L is for Loaded Questions

CHARLES HOPKINS
Volume 1, Issue 11 (Originally Published 14 May 2012)
 
By week 11 lecturers have returned results for mid- semesters. You’d think the results themselves would be the most anxiety-inducing element of that process; not so! I keep having this recurring dream that I am the secret ingredient in a Masterchef challenge and as I approach Matt Preston’s mouth I wake up in a cold sweat.
But the results aren’t even the second-most nauseating experience! The loaded questions are.

“Have you picked up your assignment yet?” equals “Tell me your results”. “Were you happy?” equals “I’m trying to be somewhat subtle but I want numbers.” “I was so relieved, how did you feel?” equals “I f***ing nailed it and my appetite for self- validation and domineering sex is insatiable.”

The other approach I’ve encountered is where people tell you their marks and expect an accurate response, which always gets awkward. Once someone said to me “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” but I didn’t want to show the person mine, and there was an uncomfortable silence because we were each wondering about the other person’s... marks.

The intent behind these attempted facile queries is patent self-motivated inquisitiveness (thank you thesaurus.com).

But that motive is only half the problem. What is most frustrating is the notion that the questioned is oblivious to said motive, and yet the questioned never responds with “mind your own business”; it’s always something equally as dressed up in civility. This ritual tango is like a friendly greeting between Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, Peter Costello and John Howard, or Simon Breheny and Antony Freeman.

This masquerading is the smoke of a more profound fire – Western society privileges decorumover sincerity. But why?!

What society labels “bitchy” I think of as “refreshingly candid”, “in-your-face” as “keen to engage”, and “Franc” as “a currency which Europe is wishing the French hadn’t abandoned”. In the vein of being upfront, I don’t know if that last word-play even makes sense.
If you want to know my marks just ask me! I’ll still refuse but I’ll respect your balls, or... vagina? No, that can’t be the equivalent. What produces oestrogen? Is that even relevant? Probably should’ve paid more attention in Sex-Ed, or bothered to Wikipedia this when writing.

Maybe a solution is for faculty to release averages because that always appeases and pleases everyone. Not! God I love sarcasm because it’s always really funny!

Or maybe we should take a leaf out of the Gillard Government’s book and respect everyone’s privacy.

I guess the other solution is that, from here on in, I tell everyone my average and thereby remove the basis of the questions. So here goes: for LMR I got ‘satisfactory’, for Torts I got- (due to printing costs the entirety of this article could not be printed).

Charles Hopkins is not the subject of any Fair Work investigations because the shady stuff he does he bills to his personal credit cards.