained it as "shaking." In fact, "convulsing" may have been the only word of his email I understood quite well: its Latin root has spawned a Russian word with similar meaning. I must've understood "bleeding" and so knew he was describing somebody who was in "bad condition," but I was so confused about the emotional charge of this narrative that the most appropriate words I found in response were "the story was really nice." Nice!)
Dave> haha okay the girl was PISS DRUNK and she had alcohol poisoning :) i met her this morning. She is very cute and very FUCKED UP (please excuse my language). she is probably still asleep on our floor :)
i interpret Dave's "haha" and the smiley face as sheer incredulity at how much i didn't understand.
alcoholism was a major problem at RIT. people drank cheap beer in astonishing quantities. my roommate drank so much in the fall that by the spring she developed cirrhosis of the liver. but that's a different story.