Why Being A Teaching Assistant is Awesome

So as some of you may know, this term I foolishly became a teaching assistant. This means that in exchange for three credits, I am selling my soul to the botany department. I grade, teach, tutor, and clean up after the students. It's actually extremely fun, I can't think of anything I'd rather do for three credits. I take my position entirely too loosely, and often times I do things without thinking about them, only to realize ten seconds after I do them, that it was extremely inappropriate.

But that's why I'm the "favourite T.A."

The first day was great, seeing as though I'd recently watched the Ninja Sex Party video "Dinosaur Laser Fight," in which Dr. Sexbang gets up in front of the class and seductively inquires about their learning capacity.  All in all, I feel I was extremely successful at catching their attention when I got up and seductively said,

"Alright class, are you ready to leeeaaarrrrn?"

I don't think any of them (including my overseeing professor) knew what to do at that point. I just stared at them and then sat down and pretended to be normal.
 I feel like at this point I had already won some of them over-- yesssss.


After a few classes we learned about a plant family that was big into self pollination. This is where they essentially have their own pollen land on their own stigmas, and create plant babies. We were discussing the problems with this, as well as the advantages. The students were coming up with some really great reasons why it would be beneficial, but none really had that great of reasoning why it would be bad. One guy asked what the closest biological process in the "animal kingdom" to self pollination was, 
I really didn't think my answer through.
Nonononononono.

"Well, I'd have to say probably masturbating, but scarier. Wouldn't it suck to be a plant? You wouldn't be able to touch yourself without fear of putting a bun in your oven. It'd be like, 'Oh who's the daddy?' and you'd have to say, 'Me...dammit, I should have listened to Jesus!'"
Reactions were as follows:
One kid just stared at me with his mouth open.
A girl I tend to fancy started laughing so hard she cried.
The boy with his hand raised put it down and then started laughing.
My fellow T.A. just stared at me like I was a psycho. 

...moving on, class.  
I really thought I might lose my job for that one. Bahahaha.


After that one I made sure to watch myself more carefully because I have sort of an anal retentive overseeing professor. He's super amazing and awesome and I love him dearly, but he wrings his hands while he talks.
nononononononononononononononono....

Two weeks later I was doing really well at making sure I didn't say stupid shit. 
Bitch you jinxed it.
We were learning about a plant that is wind pollinated and dioecious (having two separate plants for the genders, one girl plant one boy plant.) The male plant has the stamens hanging out all over for the wind to take the pollen off of. The class was having such a hard time remembering which plant was the female plant and the male plant. Fellow T.A. attempted to explain and they were still getting confused. I asked a count of people who were pretty sure they had it down.

Like two fucking people raised their hands.

I figured it was time to bring out the big guns. I held out the male plant in one hand, and the female plant in the other hand. I took the male plant and held it out further and said,
"This is the male plant. You know it's the male plant because it has little penises hanging out in the wind here. They just flop all over and the wind blows the sperm all over the place," then I held out the female plant. "See, and here's the female plant, it's like the plant vagina, the sperm wants to get to these." then I stared at them for a minute as they gave me blank stares.

 Fuck. Blank. Stares.
This is when I rubbed the plants together and said,
"....and when you rub them together, it's plant porn!! *hums porno music as I rub them together in a random fashion*
Needless to say, I got the "That was inappropriate," lecture. If there's one fucking thing these students will remember, its which part is the penis and which is the vag. So there.


The last incident I recall was actually just a few days ago. Some quick background, my class has to collect  pressed plants for a major part of the grade. They are docked major points if they bring in rare or protected plants. This encourages them to research before picking just anything, and to reduce the rate these rare plants get picked off. Well they have to bring in one pressed sample for us to grade their technique. One guy brought his in and he motions me over with a,

"Kori...psst, Kori, Kori, hey hey!" so I go over, "Is this plant rare...?" and he began to open the newspaper so I could see it. 

As soon as I could see the plant I clasped my hands over my mouth and gasped and looked generally concerned. 

He of course, began to panic, "Oh shit, shit no! I didn't know, oh god is it rare? Nooo shit!! :(" and generally just having a heart attack thinking he was going to fail. 
As I walked away, I casually said, "...nope."  

He goes, "You are a JERK." and began to laugh. 

Bitches.