I'm a teaching assistant for a course in computer graphics, and this term,
the prof teaching the course happens to be my thesis supervisor as well.
Steve is well aware of my obsession with ferrets and had done his best to
make sure the class knows as well.  he's coming to visit the ferrets again
next week :).  anyways, just want to mention a few things he'd done to
promote ferrets and some student reactions, in case anybody gets a kick
out of this.
 
so, along with stuff about computer graphics, rembrandt, mozart,
claustrophobia, the class also learned a few facts about ferrets, among
them that ferrets aren't rodents.  to make sure the class knows this, he
added a bonus no bonus true/false section to the midterm, one of the
questions being "a ferret is a rodent".  about 3/4 of the people who
answered got it right.  (he warned people that this is a dangerous question
to get wrong, and if they aren't sure it is best to leave it unanswered,
and also refused to give me the list of students who got it wrong!).  when
reviewing for the exam, he asked the class if a ferret was a rodent, and
most of the class answered NO.  There was one disbeliever who still insist
otherwise, so Steve pointed out that ferrets have canines, something
rodents don't, converting the last of a class of 37.
 
other funny incidents.  I draw ferrets in various poses on the whiteboard
in Steve's office, and he usually leaves them where they are and writes
around them.  One student came in to ask him a question, and to illustrate
his points, took up the eraser and in one sweep erase the head of a
standing ferret.  the student realize in mid sweep what he had done, even
as Steve told him "you just failed the course"... to his credit, he did a
half decent job of drawing the head back, but I have his name, just in
case..
 
most of the class knows I'm the one with the ferrets (all their names are
in my signature, after all!), and have attempted various things to suck
up.  one tried to make a ferret puppet for his puppet assignment and gave
up (it is hard to make a ferret out of spheres), two included an attempt at
a ferret model in their final project (I saw it and warned them modelling
ferrets is dangerous grounds, since if it didn't look like a ferret.), one
in his motocross project included a banner that says "A ferret is not a
rodent", and the disbeliever had little cubes with a ferret head textured
map on it that was eaten by a shark, definitely NOT the way to suck up to
your TA...
 
this is probably not entirely related to the ferrets, but at least 3
students have called me the mean TA to my face..  also, for anybody
interested in computer graphics, there is a ferret friendly professor at
the university of waterloo.
 
have a warm and fuzzy day.
 
// ***********************************************
// Selina, Birch, Dief, Sprite, Storm, Sand & Bear
// http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/~ssiu
[Posted in FML issue 3262]