I Never Thought It Could Happen To Me. This one deals with the “forbidden fruit” of a teacher/teaching assistant/professor.

“Alex?”

I heard this query coming from a rather pretty female walking with what appeared to be a large stack of lab notebooks. Here brown hair rested easily on her shoulders; her large brown eyes sparkled and her red lipstick anointed lips lead her mouth into a broad smile.

Chandni usually sat in the front row, toward the right of the room. She was bright eyed, attentive and frequently contributed to the class discussion.

She frequently attended office hours and would continue to ask questions until she got it…there was usually the bright “Eureka” smile followed by a “Oh, I understand” said in her charming Indian accent. (Yes, I know that there is more than one kind of accent, and no, I don’t know enough about Indian languages (e. g. Hindi) to say what kind of accent it was)

I looked at her a bit with the look of trying to remember a pleasant past; I noticed the fact that he was wearing a red blouse and some very form fitting white pants.

“Chandni?”, I responed.

“Yes, it has been a long time. What brings you here?”

“Sabbatical”, I responded. “I have a grant for travel and am spending a week here to attend the annual state conference on group theory.”

It had been a while…..

In a flash I remembered the past. It was about 7 years ago that I first saw her, or at least remembered seeing her. I was about a year away from finishing my Ph. D. and I was leading a recitation section for vector calculus.

This was a class for sophomore and junior engineering and physics majors; the phrases “differential form” and “wedge product” didn’t get mentioned in that class. I did sneak in the words “manifold” and “chart” from time to time though.

It was a follow on to the third semester of calculus, and usually only the more successful students took this course.

The professor lectured three times a week, and the TAs (teaching assistants) lead smaller “discussion” sessions twice a week; these had 20-30 students per group. For the most part, we did homework problems and helped them understand stuff that they didn’t quite get from the professor’s lectures.

Before I continue I should explain this: I was at a large, southern research university and attractive women in skimpy, tight or transparent (or all three!) clothing was frequent; many wore thin white shorts; others wore spandex mini-skirts.

One didn’t have to look that hard to see what kind of women’s underwear was popular at a given time.

Still, among that backdrop, Chandni caught my eye…and my heart, though I didn’t dare show it.

She mostly dressed modestly (in comparison to the prevailing standards); most of the time I didn’t much notice.

But one day I did; she was sitting in the front row in what appeared to be snug white pants.

As she got up to leave class, she turned to talk to another student and slung her pack-pack style bookbag over her back. Sure enough…well, she wasn’t wearing a thong underneath but rather light blue bikini briefs.

I still remember that; though this was a frequent sight on campus, it was the fact that she was wearing this that I remembered it so well.

Because I was aware of the “unequal power in relationships” (and agreed with it) I kept my “mini crush” to myself; after all I did grade the first two exams (the professor graded exam 3 and the final). Of course, Chandni’s exams were rather easy to grade; she was an excellent student in a class full of excellent students. I rarely have a semester like that one.

After grades were in, she appeared at my office. She had a small present for me; it was a small blue glass block that had a white oval and a dark round spot within the white oval; it was almost like an eye. I still have that piece of art on my desk.

Eventually the semester ended and a new one began. Yes, I was busy and didn’t take well to interruptions to my routine. But, when Chandni knocked on my office door and wanted to talk, well, I didn’t mind.

She had that shy, subtle, “unsure of herself”, lipstick enhanced smile, her shoulder length raven black hair, and a cute (but not tight) red skirt.

She said that she wanted to talk about her final exam (which I didn’t grade; but she made an “A” nevertheless) and just to say “hi”.

I also used to see her on the 11 pm bus from the math/science/engineering complex part of campus into the neighborhood where many students live; he sometimes shared a seat and talked.

Yes, a relationship at that time would have been ok as she was a physics undergraduate and, by that time, I was teaching my own lower division classes (pre-calculus). I had no “power” over her whatsoever.

But I was living with what was soon to become my wife, and not too long after that, ex wife.

So, I never pursued a relationship with Chandni.

Anyway, all of that came back to me when I saw her, now with a stack of lab notebooks.

End of Part I.

The conclusion is here.