Montreal, November 24th: How to Get a Prof a Coffee (and then get invited to lunch!): Alex Style

When normal people want to get their profs/advisors coffee, it usually goes something like this:

1. Go to coffeeshop/coffeemaker

2. Get coffee

3. Give coffee to prof.

But when you're me, it goes like this:

(Timestamps are approximate.)

START

10:30am: go to AUS snax after Leacock lecture to buy Prof. a coffee - literally the moment it was brewed: nice, organic, brown sugar, fair trade, etc. (since she bought me one before and I wanted to return the favour) Buy myself identical coffee.

10:35. Consume own coffee while it fuels my walk up the Peel Hell...er....I mean Hill ;).

10:45: go to her office. The door is wide open. See this as a sign of "coming back in a second". Put coffee on her desk sneakily. Pray nobody thinks I'm stealing from her. Write on "muff" (heat protection thingie): "from your secret admirer".

10:47: Become apprehensive about having just placed the coffee on her desk without her being there. Feared she would be creeped out/suspicious/angry that I had entered her office in her absence. Feared it would be misconstrued as trespassing. Had nightmarish scenarios already concocted in my head about how mad/freaked out she would be.  Go to the Physiology office one floor down. Ask them if she would be okay given her door is open. They tell me she would be delighted about the gesture.

10:50: Check her office. She is still not there.

10:55: Lose patience. Proceed to physiology society office (our makeshift "lounge".)

11:00: Check her office. Same thing as before. Worry about coffee getting too cold.

11:10: Check coffee. It's way too cold

11:12: place in microwave with cap on. Stupid.

11:14: since pv=nrt, coffee exploded all over microwave.

11:15: Try to salvage what is still left. Only about half.

11:17: clean up microwave mess.

11:23: PULS exec finds that there are still a few drops of coffee on the floor. Oops! I fail.

11:25: Place half-filled coffee on Prof's desk hoping she doesn't notice its only half full because it's capped. Remove insulating buff due to its soppy wetness and smudged sharpie note. Leave note instead apologizing that Secret Admirer forgot that PV=nRT.

11:45: Another PULS exec tells me that giving her a 1/2 filled cup of coffee is a BAAD idea. Remove coffee from office, again hoping no one sees me sneaking into her office and assumes the worst. A grad student sees me. I explain myself, heart beating tachycardially. He assures me he watched the whole thing and thought it was cute.

11:50: Go to secretary for physio's office, one floor down. Find out Prof. is in fact in, in a class till 12:30. Find out the coffee machine in the secretary's office needs 1$ for coffee. Realize I'm broke. Think "I hope she doesn't mind half-full coffee, or assume I drank the other half."

11:55: go back upstairs to PULS office.

12:10: Find out that, eureka, they have a coffee machine. But I need to actually MAKE the coffee. Uh oh. I fail at technology. Put in too many beans, beans spill everywhere.

12:15: clean mess.

12:16: PULS president, along with rest of council, who saw me make a fool out of myself, end up making coffee for me and helping me clean mess.

12:30: Coffee is made. Pour half of brew in old coffee cup (which is miraculously dry) to mix with other half from before. Realize there's no milk or sugar. Fuck. (Consider drinking other half of fresh brew out of sheer exhaustion from the ordeal.)

12:35: Place new coffee on top of old note (pv=nrt one) in her office.

12:40 pm: Hear elevator from PULS office (across from Prof's). Think: "this might be Prof..."

12:45: Check her office. It was indeed the Prof. Pop in to make sure she realizes that the coffee was not from someone who is trying to poison her. See coffee is already half-drunk. She is happy. She loves black coffee anyway. Win.

12:50: Prof says how tired she is and how needed that coffee was. I said I was worried she had already had her morning coffee. She assures me that to her, "morning coffee" is plural anyway. This is her fourth today. Oh dear. Looks like grad school had lasting effects on her body's internal appraisal of homeostasis (Maintenance of her 'Milieu Interieur" requires a bajillion mOsms caffeine at all times for ATP utilization to occur in her G-protein coupled A-type receptors, inhibiting adenosine - an NT that makes you feel tired, which is being produced in excess as compensation for prolonged supression due to caffeine abuse - rendering her able to function...God, I love physiology!!).

1:00. Prof invites me to lunch. She offers to pay. I refuse to let her and eat my yummy chicken soup leftovers instead. Bless her soul ;p

END

Now, in a typical Pirsigian fashion (I want to model the style of this blog after Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - awesome book, totally recommend it!) I would like to throw in some philosophy into the narrative.

Why did I get this prof coffee? Well, I felt the need to do something kind for her. She consistently blows me away with her kindness and generosity of spirit. In fact, the first time I visited her for a prolonged period of time, I told her in advance that I was coming to see her. When I got there, I found out she had bought me coffee, which really touched me. I didn't understand why she was being so nice to me, but I couldn't complain. A prof had never been this generous and nice to me before. Heart is such a beautiful thing in this world where people are so keen on hiding it in fear of appearing syrupy or weak. I don't think demonstrative heart is a sign of weakness- I feel it is a sign of strength.

I am not a perfect person. I know I have a good heart underneath it all, but sometimes, things like assertiveness, eagerness, ambition, intellectualism, and being refined, can overshadow it, kind of like clouds covering the sun on an overcast day. A good person strives to see the good in people. A good person makes an effort to find the sun underneath the clouds, or at least keeps themselves aware of its presence at all times. People look at me and think, "Who the hell does she think she is? The Center of the Universe?" Though others might think: "Wow! She goes after what she wants! I wish I was like that. God bless!" 

See, it is my experience that people tend to like to see the negative in people because:

1. It makes them feel better about themselves in comparison

2. They see qualities in the people which remind them of what they dislike in themselves.

3. They have self-esteem issues and feel threatened.

4. They are afraid of people unlike them.

5. They want to appear exclusive and not have their friendship taken for granted. For example, I don't know about you, but with excessively kind and polite people (who are not, however, completely genuine like the Prof), I tend to wonder whether they genuinely like me or are only nice to me because they are like that with everyone. Some people just like it when people feel like they earned their friendship, like they have the luxury of choice.

6. The person has a quality they WISH they had in themselves. For example, someone could see an assertive person as "who does she think she is?" because they know they are too cowardly to ever be as forward. They are regretting missed opportunities, but fear being assertive as they fear OTHERS judging them the same way they are judging others - i.e. "who does she think she is?! The NERVE of her!"

Resentment is an inevitable part of human nature that could creep up at any given moment. The key is to never let it manifest itself. To always realize that it is irrational and unwarranted, that the person did nothing to deserve these feelings, that all human beings are deserving of love and respect. 

What I value most about people is non-judgmental, indiscriminate kindness because it's so hard to achieve.  This professor seems to exhibit this beautifully. In fact, on the day she bought me coffee, we talked for five hours - much of which, I admit, was spent on me worrying about never getting into med school. I feel so bad she had to endure it and admire her so much for still liking me in spite of my self-centered diatribes. I realized she believes in being kind to everyone, no matter what. She believes in universal love - that everyone deserves to be heard and appreciated for their good points - that good heart underneath the clouds that is inherent in most people. I realized that she enjoyed our conversation because she likes helping people, she is the type of person to always look for the sun in overcast weather (and in me, while it could be obscured, it's not very hard to find). Most profs would despise me for being so driven and obsessed with getting into medical school, laughing at how immature I sound and rolling their eyes at yet another med hopeful in physiology (snicker, snicker, snicker), but not her. She showed me only gentle kindness and not only tolerance, but appreciation. She is a profoundly noble person whose heart I only wish I could model my own after. A heart full of jolly love and free of manifested resentment.

And yet, she still continued to pursue a friendship, even though I didn't understand why. She saw me at my worst - overworked, under-appreciated, fresh after getting the shittiest mark of my university career (BIOL 200 phail), and thus worried about my future. I realized that she saw the sun.To her,  I was a kind and noble person with good intentions who was simply misled and required guidance. She was honest with me about the irrationality of my thoughts, but gentle enough about so as not to make me feel as if it reflected any inherent weakness or despicable quality. She told me that she was advising me as if she would advise her own children, which meant a lot to me and really put me at ease. I realized what an amazing example she is to all, and how important it is to always see the sun - to choose lovingkindness over hateful resentment. 

I would like you to consider an exercise. Think up a list of as many positive qualities as you can. Then, try to match up each quality with its negative converse. Then, do the same for negative qualities.

Example:

GOOD/BAD

assertive/nervy, sweet/syrupy, particular/snobby, powerful/intimidating, refined (or dignified)/condescending, smart/nerdy, loyal/persistent, outgoing/obnoxious, honest/brutal, ambitious/ruthless, affectionate/needy, intellectual/pedantic. 

As you can see, the same quality could be viewed in a good light and or a bad light, depending on the lens through which it is seen. What good does disliking people - shunning them from our lives, do? Shouldn't we be trying to expand our circle, to open our hearts to whoever is receptive to their warmth? Sure, one might feel the rush of approval when one shares a negative thought about another person to someone else, whose agreement may provide a fleeting moment of bonding, but is it really worth it? Is excluding someone to make ourselves feel more powerful and desired really worth it? To me, it's like a mind-altering drug - it might provide a temporary high but the damage is lasting and unhealthy to both ourselves (our conscience, if we have one) and others. Do we want to propagate such hate and exclusivity? What is more important - some superficial fleeting moment of "bonding", or keeping the world a loving and appreciative place? To me, the answer is obvious.

 I don't know about you, but if I'm angry with someone, I try my best to see the sun, and the first and ONLY person who will be made aware of this discontent/criticism is THAT PERSON, through ME. Cowardice and desire for that superfluous high of so called "approval" or "belonging", I believe, are major obstacles in the way of achieving a better world, so it is imperative to be aware of how to curb them. In fact, I feel like we could get even closer to people, and belong even more, by drawing attention to the positives in people and seeking to expand our circle. 

I believe we can learn a great deal from our elders if we give them the time of day. This professor taught me to be loving and to appreciate everyone for their strengths. She restored my faith in the professorial race - seriously! She has such a beautiful loving heart - so transparent, so genuine, so sincere, and so refreshing to see! Her dedication and overflowing love for all those around her is just remarkable! And I'm not saying this only from personal experience or rose-coloured glasses - it seems everyone I mention her to shares these sentiments and more.

 This is why I wanted to get her the coffee. Because she is so kind to everyone else, she deserves kindness in return. She inspires me to be a good person, and I could already feel her impact in the way I treat others.

So Professor, if you are reading this, know that I feel honoured that you have decided to begin a friendship. You truly never cease to amaze me with both your intelligence and your immense goodwill to all. I don't understand why you seem to take a particular liking to me (I know and appreciate that you sometimes linger around after class in anticipation of our chats!) but I feel so blessed that you do.

My heart is currently overflowing with joy right now at the very existence of these people, and with gratitude for the kindness this prof has show me. Never be afraid to love and be kind, as love is always a good thing. Caring is always a good thing. Showing warmth is not a sign of weakness - it's a sign of strength, of not caring about what people think of you. I especially appreciate it when I see these qualities in a man, as it is so rare as some feel it compromises their "manliness". There are a few men (you know who you are!) whom I am fortunate to know, who do possess these qualities, my very own father included. What others think of you should always take a backseat to love.

Everyone, if you could do me one favour, it's to show the kind and generous people out there some encouragement - show them that we appreciate what they do for humankind. Do something kind for them in return - and pay it forward! Seeing that beaming smile on Prof's face after she got the coffee made it so worthwhile and special. Try it and see for yourself.

And never forget to keep your eye on the sun (but try not to let yourself get blinded, either) :)

Love,

Alex

p.s. i know I sound like a goddamn hippie. But I was in a goddamn hippie mood when I wrote this. Peace, man!! <3