MARSTON ━︎━︎ PROFESSOR MARSTON

chapter four - ❝with love, y/n.❞

SYNOPSIS / Y/N is given the next assignment before the Christmas holidays. 

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Y / N

AS THE door swung open with Professor Marston entering the room, two minutes passed schedule, I think about how this was the first time he has ever been late to his own lectures. Not that two minutes was even a big deal, but I guess it was to Professor Marston, as he was always, and obviously, the first person you see right when you walk in; laptop on, projector screen lit, powerpoint slides ready, his hands so calm when he undoes one button on his vest. If it wasn't a vest or those business casual blazers, it would be a turtleneck that fits through his average-built figure like a glove. 

Fifty of us sleep-deprived students watch him type something into his laptop. Without even looking up from the screen, his voice projects the entire room. "Apologies for the delay, everyone. It happens every once in a blue moon, but I'll be sure to not let that happen again, especially during final exam season."

Two minutes must feel like two hours for this guy.

So far everything was beyond anyone's interests, but I was invested without force. I observe the answers shared with the class, some that clearly meant they never cared for analyzing what was written, for instance. 

Yet despite the boredom, Professor Marston made it much more interesting. If he had taught Academic English in high school, students would be getting high grades out of appreciating literature, and Sparknotes would be the last thing they would think of using. 

It made me appreciate him as a professor.

"I hope you all enjoyed Halloween and reading week. I was able to get a head start on curating the final exams with Jeremy and Chris, and I was given the opportunity to grade everyone's midterms that is now posted on Moodle. If not by the end of this week, you are more than welcome to e-mail me, but everyone should have theirs by now."

I cringed.

"DO the citations have to be in alpha?" the student whispers to me from my right.

I made a scrunching face. "Most professors expect that, but I doubt Professor Marston would care, honestly."

"No talking," Professor Marston sternly says from his desk.

Nothing feels more relieving than seeing a decent grade on Moodle, like an elephant taking it's feet off your lungs. But at this moment, I'm starting to have doubts. Though I fantasize being alone with this young Professor who most of these students on campus know of, I will never forgive him for unintentionally distracting me while I wrote my thesis. Even though he never stared at me while I was writing it, just feeling his presence made me tense up and hook a leg over the other.

I must have read my work like twelve times by now. One grammatical error and that's an Introductory English writing level and not academia I strive in profoundness. If we were in the near-future, Grammarly would be installed in a microchip planted somewhere in my brain, and all students who desperately give up their limbs to have it would be scholars but with a cheat code. 

I looked back down to read the title of my midterm.

The Stimulating Growth of Pre-Socratic Philosophers