The Method of Dance

I was 5 shots deep in day-drinking Baileys when I showed up to my Functional Programming tutorial with the sweet 8-decades-old Bernard Sufrin (whom I endearingly called “Ben Buddy” in my email). An hour into our hour-long tutorial, we were having so much fun discussing the problems that we didn’t realize how much time had passed and we were not even halfway through our questions. A curious professor Sufrin asked us: “How are your other tutorials? With Christian?” I replied: “They’re okay..” He countered: “Only okay?” Yulia: “I guess it was a bit long because we did 2 courses together.” Sufrin, with a newfound light in his eyes: “Then you have to tell him about the method of dance!” We looked at him, confused. He got up, raised both his arms in the air, and got us to do the same. “Next, we spin around.” Giggling, we attempted to turn around in the limited space we had between our armchairs in Christian’s cozy office. “Sometimes, when the math gets confusing or when all the jokes aren’t enough to remedy our tired brains, we could all do with a refresh”, Professor Sufrin explained.

(I’m probably not doing justice to the humorous and tactful way he conveyed this exercise, but I personally loved it. I think the 3 of us ( Yulia, Adhish and I) all loved it. You might need to experience it yourself — when you’re mentally exhausted after working for a long time, stand up, raise your arms, dance around!)

Sufrin (as interpreted by me): “I used to do this in lectures – get everyone to stand up at the midway point, and there were always a few people who were reluctant to do it. There was this Bulgarian student who didn’t understand it, and also a bunch of students from Shanghai who were difficult to convince. But through peer pressure or otherwise, eventually everyone would do it. I continued this for every lecture. By the end of that term, it was going to be the last, or one of my last lectures. I remember fondly: during that lecture, people were leaving in the middle of my lecture. And as a lecturer, you would never like to see that. I was wondering if my lecture was so bad that they were all fed up. At the midway point, as always, I asked everyone to get up for a little dance. At that moment, my students carrying a boombox rushed into the lecture theater, playing YMCA, forming a human chain of students that were dancing. They danced round and round the lecture theater, and the Bulgarian student was one of the students leading. I was overcome with emotion. I started tearing up.”

Listening to his story was like watching one of someone else’s core memories – like those in the movie Inside Out. I loved it. It’s one of those memories that makes life worth living – to have one’s eccentricities be deeply appreciated, to teach and make a positive impact on student’s lives, is something that no amount of money can replace – I really want to be a professor when older – and I hope I’ll be a really good professor.

Yesterday night I arrived in Oxford and felt a sense of joy, and I couldn’t quite place my finger on it. I now think that it’s because this nostalgic city is haunted by good memories like this – not necessarily mine, but I can feel it all around me, from eavesdropping, or through conversations. This city echoes a sense of hope, as I wait in anticipation for more good memories to bechance upon me. But, if all else fails, I’ll always have the method of dance.