My first class of the week was Excitable Cells which lasted a total of 15 minutes. This is the class with the professor who told us to come in at 9.15am on Mondays. I took an immediate liking to him when, seconds after I expressed my surprise that so many people showed up to the first lecture of the semester, he said the exact same thing! He also used the phrase 'sexy science' during this lecture and provided this caption for a picture of a boy getting his teeth checked at the dentist:
"And there's some brat getting drilled ... "
I really quite like this guy. The class itself is about excitable membranes and action potentials and ion channels and I'd imagine it'll go on to be about neurons and the nervous system in its entirety. Should be fun.
Then I've got From Molecules to Cells which is basically everything I already know about the biological cell and its components and organelles and blahblah. I quite like cellular biology though so this class shouldn't be too bad. The prof seems nice enough, just kind of straightforward and no nonsense.
My first optional course this semester is Psychology: Intro to Brain and Behaviour. Just as we sat down and picked out the lecturer, my friend Matt and I began to discuss, based on appearance and presentation, how good or bad this lecture seems to be. First off, the opening slide was plain black and white and entirely uninteresting. I pointed this out, mentioning that perhaps this woman was a very bland and colourless individual. Matt retaliates that the woman did have a colourfully striped scarf on but I had to say that the scarf looked like a Gap colourful scarf, like a sad attempt at being colourful but staying too far within the lines. Matt conceded that she was in fact wearing all black otherwise. Then I pointed out that she looked like the Trunchbull. And then the woman opened her mouth and all our suspicions that she was a pretty boring mundane monotone lady were concretely reaffirmed. She was very superfluously verbose too which got on my nerves quite quickly. For one, she began by saying that we really really really really really really need to read the textbook for this course. To which I said, Really? And Matt said, Nah I think it's just optional. She also started off by addressing the Psychology students who make up the majority of the audience (with a small portion of us being the more elite Neuroscientists) by saying, "You may be wondering why you have to worry about the brain and know about it and its functions." Um. What? Right, because psychology has absolutely NOTHING to do with the brain. And at the second lecture (two lectures a week), this woman took about 45 minutes to explain the process of picking up something hot and then reacting by dropping the pot. See how I did that in less than a sentence? Hers went something like this:
"Imagine one day you're at home, cooking some soup in a pot on the stove. When the soup is ready, you pick up the pot of soup and begin to walk to the table to put it down. You take two steps away from the stove and your fingers start to feel a bit warm. But you're still 5 steps away from the table. And you have to decide what to do. Meanwhile, your hands feel warmer ..."At this point, I zoned out. Once I regained consciousness, I heard:
"... and the signals travels up through your neurons and tells your brain, 'Oh! I think I should put this down. My hands are hurting.' And then your brain has to send a signal back down to your hands and ..."Oh. My. God. This woman also cannot pronounce anion. You know, cations and anions? CAT-eye-ons and AN-eye-ons? Oh no sorry, AN-yons. AN-YONS?! And then she pointed at the chemical symbol for Cl and called it Calcium. I am just flabbergasted really. Is this woman really qualified to be teaching us a biologically based psychology course? I think not. Good thing we switch lecturers every couple lectures or so based on expertise. This does make for a very disjointed and disorganized course, though.
Then I have Drugs: Molecules to Man with the most INSANE LECTURER OF ALL TIME. The entire first lecture was on cocaine and I think he meant it as a hint to say that he himself is on crack. Seriously. First off, he got our attention by telling us he would appreciate it if we all shut up. And then he went to say that the one thing that really pisses him off is students coming late to lectures so whoever walks in after 9.02 is going to be heckled and harassed by him. Just after saying this, a poor boy walks in to be Contestant Numero Uno. The lecturer pretty much leaped in excitement and sprinted up the theatre steps to shove the microphone in this boy's face and demand why he was late. The boy mumbled some sort of response that he was sleeping to which the lecturer retorts as simply being lazy. Then he goes on to say that the only excuses he will accept from anyone are excuses that he himself would use for being late. 1) Because the river junction by his house had flooded, 2) because the excess of snow had blocked his way into work, or 3) because his children were ill. Another day, a guy walked in late and when his excuse was 'I don't know,' the lecturer said that must translate to plain stupidity. And then a giant group of people traipsed in and he was like, 'Oh ho ho! What was this, a late night orgy?' WHO SAYS THAT. And then right after that, a boy walked in on his own and the lecturer goes, 'Oh, all alone? Well we know what YOU were doing last night.' HOW INAPPROPRIATE CAN YOU GET. By the by, the class is all about drugs and receptors and affinity for drugs and agonists and antagonists. Not that it matters since we're all so distracted by the madman we have teaching us.
Last comes my history module called Technologies of Everyday Life. The title sounds pretty dull and the class isn't too enthralling but I enjoy it. The prof is really nerdy and awkwardly so, like a teenage boy who got stuck in the awkwardness of adolescence and never grew out of it. And I adore him. So far it's all about the Industrial Revolution in England and we'll be using Manchester itself as a jumping off point about learning about industry and technologies and how they shaped the world.
For two paired weeks (that's four total), I have three three-hour labs a week, starting this coming Monday. Hopefully those'll be fun too.
Something else pretty major started up this week too but it's going to get its own post because it's pretty supermassive and awesome and incredible and a very very long story. So watch out for it!
Hope you're all having great second semesters so far too!
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2 comments:
If you're ever late to the crazy prof's class, tell him your kids are ill.
oh i know, i was planning on it.
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