This May Come As a Shock..

I'm going to stop sugarcoating things: I love men. Older men. They're my favorite.

Now, if you'll excuse my mother's heart attack in the corner due to my bluntness, I will explain. I'm talking about professors [see, Mom? That's not so bad now, is it?]. I don't really know why, but for some reason I have had the most absolutely endearing string of older, male professors, and I think that they are just completely cute. And not cute in the way that I think that the kid in my Honors class who looks like Elvis is cute -- he's cute, although his chin's resemblance to that of the King's is kind of silly. No, I think that my old man professors are cute like babies are cute...I think that's fitting. Some girls love babies, while I love adorable little old professors. Besides, I'm not very good with babies. They always cry when I hold them.

My Honors history prof from last year, for instance. He has to be in his sixties or seventies, and he teaches a year-long Honors course with his wife. It's the ultimate academic adventure, let me tell you. Professor Wife is a wickedly intelligent woman and a wonderful professor; she coerced me into Russian courses, so you know she's good at her job. She's loud and intimidating and scary until you get to know her, at which point she is one of the kindest people you will ever meet. By contrast, Professor Hubby is just a charming, quaint, absent-minded man who wandered about class and giggled when lecturing on the French Revolution. He once said that he wanted to write a book about France's history and title it The Dynastic Hangover. If I were to walk across campus and see Professor Hubby quite literally chasing butterflies, only to be distracted by a rare bird call, and then turn away due to some sort of mythical creature fleeting across the grounds, it honestly would not surprise me one bit. He has that much of a child-like innocence to him.

My Honors Sociology prof from this semester, however, has enough attitude for his entire department. While he has an obnoxiously clear-cut agenda to challenge his students ideology and change our thinking process, he is rude and sarcastic and hilarious and therefore, I love him already. An aged sort of hippie, from the looks of his casual, short-sleeved button downs and the wool socks beneath his sandals, he jumps around class with an energy that makes me question its source. Professor Hippie talks faster than Daddy on caffeine, and the topics fly by so fast that none of us can get a word in anywhere. Though I have an inclination that things are going to get very interesting very quickly [he consistently says, "So maybe you're from a conservative, middle-class family from West Michigan," with mirth and a touch of condescension], I cannot foresee being bored, if for nothing else than the fact that I'm kind of anticipating his grumpy old man days as being very entertaining.

Professor Hippie's counterpart is a sort of hybrid between Hippie and Hubby. This particular old man is very paternal, grandfatherly and sweet, but there is a certain sense of biting "stick it to the Man" vibe emitting from him. He's a slight man [especially in comparison to Professor Hippie's boisterous, lumbering persona] and he has a shock of full, white hair on his head that he runs his hands through when he's thinking....he almost resembles Dustin Hoffman, in a way. Yes, Dustin Hoffman with a beard. Professor Hoffman is seemingly just so sweet, but he has the same peculiar energy as Professor Hippie...it really makes you wonder...he gets quite excited about his topic as well, but as it is psychology, you can basically say nothing wrong in his class. "Oh, yes, of course, that is interesting," he would say to even the most oddball comment. "I have never thought about it that way -- please explain why you think that!" You see? Completely charming old man.

Even my English professor from last year was awesome. He was laid-back to a fault; when looking over the syllabus, he would say things like, "I mean, Milton is good, but Paradise Lost is so long and boring...do you guys want to read all of it? I don't really care...no? Okay. We'll just do sonnets." Brett was much younger than any of the other professors that I'm talking about [probably somewhere in his forties], and he looked like a combination of men from my family -- it was eerie to walk in the first day and stare straight into the face of a pseudo-Creamer. Sometimes he seemed bored about his topic, so he would regale us with any number of unrelated and semi-inappropriate stories...it was a great class, albeit almost unproductive...

I just love male professors. Obviously, some of my best and favorite professors have been women [Mrs. Jones, Gail, Professor Wife...], and it's not like there is any schoolgirl crush that has exploded into the Indiana Jones situation [you know, where the girls in his class wrote "I love you" on their eyelids and blinked veeeery slowly?], but still. I can't help it. I love men.

Oh, and if somebody could resuscitate my mother, I would appreciate it. I would, of course, but I have a class with Professor Hippie soon...