Longest three hours - ever!

Introductions:
Mr. James Kindley:
Marketing Professor at the business school here at SMU. His method of instruction is completely case study based, and he prefers to call people by their last name. During class, he calls up on people (by their last name of course) and badgers them with questions until he's got them stammering trying to answer his latest un-answerable question.

Me:
Since I'm from an engineering background, I've been primarily used to teachers who just walk into the classroom and start yapping about yet another boring algorithm or the pecularities of computer hardware. That would normally give us a whole 2 hours to chat online with friends or search various P2P portals to find a pirated copy of whatever new software we were fascinated with at that time.
After joining business school, when I came up against Mr. Kindley's style of teaching I felt like somebody was intruding on my personal space. So, I resorted to doing a lot of preparation of the case before each class so that I wouldn't be speech struck when I was called upon to answer some questions.

Monday, July 23rd 2007. 5:59 PM - Advanced Marketing Class

I arrived just in time for the class and Mr. Kindley started firing away questions at a guy sitting 2 seats across mine. I felt pretty confident because I had read that day's case pretty thoroughly, but as I listened to the questions and answers going across, I realized that I didnt recognize any of the stuff they were talking about. As I looked around, nobody else was looking around horror struck and wide eyed like me. I looked in my bag for a copy of the syllabus and when I pulled it out, I found out that I had read the case for the next week's class.
As small drops of perspiration appeared on my forehead, I decided to rough it out and try and not to get attention drawn towards me. I knew if I were called upon by Mr. Kindley, I would have to confess about my mistake and he would never let me hear the end of it. Not to mention that he would just think that I was lying. And since class participation was 70% of the grade, I couldnt risk him having that impression of me. I took notes furiously (just so that I would look busy) and tried not to make eye contact with him. I even laughed heartily at his lame jokes to stay inconspicuous. And it was really hard to resist looking at the wall clock every 5 minutes because I knew he'd see me looking and point his finger at me and say in his booming voice ... "And Mr. Godil ... what did you come up for the value of lost sales blah blah blah ....... "

At the end of the two hours, we finished that case and he hadn't called on me. He gave us a break for 10 minutes and I celebrated my close call by treating myself to a snickers bar. The lecture after the break was alway a wrap-up speech by Mr. Kindley so I knew I could relax. But to my amazement, he started talking about ANOTHER case and everybody was prepared for it. I just couldn't believe it! We had never done 2 cases in one class before. So, there I went again, trying to lay low while pretending to pay attention. I had a pretty close call when he suddenly pointed right at me, but called the name of the guy sitting behind me.

At the end of three hours I walked back to my car emotionally and mentally exhausted. And I thought it would be fun to share this joy ride with you guys because I know a couple of my friends have been thinking about joining business school in the future.
Lesson Learned: 'ALWAYS READ THE COURSE SYLLABUS CAREFULLY' !!!!!