Every now and again I get a brief glimpse of what it absolutely totally feels like to be someone else.
Its clearer than an understanding, deeper than empathy, more personal than an epiphany ... its a total mind swap.
Today I was sent back in time almost fifteen years and swapped bodies with my A-Level Physics college professor, a guy I detested with a passion and shortly after this episode I dropped his subject and switched to an easier subject like open heart surgery or female intuition explanation.
The switch was open a few seconds long, as it only consisted of me grabbing his attention as he walked through the classroom, me asking him to explain why my answer differed from everyone else's.
In answer to my plea he came over, glanced at my workbook and as he did his face contorted into a complete state of disbelief/insult/revulsion and shock then remarked loudly "your algebra is crap" and then proceeded to walk away as fast as he could without breaking into a run.
As you can imagine, at the time I was still mystified as to why my answer was wrong, but thus humiliated I was left no option but to leave his class, secure in the knowledge that as my basic algebraic understanding was not that bad, thus it had to be the mix of advanced physics and advanced pure mathematics did not agree with my romantic and poetic mind.
But what made me feel this swap into such a horrid man, I can hear you cry.
Well it was a chance question that my bosses younger sister made at work this morning that sent me momentarily across the abyss to reach this previously unknown level of understanding from my old professors point of view.
The question "Ow many miws ar there in a leta?", or translated into plain English for those of you not fully conversant with Essex slovenly English "How many mills are there in a litre?".
Firstly she failed to understand that mills is short for millilitre.
Secondly she failed to understand that millilitres are just divisions of litres and that in the English way of thinking there are ten millilitres to a centilitre, one hundred centilitres to a litre, and thus a thousand millilitres to a litre.
But it was the Third part that scared the bejesus out of me ... out of the other four members of staff in the room, ( including two full company directors ), none of them seemed to think this to be a rather pointless or ignorant question to ask, one had no idea themselves and another commented on the number of mills into pints as if that was going to be of some help to the proceedings.
I ask you, with that kind of communal brain power and understanding all around me at my current company, is it any wonder why I'm chomping at the bit to leave and either work for myself or at least with others who's level of education and conversation is above the level of 'what the last bush tucker trial was like on tv last night' !!!
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