Professors: Three Stances

Mr. Yorkshire accent who teaches nutrition is a cute old guy with messy white hair who not only uses the overhead projector, he doesn't know how to turn the computer projector off (so the computer's log-in screen isn't in the way) and has to have a student do it for him. He also calls the overhead transparents "acetates." I thought that was an acid with two carbons, but ok.

He has three, and only three, stances that he assumes during lecture.

Stance 1: This professor's most common state is with his hands level at his face. I think this is to emphasize his point. All his points, really. He looks into the middle distance, hands up to the sky, palms towards him, as if he's pleading with heaven, for pretty much most of the lecture.

Stance 2: This is interesting because his posture when he uses a pointer to point at the overhead is exactly the same every single time. He always turns to face the screen, puts his left hand on his hip, has the laser pointer in his right arm, and bends his right elbow keeping it level with his hip. He assumes this stance whenever he points to tables and graphs on his "acetates."

Stance 3: Whenever he needs to list something, such as benefits of a certain thing, his hands do drop below face level to a more normal position. He holds out fingers with his left hand and taps them with his right, just like anyone would do when counting out a list. Strangely, no matter how many points there are, he seems to get stuck on the third finger. If there are four points, he will just tap his third finger twice. It is important to note that these are fairly large, exaggerated list-counting-tapping movements.

A common cycle seen in his lectures is to begin with Stance 1 describing a topic, and switching to Stance 2 to point at a table that has data concerning this topic, then move to Stance 3 to list out key points. He will then return to Stance 1 to bring his point home, and the cycle restarts.