A Huge Thank U

早上进入办公室之前，向信箱里望了一下，看见里面有一张粉红色的卡片和一包“吉百利”巧克力。心里有些纳闷：是谁送礼来了？

打开信箱，卡片是一张A4纸对折而成的，上面写着“A HUGE THANK U DR. CTK”。卡片显然是自制的。

打开卡片一看，左边有一个用Java编写的class，它是这么写的：

package Lab_1;

import java.util.*;

public class Main {

public static void main(String[] args) {

System.out.println("Thank you so much!!");

System.out.println("Finally we PASS...:-)");

if (not because of your guidance)

System.out.println("Extend sem");

else

System.out.println("Currently doing thesis 1");

System.out.println("We are so thankful");

}

}

*DONT RUN THIS CODING. DEFINITELY GOT ERROR(TT)

看到这里，我不禁哑然失笑，这肯定是Data Structures课的学生了。再看卡片的右边，写着：

“ENJOY THE CADBURY. WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO GIVE, THIS IS THE BEST WE CAN THINK OF."

下面是两个学生的署名。印象中到上个学期为止，她们已经是第三次报考我教的这个科目，好不容易终于过关了，兴奋的心情可想而知。

Data Structures是学院里本科生的其中一个核心科目，考不过会大大影响学生们学习的进程。数个学期以来，已有好多学生栽在这个科目上，如何教和严宽之间的拿捏始终让我头疼。上个学期我尝试了不同的教学方式，再观察学生的表现，最后的成果还算让人满意。

其实，学生学得好、考得好，老师的兴奋是不亚于他们的。

说风就是雨

上个学期我教一门网络编程的课，某天班上的一个学生到我的办公室来，说要征求我对于电子投票的看法。这学生似乎非常关心电子投票中的舞弊问题，不断询问投票软件是否“可能”出现欺诈的成分。不论是从常识或技术层面而言，没有人能排除软件中可能存有漏洞而导致错误，所以“欺诈”是可能的，我这么回答。



第二天，几个“亲学生”的网站就刊登了一篇“专访”——马大讲师反对在校园选举时使用电子投票。



后来，这批反对电子投票的学生打算在一月一日当天举办一场探讨电子投票的论坛，就发来电邮邀请我担任主讲人。由于一月一日当天我要出席一个同事的婚宴，便拒绝了这些学生的邀请。



后来，论坛的海报出来了，我竟然是其中一名主讲人。我发了电邮给相关的学生，要他们改正，然而不见海报上有任何更动。



再后来，又有几则新闻出来了。一则说我尚在考虑要不要成为主讲人，另一则说我“打消”了成为主讲人的念头，其中还有猜测我“改变主意”是因为某方面施压的结果。


政治就是这么一回事，哪怕只是校园政治。

泡沫雪花

城中一家商场为庆祝圣诞而搞的噱头是“下雪”。我们几个大人带着小孩也去凑热闹。雪花飘下时，远看倒相当逼真，当雪花掉在身上，才发现原来是泡沫，而且还带着清洁剂的味道。这个人工雪花的“美”果然像泡沫那么虚幻，很快就戮破了。

无奈

妍妍近来喜欢，不，应该是“坚持”睡在爸爸和妈妈之间，以便她可以“左拥右抱”。

一天晚上，爸爸趁她睡着后，把她抱起来，想把她放到自己的床去睡。她睁开眼睛，迷茫地望着爸爸，好像在问“你要带我去哪里？”

在离开她的床还有两三步的时候，妍妍似乎意识到爸爸的企图，张口哭了起来。

结果，爸爸只好很无奈地投降了。

三代同堂

上个月去参加一个专业认证课程，在一群学员中认出一张似熟悉又有点陌生的脸。忍不住上前问他：“你是Dr. K吗？”对方点头说是。果然是当年念本科时的讲师，算一算，已经10年没见过他了。他说，他常在不同的场合遇见当年的学生，那种感觉很好，只是往往都是学生先认出老师。

第二天早上的茶点时间，一位学员走过来问我：“你是马大的讲师吗？”
“是。”
“你记得你教过我吗？”
“哪一门课呀？”
“Software Architecture。”
“哦！02年的，不太有印象了。当年我没有‘肥佬’你吧？”
“没有，我还考得挺好的。”
“谢天谢地！”

“三代同堂”的故事就这样不经意的发生在这城市的某个角落。

Ridiculous Comments

In each semester, students will do a course and teaching evaluation which allows them to evaluate every course they are taking in that particular semester. The students will have a chance to give feedback on how satisfied they are with the course, the lecturer who conducts the course, teaching and learning facility for the course, and their overall satisfaction. Basically, the students will fill in an online questionnaire for the evaluation. As for most questionnaire surveys, the students can give additional comments.

Very few students provide additional comments. Nevertheless, it is still a good chance for them to express their opinions and for me to know their views better. Normally, those who give comments just put down something very general like "make it easy to us", "OK", "need more examples" , etc. Even though quite "abstract", these comments do give me some hints on how to improve the course content and my teaching style as well as facility provided.

This semester, I was annoyed by two of the comments:

"Lecturer does not give feedback on students performance individually. And also reluctant to discuss students mark saying its confidential."

I have about 180 students in the class and still the student expected me to give feedback on individual performance? The marks are confidential - that is a fact, not an excuse that I made. Anyway, I attribute this problem to the student's ignorance .

The next comment is ridiculous:

"Hi you should do thing like labs and activities not only slides from the internet english should be the media(u)m of com. shame on um"

There was one lab session and a tutorial session every week. I didn't use slides in the class, let alone slides from the internet. English has been used as the medium of instruction since some years ago. What was the student trying to say? This is definitely not ignorance, it is stupidity.