BEDA 15: It's the last day.

This is a little overdue, but let's ignore that.

As I write this, it's the night before my last ever day of class in university. I almost didn't realise this until like ten minutes ago, and now that it has dawned on me, I haven't decide how I should feel about it. I've been grappling with the idea of finally being done with my undergraduate degree and leaving university for the past semester, often with a rollercoaster of emotions alongside it. But right now - it's just blank. It feels like it should be another day, but the fact is - it's not. In fact, it's pretty momentous. With the exception of sitting for two exams, I never have to set foot in a lecture hall as an undergrad ever again.

I think the main question that I need answered right now is: Where the hell did the last 3 years and 3 months go to? And how the hell did I find myself about to embark into the working world as a... *gasp* adult?

It's weird. It feels like I've outgrown the place, but at the same time, I want so much to cling onto the comfort and familiarity of this place where I've spent so much time in. Where I've learnt, and grown. Made mistakes and friends. Cried and complained. It's been the ups and downs. And in the end, it's the last day and I'll have to bid goodbye to "the best years" of my life.

In the end, the memories have been made and it's time to go. Tomorrow changes nothing.

Some of you have graduated already. Did you feel like your last day was momentous?

BEDA 14: Neville and Luna: an excuse to talk about The Lord of the Rings

So I was in a conversation recently about the semi-canon ship that is Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood. I need not go into details: we all know them. But something new occurred to me about this pairing, namely that they are incredibly similar to the Lord of the Rings coupling of Eowyn and Faramir.

So my thinking goes like this:
Faramir is the younger brother. He is least favoured, and loves his elder brother dearly, not begrudging him the limelight. Through story he grows into himself, earns the love of everyone through great deeds, and in the aftermath finds himself in the company of Eowyn.

Eowyn is an oddity. Cast in a female role in a male dominated world, she wants to fight. Determined to do her own thing against social wisdom, she succeeds with the help of a few friends. Having fought and proven herself against the most fell of opponents, she finds herself in the company of Faramir.

Now whether or not a pairing of these two underdogs is suitable or not is up for debate. I personally like the pairing, but can't say why. Certainly when I first read the chapter in The Return of the King devoted to them I was slightly bored, and then decided that it was a neat tying of loose ends. But then, I was probably about 9 and mostly wanted to get back to some action.

But are they Neville and Luna?
Neville is certainly in a younger brother position in the story. Despite being an only child, he is almost explicitly cast as an alternative to Harry. Despite being, early on, something of a 'loser', he is always loyal to Harry, never begrudging him the limelight. Through the story he grows into himself, earns the love of everyone through great deeds, and in the aftermath, of the films at least, finds himself in the company of Luna.

Luna is an oddity. She is always determined to do her own thing against social wisdom, and although Eowyn's general unhappiness in life is more clearly shown, we see in Luna's bedroom a glimpse of just how much she needed the friends she made in Dumbledore's Army. She succeeds, and proves herself to everyone, and in the aftermath, of the films at least, finds herself in the company of Neville.

So if you want some inspiration for.... Luville? Nena? Read that chapter of The Return of the King about Faramir and Eowyn. I can't remember which chapter it is, and the books are upstairs, and I really need to do some studying...

BEDA #13: Superhero Movies and DC

So I saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier last night, and it got me thinking about superhero movies and stuff about DC and Marvel, so I thought I'd talk a little bit about them..

Big disclaimer here: These are my opinions. I am going to be blunt about them because I get pretty passionate about these movies. It's perfectly fine if you like a movie that I didn't or if you disagree with me on certain points. Also, keep in mind that my knowledge of comics comes mostly from the movies and a little bit of research for fun. I haven't really read DC or Marvel comics. I am a fan of both DC and Marvel by the way, so this isn't a partisan attack for either side.

Also, there will probably be spoilers here, besides Captain America: The Winter Soldier probably because that just came out, but I'm just warning you that if you care about spoilers for past superhero movies, then DO NOT READ FURTHER!


Now then...

I loved the new Captain America movie. It's better than the original, which I liked as well. If you like superhero movies, I recommend it because the events that occur during it will shape the landscape of Marvel movies for years to come.

But something is really bothering me. Almost all the good superhero movies that have come out recently have been Marvel. Where is DC?

Marvel is a movie making machine. They are like rabbits multiplying. Not only that, but most of their recent superhero movies have been great. Sure there have been some hiccups. *cough* Iron Man 3 *cough* But for the most part, Marvel has been solid, and more than that, they have a well orchestrated plan of attack and they have delivered. They have movies planned into the next decade at least!

So I ask again, where is DC? What in the world are they doing that's so important that they've let Marvel had the field all to themselves?

Another Batman movie. Another Superman movie.

Marvel may have had its screw ups, but they at least are zooming around the track and have their head in the game. DC hasn't even put its foot on the gas pedal.

Why do I say this? Do I hate Batman or Superman? No! But look at what Marvel is doing with it's movies and now its TV show Agents of Shield, they are creating a universe with stories that are intimately linked to one another and broadening their scope to give even their lesser known heroes and villains a place in their shared universe. Ten years, no one seriously thought that Marvel could make an Avengers movie work. There are just two many pieces you have to movie together, and if it falls flat then you've ruined your chance at making it for at least a generation.

Then Iron Man happened. It was a great film in its own right and established the character well. Then after the credits, out of nowhere, Samuel Jackson appeared to tell Tony Stark about the Avengers Initiative. All bets were off and it was going to happen. Marvel was going to try to do the impossible, and you know what? They did it. The Avengers was awesome and they continue to impress with their boldness, especially after the second Captain America movie.

On the other hand, DC hasn't made a non-Batman or Superman movie in decades besides Green Lantern (and that movie sucked). Why? Because they're scared. They know that if they keep remaking Batman every few years, they will rake in millions because of the Batman brand. Same with Superman, even if the movies are terrible. They have been totally unwilling to branch out to other equally popular DC heroes because they might not make quite as much money as if they just stuck with their two cash cows. They aren't taking risks and Marvel knows it. They're rubbing it in their faces.

Here's an example: Wonder Woman. How great would it be if DC came out with a Wonder Woman movie that rocked? They would blow everything out of the water. The one thing Marvel has yet to do it make a movie with a strong female lead. Black Widow may be a kickass female character, but she has never been the center of the action. If done well, a Wonder Woman movie would make huge amounts of money for DC because you'd get all the regulars to these kinds of movies, but Wonder Woman could potentially draw in a huge female audience that Black Widow just doesn't because Wonder Woman is a much better role model for little girls and teens. Besides, Wonder Woman has a rich backstory that could be used in so many cool ways. How has DC responded to this in the past? They've said they can't do it right now because they "want to get it right".

Meanwhile, Marvel's next movie, The Guardians of the Galaxy, stars a talking raccoon and a living tree. And it's going to be awesome. DC you really can't make a movie about a hero with lady parts? Really? Come on.

I understand their desire to get the movie right, but that doesn't give them a blanket excuse to never make a movie that doesn't star Batman or Superman. At some point DC, you have to get off your ass take the leap of faith. Your fans will reward you.

I have some hope that they will be taking this advice, given that they have a Wonder Woman cast for Man of Steel 2, but it's really not enough. Step out of the box you've placed yourself in. The water's fine. I know you can do better. I want you to do better. You have a vast array of superheroes and villains to work with and there's plenty of story to tell that doesn't include Batman or Superman.

I wanted to talk about DC's most recent flub titled, That One Time They Tried to Make Superman an Emo Teenager (a.k.a. Man of Steel), but I've already typed a bunch and I am hungry. Maybe next time.

Some incoherent thoughts (from places?)

This morning I took a walk, as I do almost every morning, but this particular time I was on the hunt for something pretty rare: silence. I did this week’s art assignment, and the task was to go out and find the quietest place in your neighborhood. This was pretty easy for me, due to the fact that I live in the middle of nowhere, as they call it. But it got me to think about all the places, I’ve been, and their sounds.

Maybe it’s because I just got back from Greece, where I travelled around the Peleponnesos by bus with a gang of twenty twenty-something nerds. The last time I’d been on a study trip had been when I was seventeen, and as it turns out, teenage people constantly produce noise, so when I woke up when we were driving last week, I was startled that I didn’t hear anything. I looked around, and most of my classmates were sleeping, or silently reading a book, or having whispered conversations about their stance on the Homer debate. It made me really happy. I guess that’s one of the perks of travelling with nerds.

But then again, I spend most of my time in Amsterdam, a city filled with so many different sounds that it’s hard to determine what’s what: Passing cars, bikes, scooters, footsteps, voices, ringing noises, sighs, music, air. And then the other cities I’ve been: Rome, London, Berlin, Antwerp, Liverpool. They’re all pretty much the same, noise-wise, except perhaps the languages you hear. (I can only think of one exception to this rule: I once sat in the Kop stands of Anfield stadium at a Liverpool football match, and the sounds I heard there were simply majestic. Thousands and thousands of people, mostly grown-up men were singing so loud that the entire space was booming. It was beautiful. Even though they also yelled a lot of curse words.)

I’d say there’s at least as much art in loud cities as there was in the field I ended up in this morning, which was very pretty. If you want to see it, I videotaped it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC981DW16x0&feature=youtu.be

Anxiety Presentations

Today I shall tell you about my most recent presentation experience.

On Tuesday we had a Science Day at our university. That sounds like a big deal but it isn't. In fact, I am fairly sure that despite publicizing, no one else knows about it besides the people attending the Popularizing Science course. Which is a course that I am indeed attending. The goal was to talk about a sciencey thing, like your own thesis, in a way that would be interesting and understandable to a layman audience – Science Day being open for all. Popularized science, sort of like Sci-Show – though I think they occasionally use more jargon than would be encouraged in a presentation like this.

Anyways, I was to speak about crystal skulls for about 20 minutes. I was pretty nervous. I hadn't practiced much and I wasn't even sure whether my presentation was any good, though I had written a word for word script of what I would say, even trying to add humorous tone in places. I tested it on my mother who started questioning the way I spoke (”Do you always speak in such a mixture of literal and dialect?” * ”Do you do this intentionally or...?”) and the fact that I had to repeat a guy's name several times during the presentation. Since his name is a hyphenated combo my mother thought I was repeating both the first and last names of the person. And I felt the little touch of humorous tone I had written also sounded like crap. So this really did not boost my confidence all that much the evening before the presentation.

Before the presentations, a woman sitting near me started having a chat with me (this course is odd, with these people who seem to just start chatting up with people they don't know, saying friendly good mornings and all. I am not used to this!). She was nervous about her presentation as well. Though her worries were about shaking and fainting while mine were related to forgetting things, making slip-ups and staring at my paper too much. But, during our chat, I started to fixate on another worry: what if I sound like the driest speaker ever. No humor, just monotonic reading off my notes. I thought back to all the most horrendous presentations I'd seen before. Then I realized that I hadn't actually held a presentation all alone during the whole time I've spent at the university. Which is actually pretty amazing – just, how? But really, not the best thing to realize right before a presentation.

I was not actually as scared of performing as I thought I would be, especially as a person who has become more shy over the years and likely suffers from social anxiety. I think I was numbing myself in some sort of self defense. No idea really. I just know I felt weird and my mind was trying to assure itself that no outsiders would bother showing up, and that no one in there cared. Of course my mind also nagged back about trying to lull itself into a false sense of security. But really, a presentation just happens one time, something horrendous happening didn't even cross my mind, surprisingly enough.

The thing that really made me nervous was the fact that the teacher was going to record us and we will have to watch the videos of ourselves performing and write an analysis about it. Presentations happen once. I can forget about them. I can't see myself and I seem to forget what I'm saying as I'm saying it because of the off numbness. See I generally have a problem where I over analyze just about every social interaction I have, I find that one flaw and it will bother me till the day I die. I might stay up nights thinking about it. And when I feel particularly down, while trying to sleep, suddenly I remember all of these little things whether I want to or not. This is what social anxiety does to me. On top of this, I have body image issues.

So what I am saying is that I am scared to death of watching a recording of myself do the presentation. I'm worried that I will find all the flaws I hadn't before, and that I will roll them in my head over and over again. I will be thoroughly embarrassed by them and then I'm going to actually be terrified of holding a presentation ever again. Rational or not. The ironic thing will be that this is the exact opposite of what the recording is supposed to do. A part of the point of us watching the recording is that we will see that our nervousness doesn't show. This is supposed to make us feel better about performing. I am just hoping that I will go numb again and just push through it, which is probably what I am going to do since I do have to do this in order to pass the course.

I think the actual presentation went well, though! I got a positive experience out of it (which is also a part of the reason I don't want to ruin it by watching the recording). Turns out I barely looked at my notes and I didn't end up being dry and monotonic. Something about the situation made me able to have the humorous tone in a natural way, even throwing in some added comments. I got chuckles out of the audience, which felt great. It was just easier to play off of a real audience, well, at least this particular audience. What was even better was that when it was time for questions, I got asked the questions I had hoped would be asked, because I couldn't fit the information in the actual presentation in a way that would make sense, and it bugged me. I also actually remembered things and sounded like I knew what I was talking about, unlike I had feared. The written feedback I got was also positive. The main critique was that I had too much text on some slides, which was something I was already fully aware of and didn't mind.

The thing that I would like to solve though, is that my mouth gets really dry during presentations or when I'm nervous. It makes it harder to speak when the inside of your lip wants to cling to your teeth like a desperate koala bear and your tongue feels like it's passed that cow skull every desert seems to have for the fifth time. I think I might actually have to start using a water bottle, though I'm not sure even that will help.

So. If you ever want to know something about crystal skulls... don't ask me. I've written two articles about them, I have talked about them with my friends, and I have held two presentations about them, as well as watched two shitty documentaries about them more often than I would have liked to, making me pretty sick of talking about them. My written feedback mistook this for me being passionate about the subject. I am not. It just happens to be an easy subject for me.

Okay, fine, you can ask me. Mitchell-Hedges was an amusing character and I will talk about him.

Do you have any worst/best presentation experiences to share? Do you get extremely anxious about presentations?

*Spoken Finnish is, in most regions, different from written. Speaking completely grammatically correct Finnish sounds weird to most, including me. Also, we do not have accents, we have dialects.

Student Government

So I don't know how things work at all of your schools, but here we have a student government called ASUC (Associated Students of the University of California). They are comprised of a President, Vice President, a few other positions I can't remember, and a 20-member senate.

We've been having elections this week; they actually end at midnight tonight. So everyone running and their supporters have been pestering all their friends to vote for them, to care about their platforms, etc. And I'm honestly very disenchanted by it all.

Here at UC Berkeley we pay completely ridiculous amounts of money for a less-than-useful degree...

We have a UC President whose work experience involved Homeland Security, aka deporting thousands of immigrants, separating them from their families, sometimes killing them at the border and leaving them unidentified...

http://www.dailycal.org/2013/07/16/against-the-napolitano-nomination/

And I hear most of the candidates go up there and say "Our school is great! Let's have school spirit! Let's improve the room reservation system! Let's hold people accountable! Let's be transparent! Let's make positive change!"

It feels like the students here who have power don't want to use it to really change the shitty stuff going on. Which is making me pretty upset, if you can't tell. And the same people are going to keep getting elected, because they have the time to run for office, because they don't have to work, because their parents make enough to send them here. And because they're the popular cool kids.

Hahahaha I am very frustrated about all this

Do you guys have student governments and are they similarly artificial?

BEDA #9: Favourite Directors and Filmography

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this post in the last few days and I've come to a conclusion. I do not have one favourite director... I have multiple.

So here goes nothing:

Honourable Mention: The German Expressionist Movement.

Not a director... but a movement in film history.

I love this stuff. While the US was busily trying to make movie magic make sense and be as close to real life as possible, the crazy German filmmakers decided, you know what. Let's take our crazy fever dreams and put them up on the big silver screen.

German Expressionist film is obsessed with light versus dark and good versus evil.It's characterized by it's wacky sets and overacting. These guys were so dedicated to creating their dark and twisted worlds they went as far as painting objects shadows on the ground because they couldn't manipulate the light to do what they wanted.

German Expressionism went on to influence Hollywood popping up in things like detective movies and influencing current directors like Tim Burton.
 
I RECOMMEND: Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr Calligari & Metropolis

Christopher Nolan

I really like Nolan's obsession with gritty city scapes. The first movie I ever saw by Christopher Nolan was Memento. It had been recommended to me by a few people when I first started making noise that I wanted to go into film. It wasn't until my first year at university did I finally sit down and watch it.

Stop and think about movies for a moment. There is a certain language to cinema that we're all fairly accustomed to. As a viewer you know that if the screen is showing a man looking at something and then it cuts to an object that it is telling you: hey, that man is looking at that object. As we've grown up with movies and tv we've been taught this language.

In Memento Nolan throws all of that out the window. The story is told backwards, trust me it makes a lot of sense when you watch it. At the same time it always reminds me of this xkcd comic:

http://xkcd.com/270/

Since the Batman movies, Nolan hasn't really done anything too experimental. The closest he's come to that being Inception, but that was more story than playing with the actual medium of film. I'm interested to see what he comes up with now that he's able to go off and do his own stuff again. Only time will tell.

I RECOMMEND: Inception, Memento

Guillermo del Toro

I love del Toro's style. I don't even know how to put it into words. Pan's Labyrinth got me through my Lord of the Rings withdrawal in high school. I love how he uses symbolism throughout the film. I'm not going to go too much into Pan's Labyrinth now and save that for my next post, look at that all of my posts are starting to connect! 

del Toro is passionate about what he does and his passion shines through in his movies. Look at Pacific Rim. That film new exactly what it was, it was giant robots fighting giant monsters. It was big, it was dumb and it was lots of fun. If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend you watch this one on a large screen to get the full experience.

I RECOMMEND: Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy 2 & Pacific Rim

Stanley Kubrick

Kubrick directed my favourite film in the whole wide world: Full Metal Jacket. I don't generally like war movies but my fourth year seminar was in war in fiction and film and because of that I've developed a grudging respect for the genre. I was assigned to give a presentation on combat film with a list of movies I needed to look at. I had watched FMJ before, but it had been years. Over the course of my research I watched the film at least four times. On my final watch through, the night before the presentation I was sitting on my couch almost in a trance from exhaustion and that's when I saw it. I saw the pattern of the shots in the film, the poetry of scene length, and how everything blended together into one perfect whole.

Stanley Kubrick was a perfectionist when it came to his films.There are many stories about how he harassed his actors (read anything about the Shining) and how they would spend days only focuses on specific scenes.

It's really cool to spot the influences that 2001 still has on science fiction movies.

2001 A Space Odyssey on the left and Elysium on the right

I RECOMMEND: Full Metal Jacket, 2001 A Space Odyssey & Dr. Stangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

BEDA #8: Question Tuesday!

Best and worst thing about being a ginger?
The worst thing is definitely the sun burns! I spend 15 minutes in the sun and I turn the color of a tomato, and I'm only slightly exaggerating!
The best thing is probably all of the people telling my how much they love the color of my gorgeous auburn puff. It happens at least a couple of times a week and it's usually little old ladies.
Funny story: when I was very young, 3-5 years old I think, my mom took me tot he grocery store and a couple of nuns came up to me to tell me that they loved my hair, and in response I did an impression of a T-Rex, my favorite dinosaur, by rawring at them like a T-Rex and putting up my fingers like claws and that freaked them out. (This also relates to what job I wanted when I was a kid, which I'll come back to in a sec.)

How is your Nanowrimo story going?
Not as well as I'd like. I have only 2100 words right now... Encouragement? :)

What are your hobbies?
I like writing, obviously otherwise I'd be even more crazy to subject myself to Nanowrimo, but I also really like to watch the show Arrow. It's really good.

Pie or Cake?
Cake! Though it's got to be dairy free.


What was your least favorite subject in high school?
My least favorite subject in high school was math, but specifically Algebra 2/Trig. I had a horrible teacher who thought I was insubordinate and who refused to give me any help when I was floundering in her class because I was "passive-aggressive." I had a 504 which was a documented physical disability, which allowed me to get extra time on tests and she refused to let me get extra time, so I was failing her tests because I wasn't finishing them, until I got retested to make sure I actually needed it (Spoiler alert: after several multi-hour tests on weekends, we figured out that my fine motor skill issues didn't fix themselves). Then after that she treated me like I was a toddler who couldn't understand English. It was humiliating, so yeah. I hated that class and I didn't particularly enjoy math to begin with.

Weirdly, I didn't enjoy English classes very much until my senior year of high school and college. Just goes to show you that things change!


What was the first thing you remember ever wanting to be when you grew up?
I desperately wanted to become a paleontologist when I was five. I knew everything there was to know about dinosaurs and I had watched all the documentaries ever made on dinosaurs. Jurassic Park then scared the crap out of me in the first thirty seconds. I still wanted to be a paleontologist for a while, but I eventually lost almost all of my knowledge about dinosaurs sadly.

Super hero or Super villain?

THOR! ... ahem. Superhero. :)

BEDA #7:***!ANIME!***

So for the majority of my life, I was one of those people who refused to watch anime because I was intimidated by the stereotype of an animated show with tennis ball-eyed school girls, consistently loud, passionate dialogue, and generally odd ball scenes where you start to wonder, "Why are these vegetables committing suicide?"(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzEQ1n7EHPM)   However, college has made me more open-minded to other nerd cultures and, after watching a few, I have come to find that they're actually right up my alley.  So far I've only really ventured into action anime, but who knows, maybe I'll soon find the courage to watch My Bride is a Mermaid.

I started with Cowboy Bebop, which seems like a decent gateway anime.  It's pretty much the animated Japanese version of Firefly, but instead of Nathan Fillion doing what Nathan Fillion does, the rag-tag space crew is led by super cool Spike, a crime syndicate member turned good-guy bounty hunter.  It lacks the extremely crazy bits of the genre, but maintains the comedic anime touches in healthy sprinkles.  Probably one of the best parts about that show is the Jazz theme, which can be seen in the titles and heard throughout the soundtrack.  Tank! is one of the best theme songs I've ever heard, and the title sequence immediately sold me on watching. Also, Ein is the most adorable animated corgi on the planet so bonus.

Go dance to this now.

My next show choice was Fullmetal Alchemist, both FMA and Brotherhood, which focus on two brother alchemists trying to recover things lost to an alchemic transaction gone wrong, all while mastering their "science" and eventually playing a huge role in saving humanity. FMA (the first series to be made) captivated my attention quickly.  It is much heavier in subject matter but makes up for it by adding a lot more comedic relief, mostly in the form of making fun of Edward's height.  Side note, is Edward a popular anime name?  I've seen it in at least 3 different shows so far.  Anyway, FMA is excellent, but Brotherhood just blows it out of the water.  The last season is non-stop intensity until the second to last episode. (My face was all : OOOOOOOOOOO)

Characters of FMA:Brotherhood

I just started Attack on Titan, which immediately got dark (much like FMA), although the mood is (so far) always in battle mode, especially since the main character bursts with rage every 5 minutes.  His sister is much more quiet but waaaaaay more of a badass.  This is one of those shows where it gets so intense that sometimes serious scenes turn into comic relief just because you're so on edge and you need something that isn't death, lordy.  Also the Titans (gigantor human-looking beings who would like the taste of crow (for all those who saw the GOT season 4 premiere) ) are flapjackin' terrifying with their big smiles. 

Creepy as hell.

So in review, this is what I've learned about anime:

1. There are a lot of flashbacks to one pivotal event

2. There are a lot of title sequences featuring upbeat Japanese rock over intense fighting sequences

3. There is a lot of passionate yelling

4. Sometimes weird things happen but if you accept it you can fully realize the brilliance behind them

5. Things can fluctuate from intense to corny in the blink of an eye and a lot of times without warning

6. Blood has a tendency to explode rather than squirt or leak in a more natural way

7. Physics isn't a thing

8. Eyes

9. Bangs

10. Little Chibi versions of characters everywhere

11. The shiny glasses thing (you know what I'm talking about)

I would love to know what anime you all are in to, and please send recommendations my way for both anime and manga!

BEDA #6 Thoughts from a tutor

On and off for the past two years, I've tutored students who are retaking subjects that they had failed, as well as current students conducting their own research. But that was always one-to-one or small groups. For the past three months on the other hand, I've been a part-time graduate tutor - teaching tutorials to groups of 10-15 students. It's good fun, and can be very intrinsically fulfilling if you're into imparting knowledge and those sort of things. But it can also be extremely frustrating when you can't get through to someone, or nobody ever answers you in class. These are some things that have popped into my head at least once in the last three months. 

When everyone seems stupid

" Stupid people should not be allowed to procreate" 

" How did you ever get into university?"

" JUST. READ. THE. GODDAMN. TEXTBOOK. THE. ANSWER. IS. THERE. "

" Please don't fail, please don't fail, please don't fail"

When everyone seems smart

" Oh wow Why did I not think of that? "

" That was a smart question. Shit. I don't know the answer. HEEELLPPP"

" You most certainly must be thinking that I'm stupid right now. Maybe I am" 

" I definitely did not understand that when I was in your shoes"

When I can't believe I'm being tasked to impart knowledge. 

" Why are you people so motivated to come for an 8am tutorial. I'm getting paid. What's your excuse"

" Oh, if only they knew that I don't actually know anything but am just really good at bullshitting"

" Has anybody even been listening? "

There's a mantra that a fellow tutor told me at the start of my tutorship. "Assume maximum stupidity, and start from there". It sounds horrible, but it works. It's helpful for people who really do need the help, and it's helpful for me because it feels like my work is half-done when I face moderately intelligent people (which is most of the time). Ah, life.