It is the final dying minutes of the class, and the mind has wandered to a myriad of questions; what would be today’s menu in the mess, which movie am I gonna watch once I get back to my room, AMR project kab karoonga, whose bday is it today in the hostel, etc, etc. The hand has taken a life of its own as it goes about packing my books and the pen into the bag, and the papers and notes are shuffled into an unknown corner. I am ready to spring to my feet and head happily to the door, and that is the exact moment when R puts up his hand up in the air and says, “..but Sir, why cant we look at it this way…blah blah blah…”

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the world of CP and its many hideous forms. For the uninitiated, CP (or Class Participation) is the art of participating or ‘contributing’ in a class where substantial weightage is given to, well, CP. Or sometimes, participating just for the heck of it. Usually an occupational hazard of taking Strat Courses.

Siva has delved into this topic before. But I wish to take it further (RCP, hehe…). Lets have a detailed look into the world of CP and its variants:

• CP: The basic, plain vanilla variety. Never to be observed. But always wished for by profs and students alike.
• RCP: Repeat CP. You repeat whatever the prof or the student before you has just said. No value add whatsoever, but who cares!
• PCP: Painful CP. The kind described in the first paragraph of this post. Which kinda makes you want to use the choiciest of expletives on the PCPer’s lineage (past and future) and beat him/her up to an unrecognizable pulp. And this thought process is interrupted by the next question in the PCP…
• DCP: Desperate CP. You can almost smell the desperation and the raw, animal need to put CP that the DCPer feels when it has been too long since he/she has spoken. The RCP and PCP champions are firing all cylinders, and that is when the DCPer feels the pinch. “Omygawd” he/she thinks “I have to speak now or my head will blow up to smithereens and spray all over the classroom” or something like that…
• ACP: After class participation. Sometimes sucking up to the prof, sometimes in desperation (when faced with a certain D or F, for example). The genuine, relevant, clarification-in-subject ACP is as common as a dodo found copulating with a chicken on a winter morning atop a volcano. You get the picture.
• ICP: Irrelevant (or irrational) CP. This is when you say something so irrelevant that the prof looks at you as if he doesnt know whether to flush you down the nearest loo or swat you like a irritating stingless bee. He has already had enough of the above mentioned CPs and then he has to deal with irrationality too. Aaaarrgh!
• And the winner for today… RTCP (thanks, Kaul, for reminding me!): Real time CP. This is displayed by a few gifted individuals, who, even though not having read the case, read a paragraph, put a CP, read the next paragraph and then the next CP and so on! Compare to run-time compilers of yore :)

More kinds later. Laff it up, and yea, no smartass comments on which kinds do I indulge in :D

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