Professor, that's the bell

As you start to head back to campus for reading period, remember: Exams are bad, but it could be worse. Think back to an interminable 50-minute lecture last semester. Now count yourself lucky that your professor wasn’t Errol Tapiwa Muzawazi. Muzawazi, a 25-year-old law student, set a new world record on Dec. 9 with a lecture lasting 121 straight hours, one hour longer than the previous record. The effort was a response by 50 young people in 16 countries to Millennium Development Goal 8 (Develop a global partnership for development), one of a series of international development objectives crafted by a U.N. initiative for completion in 2015.

To symbolize the global nature of the lecture, Muzawazi had six costume changes during the event and delivered his opening remarks in six languages. Presided over by Professor Karol Musiol, the rector of Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, the talk was broadcast live online and coordinated with a concurrent online chat which allowed viewers to submit questions to the lecturer. So the next time you’re struggling to stay awake during your Friday morning math class, just think how lucky you are that your class isn’t 145 times as long.