Filled with a case of "The Phils"

My geology/meteorology teacher is a bit flakey sometimes, and that's giving him a lot of credit. One of the biggest problems in my opinion is after knowing me for well over 6 months, he still doesn't know my name, even though we're in an extremely tiny community college and I'd like to think I stick out like a sore thumb sometimes, especially since I'm a little chatty sometimes. Anyway, let me take you back to around late November 2008...

Last semester, when he was my geology teacher, he had us do these big research projects where we had to write a 5 page paper and do a PowerPoint presentation about, as it turns out, anything we wanted to. I, unlike some of the people in my class, stuck to geology and did my project on diamonds. I didn't know much about them at the time, and thought it would be kind of fun to research. After doing all the research for it though, I'm really glad I picked what I did. Diamonds are pretty fucking cool. I would normally go on about all the awesome things diamonds do, but I'm far too lazy and tired to list everything, or even something, that I researched.

Moving right along, it came time to do our presentations, and I gave mine, and it went along smoothly and I got a good grade. But that's when things started to get weird. My friend Jeff went up to do his presentation on... whatever it was that he did... and my professor said, "Ok Phil, so you're doing _______?" and Jeff replied, not really catching that he called him Phil. I certainly noticed though. I've always felt like if there was one person in the class that the teacher would always forget their name, it would be me. For some reason, I'm used to being called the wrong name in class, but never have I been the person the teacher calls other people. And to be clear, Jeff and I look nothing alike.

Anyway, Jeff finished his presentation, and sat back down. As our professor was talking to the next presenter, I leaned over a little and got Jeff's attention from a few rows down, and mouthed a few words that somehow got across, "You might want to remind our teacher who you are. He called you Phil and he's going to give me your grade because he's an idiot."

Jeff raised his hand: "Hey, who's name did you write down on that paper?"
Professor: "Uh... yours!"
Jeff: "What did you write?"
Professor: "Philip!"
Jeff: "Yeah uh... my name's Jeff."
Professor: "Oh gosh, DUH! I would've caught that eventually!"

Sure you would have, professor, sure you would.

Anyway, normally this wouldn't weird me out as much, but frankly he should know who's who in a class of only 15 or so on the week before finals. Oh well though, it was a simple slip-up I guess... or was it?

Fast forward 5 or so months...

My professor likes variety in his classes, so what better way to do that than to assign the exact same research project in meteorology as he did when I took geology! One day we had to have a summary typed up on what we were going to do our research projects on. I chose lightning. Frankly, there's a lot of information on it, and it's pretty sweet. I also plan to incorporate extremely loud thunder claps when I change each slide on my PowerPoint, just to give my fellow classmates the "full effect". So I gave that to my teacher and he read it and liked it. Then my friend Jeff went after I did. He was going to do his project on the mini ice age that occurred in the 1500's or something, but my professor said it was too vague.

After going through a few other people's ideas, my professor made a few general statements to the class about the subjects people have been picking. He started off by saying...

"Like I was telling Phil, doing the mini ice age of the 1500's is too vague. You need something more specific."

This is coming from the guy who thinks a good research project is comparing a baseball player's batting average to the weather.

After he finished his little lecture on how to pick a research project he hasn't seen done before because he's bored with some subjects (which, I'll have you note, isn't lightning apparently), another student raised his hand and asked a question about the projects. My teacher replied:

"Good question, Phil! Let me explain..."

That's right. All of the sudden there's 3 Phils in my class. Surprise! I'm the only Phil that he has in that class, and probably all of his other classes too (it's not a big college at all).

So I've deduced a few things out of his inability to remember which person I am in the class. It's one of the following options...

1. He doesn't know anyone's name in the class but the name "Phil" sticks with him, so he just decided to stick with that.
2. He knows there's a Phil in the class but has no idea who I am, so he's calling everyone that.

and finally...

3. I do something that really bothers him and makes him think about me.


I hope it's number 3. If that's the case, I need to find out what it is that I do that annoys the snot out of him just so I can do it more. It might seem a little vindictive, but that's just necessary sometimes.

Anyway, if anyone has any other ideas as to why he might be having such a hard time remembering who I am, please leave a comment below. I'm interested to hear your theories!