The Tao of Eccentric Academia

One of the professors for one of my classes uses tootsie rolls as both a reward and a punishment in an oddly similar way.

Pay attention in class and answer questions, and he rewards you by digging into his bucket of tootsie rolls and throwing a handful of them at you.

If he catches you dozing off, he punishes you by digging into his bucket of tootsie rolls and whipping them at you. You awake to the image of a distinguished academic with a prominent name tag dangling from his neck pelting you with halloween candy.

Did I mention that we all wear name tags?

For these reasons and more this is probably my favourite class ever.



On a related note, if one watches the famous Tootsie Roll commercial, aside from getting the feeling that Mr. Owl is kind of a dick, something else becomes apparent. If you look carefully "Mr. Owl" is clearly wearing a mortarboard (Graduation hat).



So, maybe this entirely explains Mr. Owl being a bit of a jerk. Because maybe Mr. Owl, isn't "Mr. Owl" at all. Maybe hes "Dr. Owl" or at least "Prof. Owl". So maybe when that insubordinate brat addressed him as Mister Owl, Doctor/Professor Owl decided that he didn't spend six years of his life working on his Ph.D. thesis and another three years in a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at one of the most prestigious academic institutions of owl-dom to be called "Mister" by some snot nosed kid that has trouble counting and took a bite out of that Tootsie Roll pop. Maybe if that commercial had gone on for a few seconds longer Prof. Owl would have flown down from his perch and slapped the kid for being disrespectful.