Wake Up Little Su Zhi, Wake Up

I had a marketing presentation today. Six of us have been working on a project for about 2 weeks and we had to present it to the class. We presented an overview of Chinese sneakers/apparel company (obviously) Li-Ning and a proposed marketing strategy for expansion into the US and/or into India. It wasn't the flashiest and most complicated presentation of all time, but we put some long hours in and we had a solid finished product. The presentation took place this morning in our 8am marketing class. It's not easy to get up for 8am classes, and as I've mentioned in these blogs before, sometimes it takes a good hour until you actually can function like a normal human. In class, I'm one of sixty or so students, and sometimes you have the feeling that the teacher doesn't always notice you. Last quarter I was in a class that had a 40% or so participation factor built in. I hadn't spoken all term so on the last day I went up to the professor and asked him to call on me, and he said "where do you sit?", to which I said to myself, "eff, this is not good". He called on me that class, and he took me to school a little bit, but it was a good experience. I'm not sure how he didn't know where I sat, but my theory was that the top part of the frame of his glasses obstructed his view of my row. I mean, the guy I sat next to fell asleep EVERY SINGLE class. Head bob and everything. Did the professor really not notice?

So fast forward to today, and I'm up there in front of the class. I'm still not the most comfortable presenter, so when I'm up there it's kind of like that time in Old School where Will Ferrell is debating James Carville and Will Ferrell gets asked a question, he takes a deep breath, gives an thoughtful and well-crafted answer, finishes, turns to his teammates and says "What just happened? I think I blacked out".


Will, I think you're ready to be sponsored by Li-Ning.

So the point of the story is that I'm up there and I'm looking into the rows of chairs and there are a handful of people who are just hardcore passed out. Eyes closed. Head tilted. I mean, I was looking for some drool action but I didn't see any. Was I so boring...no...because I was up there talking for literally two minutes so they didn't have time to fall asleep on me.

The worst part was that finally, after talking about baseball, and apple pie, and pilgrims, and fat people, and everything else American for like, four months, finally someone steps up and wants to talk about something Chinese, and I look up and two of the Chinese students are out cold, probably dreaming of the day someone would come in and talk about some Chinese product and ask their opinion so they can really show off in class...oh well.

Back in October there was a 2:10pm class (prime post-lunch food coma time) where someone in the back row was making a point, so the class had all turned to listen to him. When he was finished talking and the professor resumed his lecture everyone in the class turned back around to listen to the professor except one guy, who had literally fallen asleep listening to his classmate speak. Hard not to notice that, you know?

So in closing...there is NO CHANCE whatsoever that if you are asleep in class you aren't noticed.