A class exposed

We had the greatest journalism class the other day. Incidentally, I almost missed it - lord only knows how my 2 minute stop into Metro Center's Filene's Basement turned into a 2 hour long affair - but let me tell you, I think I redefined the meaning of "time flies".

Anyhow, the class was meant for us to practice our Profile assignment interviewing skills. Each class member was to interview one other student, and then report their findings to the class. So, in the end, we got to learn all this great stuff about everyone in the class.

I loved it. It was like getting through all the small talk in a really efficient, interesting and memorable way. And guess who I got to interview?

None other than our charismatic Professor Klein. I really had too many questions to even begin asking, like when you go to the grocery store and end up leaving the cereal aisle without buying anything. Too many options = no final decision.

I did find out, however, that Prof. Klein never wants to retire. He'll keep working until they make him stop, he said. He also loves PBS documentaries, mostly history-based ones, though I guess that's not so unusual for a person of his age and interests (he is an extremist when it comes to his love for history, "I can feel it all around me", he sighed). Slightly more unexpected, however, was his proclaimed love for the 90s flick "You've Got Mail" - Did not see that one coming.

I also guess that I didn't expect him to come from such a straight-laced family. With his bubbly personality and continual curiosity about others, I was a bit surprised when mentioned growing up in a "country club" family, and that his mother was anything but open.

Moving on though, the next step was to tell the class about our interviewee. This was interesting - I liked seeing how people presented their information. Prof. Klein, for example, mentioned only the 2 or 3 most random tidbits from our conversation - handpicking only the tiny parts that he found most sensational, or story-worthy. It was evident that he'd had some practice with how to draw an audience - how to make something uninteresting interesting. (Even if the wee bits of info that he did choose to tell about me in no way represented even a portion my real self ... Hey, at least they were interesting).

Then we got to hear about everyone in the class. All this stuff I didn't know about! One girl had been a ballerina for 15 years, another girl an actress, and one of our only guys had long wanted to be a professional soccer player. It's so funny how we all ended up in this random journalism program - coming from such diverse backgrounds. We definitely should have done it much earlier in the semester.