the Hippo and Cow show

Have been spending many hours this few weeks watching project presentations. The most hilarious was when Hippo and Cow's group presented on Manic Depression. At the end of it I concluded that the group was suffering from collective mania.

So they took a long time setting up a piece of black cloth between two chairs. And then the motley crue of 4 huddled behind, amidst giggles. And the slides came on and they started reading off the slides from behind their black cloth. Word for word.

(Oh before I forget, the black cloth was the backdrop for their puppet show.)

What an extreme manifestation of stage fright.

Well they had finger puppets. Each had an alphabet for a name. By the end of the introductions I didn't know who was what, but that didn't matter I suppose, as long as the lecturer got it. They then attempted a re enactment of the case study. Someone was doing two voices (because she was handling two puppets), and when she tried to modulate her voice to a higher register, she collapsed into high-pitched giggles. This happened a few more times. The class was laughing, initially, but we waited patiently for her giggly fit to pass. It took a while. But I suppose she didn't have helium or anything to facilitate the process so it must have been really difficult.

Eventually, all that slide-reading happening behind the black cloth got a bit boring, because although the puppeteer was very diligent in wiggling her finger with every word, to mimic the speaking action, it is not very possible to engage a whole class with a finger. So people started murmuring and eventually Hippo and Cow emerged from behind the black cloth, which provided more surface area on which we could focus our attention on. That was a relief.

I also realised that some people can't pronounce 'social work' even though they are studying it. It comes out as "showshul work". And 'Silver Ribbon' (Project) came out as "Shilver Ribbon". They speak like they are Japanese.

Oh my goodness I so can't believe I'm blogging about downright evil and elitist sounding things but I was desperately trying to retain my sanity and not implode.