i did my research the night before, there was a math tutorial in MP118 that began immediately after my lecture ended in MP203 on friday
i asked adam if he wanted to play a prank — on who? a whole class
so we made our way to MP118
there were several students waiting outside, including a girl from agincourt — who i nodded at (though it took her a while to recognize me)
i decided to open the door, and seeing that no one was in there, walked in
as i did so the girl from agincourt gave an expression that said “that works” and followed and asked “you’re not noaman are you?”
in a hushed voice i said, “indeed i am, but sshhh and watch”
the students entered the class and i went to the teacher’s table
i put my bag on it and proceeded to extract the math textbook and solutions manual (i don’t usually carry it around, but did so specifically for this purpose)
putting on my british accent i asked if this was the math tutorial class, students said yes, i said — i’m your TA
“this class is supposed to start ten minutes after the hour, but we’re here now on the hour — and that’s good, it’s good to be early, but we’ll start ten minutes after the hour from now on”
and before i even wrote anything a girl came up to me and said “i have a question for you — i know we have a quiz next friday, but that day is also my commencement, so do you know what i can do about that”
i simply said “you know what, i’ll get to your question in a few minutes, why don’t you take a seat”
then i turned to the class at large and said “my name is captain nomes” and wrote it on the board
“don’t ask why i have such an odd name, i have odd parents and i am odd myself”
then i wrote my ‘e-mail address’ under it — captain.nomes@math.utoronto.ca
i noticed several students copy down the information from the board
i then turned to the class and said “basically, this tutorial is me answering questions from the book, from your homework — the problem sets. i’m not going to be teaching anything from the course… so … are there any questions?”
a youth put his hand up and asked “yeah, i have a question about a problem in — i think it’s section 2.6 –”
i interrupted him and said “oh, i have a class plan and i’ll be going according to that — i was saying does anyone have any questions about the course in general?”
no one said anything
so for a few seconds i waited there, kept glancing at the door to make sure the real TA didn’t come in
then i asked the class, “how many of you have seen catch me if you can?”
and quite a few of them put their hands up
so i said “well you know the scene where he walks into the class and pretends to be the teacher, but he’s not really there teacher? well i’m not really your TA” and as i switched back to my normal accent smiles sprung up on many faces and i said “i’m actually a first year student in life sciences, and i’ve just played a joke on all of you” and erased “captain nomes” off the board
i then asked “how many of you believed me?” and none of them put their hands up “oh yeah, right, you miss came up and asked me a question about your commencement — btw, i think the answer is that you go and talk to mr. professor lam about it”
a student asked me why i didn’t use the real TA’s name — “i don’t think mr. roberto-gonzalez would be too happy” i said
i then started packing up and said “i’m not even in this tutorial, you’ll find them pretty useless, i skipped mine” and started walking out, adam walked out before me
and before i actually left i turned around, did a semi-bow and put my hand up
all the students were looking at me, some smiling
the agincourt girl was smiling throughout the joke and it was all adam could do to stop from bursting out in laughter

basically a repeat of the prank i pulled on tuesday, but this time better done

unfortunately i don’t think i’ll be able to do a repeat any time this year
because these were the first time the math tutorials took place

perhaps for the CHM138 and CHM139 tutorials as they start later this academic year

lots of fun, more fun than a barrel of monkeys