A university lecturer in Changhua County has been amusing visitors to his Facebook page by posting students’ “spirited” and imaginative reasons for cutting classes.
The lecturer, who teaches a design course at a university in the county, after the mid-term exams requested that students who were frequently absent write 500-word reports explaining the reasons for their absences.
The lecturer said he was shocked by the range of excuses he received, citing one student who wrote that after working through the night on homework for several consecutive nights he simply did not have the energy to attend class.
“I thought incessantly about whether to skip class and it caused me great anxiety ... I was as anxious as if I were signing a permission letter for one of my parents to undergo surgery,” the student wrote.
“I thought if I let my health deteriorate I’d never have the chance to hear your insightful, outstanding lectures again … but be bedridden in a hospital, counting leaves on the trees outside that hadn’t yet fallen with the arrival of winter,” he wrote. “As such, I settle back in my warm blanket as I repent for missing the class.”
He ended the report calling upon the teacher to accept his repentance and promising to study “twice as hard” after getting some rest.
One student, who had difficulty making the 500-word requirement, ended his report: “I will make up the remaining several hundred words with the phrase: ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘I’m sorry.’”
Another filled their report with the phrase: “I kept throwing up.”
One student got very creative.
“Because there were so many elderly people out buying groceries, mountain climbing and just going out for a stroll, the bus driver was driving very slowly, which caused me to fall asleep and miss my stop,” the student wrote.
“I nearly died of laughter when I read these reports,” one comment on the lecturer’s Facebook page read.
“The student who said they ‘kept throwing up’ nearly made me throw up as well,” another wrote.
One criticized the lecturer for requesting the reports.
“The fact that they were even willing to write reports at all is quite impressive,” he wrote.
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