Eye Rolling, Tongue-Twisters, Hard-to-Pronounce Words, and Telephone Harassment

On Friday in lecture, the lecturing professor hit upon the topic of difficult-to-pronounce words in our current topics of study. He then brought several tongue-twisters up on the overhead monitor for all the students to practice. I admit to rolling my eyes. I'm sorry, Judge Alex (the judge doesn't believe in eye-rolling, as in he feels that it's inappropriate, not as in he places it in the same category as the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy), but at the prices we, the students, are paying for medical school, wasting even fifteen minutes of our time on puerile tongue-twisters is eye-roll-worthy behavior.

The professor took exception to my eye roll. "Don't you roll your eyes at me, young lady!" he barked. I wasn't entirely certain he was speaking to me, as I was far from the only student who rolled my eyes at his complete and total disregard for the value of our time. "Yes, I'm directing my words to you, Alexis!" he clarified.

At this point, Cool Guy came to my defense. "Anyone who just rolled their eyes [sic], raise your hands. . .  Be honest." Almost half the class raised their hands, some presumably because they actually had rolled their eyes. The others were acting in solidarity against a totalitarian regime.  The professor ignored them.

"Why did you have to call me young lady'?" I asked him.

"You have a problem with being called 'young lady'?" he questioned me. "I've never even heard of anyone being offended by being called "young lady." That's a new one for me."

"Probably because you don't often refer to medical school students as such," Kal Penn interjected. "Young lady is something a person calls a female child when the person is reprimanding her."

"If the shoe fits. . . " the professor opined.

"It doesn't," I countered in my most monotone voice, all the while maintaining eye contact with the lecturing professor and exercising utmost caution not to roll my eyes again. "The shoe is too small."  

"So what would you prefer to be called?" the lecturing professor asked pointedly. I assumed his question was rhetorical. "I'm waiting for your answer," he told me. Meanwhile, the more easily amused among us were babbling asinine things like "I slit a sheet. A sheet I slit," thoroughly mangling their tongue twisters and saying the sh- word all over the place in the process, then laughing hysterically as though they were second-graders.

I continued to stare at him, channeling my inner Aubrey Plaza, though being extremely careful not to roll my eyes, as I pondered his question. He eventually looked away. For the record, it's the same professor who, months ago, questioned my used of the words debacle and fiasco, and who also asked my brother about my religion. (Matthew told him I was starting my own church.) After a moment, i answered, "Alexis would be perfectly acceptable, as would either Cutthroat Bitch or Madame Rousseau. Take your pick."

He declined to state his preference. Time will tell. For the record, this lecturer doesn't assign grades to us. Duh. I may be a bit stupid at times, but I'm not going to slit my own throat.

My phone has been non-functioning because someone created several bogus Twitter accounts, linked my cell phone number to all of them, and turned on notifications to a whole bunch of the people she followed using the bogus Twitter accounts. The moron was dumb enough to follow only people whom she followed on her for-real twitter account, so it was easy enough to find her. After complaining to the Twitter people, I took it up with her brother, who initially denied her involvement, but then said he would see to it that she ceases and desists.

Her awesomeness is incomparable.