Ian strikes again

My Media Ethics professor gives us a list of readings to go through before every class. Most of them are articles from academic journals, and as such, no one bothers to read them. Especially my gang.

My gang consists of the part-time students in my class. We strongly bond with one other because of our common misery - the incredibly difficult task of doing a master's course alongside a fulltime job. In fact, before every class, we ask each other, "So who went through the reading for today's class?" This is usually followed by bouts of helpless laughter. Then someone says, "Sayesha, you must have surely read it!" This is followed by more bouts of helpless laughter.

Last week, Ian pestered me so much to look up the reading for this week's class, that I had to give in. I checked it and discovered that the link to the article was an invalid one.

"Yoooohoooooooooooo!" I cried out in glee. "Now I don't have to read it!"

"What yoohoo?" He glared. "Stop grinning like an idiot and email the prof."

"Email the prof?? For what??"

"To tell him about the invalid link, you moron!"

"WHAT?? Hahahaha! You must be kidding me, Ian! I have never, in my entire life, emailed a prof about an invalid link. Sayesha doesn't do that. That's the job of the fulltimers and the class nerds."

"You discovered the invalid link, you tell him that."

"But Ian, I'm not even gonna read it anyway!"

"Why not?"

"Because I have no time!" ("Or patience" I added under my breath.)

"I heard that!" He said. "You can print it and read it in the bus/train."

"What? You know I catch up on my sleep in the bus/train! I won't be able to get beyond the first paragraph!"

"You will. I will keep you awake. Now do it!"

"You can get so mean, you know!" I sulked.

He just looked at me without saying a word. I hate it when he does that.

"Okay, fine! I'll write to him."

And I grudgingly wrote to the prof. He promptly sent me a reply to thank me and told me that he had updated the link.

"See?! Now you can go through the reading before the class!" Ian, as usual, was reading my emails over my shoulder.

"But what about my gang? The gang does not go through readings, you know? How can I let my brothers and sisters down?"

He gave me another one of his 'looks'.

"Fine, I'll read it."

The moron made me read the damn thing thrice. His logic was "The prof knows you were looking for the article, so he would expect you to have gone through it very carefully. He's gonna ask you questions on it in class! You must be well prepared!"

Sheesh.

Before class today, I had ten minutes to spare, so I went to the library to check email. I decided to check my university mail as well (which I check like once a fortnight).

And there it was.

An email from the prof to the whole class to tell them about the updated link. And at the end of the email was the sentence.

My death sentence, to be precise.

"And oh, thanks to Sayesha for pointing the invalid link out." Merrily chirped his email.

Gosh, now everyone knows I'm the culprit.

So I enter the class, scared and ashamed to face my gang. The moment I sit, one of the gang members smiles and says, "Sayesha, you must have surely gone through today's reading!"

I hung my head in shame.

There goes my reputation of being the class clown.

Now I am the class nerd.

Dammit.