I was buried in work last week in part because of the annual Steinmetz Symposium, in which we cancel a day of classes and have students report on their undergraduate research projects. Both of my students were giving talks, and there was all sorts of running around involved in the preparation.
One of my students was very fired up to switch from PowerPoint on the PC to KeyNote on the Mac for this talk, and who am I to get in the way of constructive enthusiasm? His talk was the best I’ve heard him give, which is saying something. Of course, I would’ve been happier with a different opening joke…
He started off with a formal title slide, then switched to one that said “Krypton Sources for Dummies,” copying the look and color scheme from the books. He explained that he was taking care to pitch the talk for non-physicists, because he was well aware of how difficult it was to sit through a colloquium when you didn’t understand anything.
Then he clicked to the next slide, which was a picture of one of the senior majors sleeping during a colloquium talk.
Of course, he went on, he didn’t want to pick on just one student, because it can happen to anyone…
And the next slides showed one of the junior majors sleeping during a colloquium.
But it’s not just students, he continued…
And up popped a picture of me, sleeping during a colloquium talk.
Of course, I get the last laugh– I get to grade his thesis…