The Joys of Biochemistry Lab

Ok, yet another day of biochem lab behind me (this was written for Tuesday, didn't get around to posting it until today).

First, you need to understand my professor, or at least understand him as well as I do, which is not very well. Somehow, he's managed to take scientist and redneck/cowboy, and combine the two. He is a cowboy-scientist, if that makes any sense what-so-ever. You would think that someone who watches NASCAR, and thinks that George W. Bush is a "pussy liberal" would not be at a university, in possession of a PhD, and teaching undergraduate students how to conduct meaningful scientific research, but he is.

So anyways, today he opens up the class by asking people what they think are pressing issues in the world of current affairs and events. Since a lot of my classmates are socially retarded nerds, they have no idea what on earth is going on outside of the classroom, and just stare at him with a blank look on their face when he starts to call them out one by one, asking them for a pressing world issue. Some of them played cute by saying, "We need to examine the role fear/greed plays in our lives." One student then mentioned the current riots in France. This set my teacher off on a very long sidetrack, wherein he proceeded to bash the French for ~10 minutes during our 1 hour lecture, basically saying that he hopes the Arabs kill all the French. So I had to sit there and endure this professor really trashing the French, and it was clear that his hatred for them runs deep. My guess is hatred for the French is within the genetic code of rednecks, but that has yet to be mapped out. Anyway, rednecks and riots in France are a seperate issue altogether which I could (and probably will) spend a lot of time addressing, just not right now.

Basically, lab is like this; read the protocol the night before and write it up, then come into class, and then realize that the protocol doesn't make any sense and it's mostly wrong. So then ask the TA's what to do, and the TAs then ask the professor what to do, who will then launch into a 5 minute lecture on why you should pay more attention during lecture, nevermind the fact that the TAs were confused too.

So my main complaint with this class is that we can't choose our lab partners. Because if I did, I'd be with my friends, and we'd be leaving class like 1 hour early every day because we work incredibly efficiently together, with me worrying about all the theory and barking out orders, and my friend carrying out my orders incredibly quickly and accurately. Instead, I work with an overbearing super-nerd, who thinks she knows everything, but really sucks at everything. Because she "knows" everything, my input is ignored by her, and she listens to no one other than herself and her other nerdy friends. I've just decided to get out of her way, and let her just screw over our results horrendously, because in the end, results don't matter; just comprehension. This basically means that lab is social time for me, and I can run around and just talk with everyone while she does all the work. This is actually quite amusing because I never do anything but run around and talk with my friends, and the professor (who's actually a really nice guy whenever he's not talking about France/politics) and the TAs, and yet, I have the highest grade in the class. Go figure.

So what was the point of all this? Nothing really. I mean, I'm not even as angry as I normally am, and this entry really is not interesting at all. And I don't know why. It's probably because I'm tired.