The following is a transcript of William Fowkes’ ’10 remarks at last week’s ASM honoring the life and work of long time teacher and retiring faculty member, Mr. Jean Nuggets. Good morning teachers, students, staff and George (turn and wink). Wow, it really feels weird to actually come inside the chapel after signing in for All School; hopefully it won’t take long for Juanita from Commons to realize that I’m not showing up today. I hope that she won’t spend her whole lunch break alone in the stacks. Anyways, I am here today to honor… or rather to just talk about, a teacher of mine—Mr. Jean Nuggets. I had Mr. Nuggets for probably the biggest joke of a class in the school: The History of Beavers. His students know him as Mr. Jean Nuggets, but all of his close friends call him “Sugar Daddy.” Now before you say anything, I know exactly what you’re all thinking—Jean is either the name of an obese 50-year-old woman or an effeminate Frenchman. Well, if you had talked to “him” a few years ago, the 50 year-old woman part would have been true (wait for laughs here; possibly even laugh yourself). When Jean asked me to do this little speech, I originally thought to myself, “Wow, what a loser. This dude must have no friends if he is asking a student who consistently gets 3’s in his class to give his retirement speech for him.” However, after thinking about it, I’ve come to conclude that he might actually be an okay guy. But then again, I’m really not sure, as I don’t actually know him very well. Jean’s class actually had a pretty decent review on ratemyteachers.com, but, to be honest, I did not feel he was cool enough to earn the little smiley face with sunglasses icon. Also, on a side note, is it just me, or are sunglasses just not cool anymore? If you think about it, at least 90 percent of the people you know who wear sunglasses definitely are complete tools. That’s the problem with sunglasses—they are the first resort for kids who want to be cool so they have slowly evolved into a very loser-like object. Just a quick thought. Sorry to have gotten side tracked (Say this whole passage as if it were not in the planned speech, hence the whole “sidetracked” part; possibly even memorize it. This part could be a big crowd pleaser if you play it right, Billy. Don’t suck, and nice work on the filler). To return to my original subject Jean, of course, asked me to do this for him; I certainly did not ask him to let me, as it’s actually been a while since I’ve seen him. I mean, I have gone to conference period with him a few times, and while he basically said the same things that he always says in class, the one-on-one aspect of it sort of made it a bit more useful. In addition, I see him around campus a lot and he always says hi to me, so that makes my day go a little better, I suppose. Now let me move on to Jean’s good old-fashioned teaching style: long lecturing with random breaks during which he catches students off guard by asking them difficult questions. While many “good teachers” have abandoned this style, Jean still uses it regularly; pissing off students and making them feel dumb. A positive aspect of this style is that I always felt treated the same way the other students did, while a negative is the fact that feeling the same means feeling like an absolute idiot, as I consistently get owned by a beaver-loving, middle-aged Frenchman. Think about how you would feel. Anyways, I feel that I have truly said all the positive things that there are to say about Mr. Nuggets. All in all, he is a hardworking man who can sometimes be very nice. While I really had not planned on giving his retirement speech, as the job only came upon me with his request, I am somewhat glad that I did, as it gave me a chance to work my brain for quite a while and think really hard about what I could possibly say. Therefore, I would like to thank you all for listening, and rather than applauding Jean for his accomplishments, let us instead do it because he is leaving. Peace out, homedawgs (Flash the Nixon peace signs with both hands as you leave the podium. People love that stuff).
