This morning, as I was waving my Manchester United-loving colleague goodbye and asking him to give my regards to my Arsenal-mad former student, another colleague walked by and kinda snottily remarked:
“Are you talking about soccer again?”
This was not the first time he has said it. Nor was it the second time. Would I really be writing about this if it were just the second time? Really?
I could be the bigger person and let this go. Unfortunately, I am not the bigger person. I am only four feet, eleven and three-fourths inches tall. I am definitely not the bigger person.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the question were just really “Are you talking about soccer again?” You know, the way my father indulgently asks me when he reads about Andres Iniesta’s superb passing and scoring abilities on this blog for the nth time. (My dad, by the way, is a Valencia fan). Or maybe the way my African brother Mustapha says it before joining in the fray and waxing poetic about the Brazilians (the reason he roots for Mee-lan). Or how my students ask with relief as I put up a regression output on the board showing the relationship between summer transfer spending and team ranking on the table of La Primera Division (it seems that being able to explain how David Villa’s 40 million euro transfer fee resulting in FC Barcelona’s number one ranking is more interesting to the students than just talking about “independent variables” and “dependent variables”).
No, the subtext of the question was, “Is there nothing in your head that you have to talk about soccer all the time?”
You know what? I admit that I shamelessly use football to connect with my students. IT WORKS. Just ask the Cambridge-educated bestselling author, Oscar-nominated screenwriter and Arsenal obsessive Nick Hornby. I got the idea from him.
You of all people should know that international students are not as comfortable with or confident in approaching their professors about their academic work, compared to their American counterparts. It takes them a while to open up and ask for help. Football gives us a comfort zone without having to pry into each other’s personal lives. It’s not being unprofessional; it’s being approachable.
I can tell you about an Arsenal fan, who did abysmally on his first exam. I walked with him once and told him he had the built of a footballer, and he laughed. He also admitted that he did not study well first exam, but promised to do much better. He aced all of the remaining exams. A semester later, I find out that this kid plays for his national football team.
Or a Barça follower, the best student in the class, who almost went cross-eyed when I put up my data on the board and, to his horror, Real Madrid was at the top of the rankings (as of October 2010). He was someone who I thought was untouchable, academically speaking – he would nap in class and still get a perfect score on a midterm - and sometimes a little arrogant. One day, he asks for my help, as he is not doing so well in another class, that he was actually in danger of failing it. I introduced him to a tutor who was not only competent in the subject, but could also speak the student’s mother tongue.
Or the Roma supporter, cruising along in class, whose ears perked up when I explained why the coefficient of the regression is negative in this vein:
Professor: You have to build the team, and recruiting extraordinary talent needs money. That’s why it makes sense that, all other things held constant, a higher spending during the transfer market usually results in better performance or a higher ranking. That’s one of the reasons why Torres left Liverpool. He felt that the Liverpool management was not doing enough to build the team. He didn’t think the team could regain its Champions League spot.
Student: So why hasn’t Torres scored for Chelsea when they paid fifty million pounds sterling for him?
Professor: Ah that’s another story… (Professor brandishes a voodoo doll dressed in the Chelsea No. 9 shirt.)
Football connects a lot of people. I could tell you stories about relatives, students, classmates, colleagues, and strangers. I could tell you about the members of the Liverpool Fan Club in Japan, who have been contacting each other in the wake of the earthquake, making sure that everyone was all right. Because, as every Liverpool fan knows, you'll never walk alone.
(And don’t think I exclude the women. I can point out Chanel Particulière from a mile away and discuss Dominique Ropion’s latest oeuvre. But that’s another post for another rant.)
You know what else? I am sick of this shit. So what if I am obsessed about football? I have a favorite German player, Mesut Ozil, a fantastic midfielder playing for Madrid (yes, I know the difference between Real and Atletico, and I know which one “Madrid” refers to), just in case you think I am biased against your country. I have a hockey team too -- the Toronto Maple Leafs, if you are interested. They may not stand a chance in the Eastern Conference, but I’ve been following them since 1993 (before we even had ice rinks in my country). I’ll let you know the next time the student workers and I talk about that. I’ve been painting watercolors since I was eleven, and I’ve done translation work for a Tribeca Film Festival-nominated film. I have a black Labrador who loves me and listens to me on the phone. I turned down four college scholarships and a study trip to Japan to become an economist. My favorite opera is La Traviata and I adore Placido Domingo mostly because he looks like my grandfather. I carry a backpack because all of the IMF economists I have met during my stint in government have carried backpacks. I sing in the shower to the perpetual dismay of my roommate. She’s getting married and moving out because she can’t stand the constant wailing. OH, AND I HAVE A PH.D. TOO. THE ONE THAT CAME WITH MY DISSERTATION. The one that I presented a while back and the only thing you could say about it was “People are going to get mad at you because you called Taiwan ‘Taiwan, Province of China.’” They can get mad at me, the IMF, the Asian Development Bank, and the World Bank. It’s called Google, you asshole. Look it up.
When I was 21, I was defending my government’s economic program to Congress, to the IMF and World Bank missions. I’ve been using statistical software since when most of our current graduate students were in kindergarten. I didn't do it for the money. As a senior economist, I got $6000 ANNUALLY. What were you doing when you were 21? OKTOBERFEST? I’ve proven myself a long time ago and I resent being patronized by people who think they are better than me.
Oh, and by the way, FC Barcelona's all-time highest goalscorer? Guess what, he comes from my country.
If Cesc Fabregas can vent about work on the Internet, then so can I.
Puyi, Geri, Zizou, Dahveed, Zlatan and Cesc are all cranky too. Pics from Kickette, Keystone Press, Getty Images, the Guardian.
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