Like Middle School, but Without Recess

If you've ever seen me drunk (or in Micro/BB lab) you've seen me go on some quite extensive rants. Some of them are ridiculous (blueberry yogurt) but most of them are just venting. This will be the latter:
What's up with this 3rd grade busy work? I understand the concept of team-based learning, but having to put together WEEKLY Powerpoints is a little much. Maybe if we didn't have other stuff to do, but I mean we forget enough as it is, without having to fill our time with mechanical ridiculousness. And, I do think drawing the primitives helps, but for some reason I'm against them FORCING us to do it. Why don't they just sit us in a room with an atlas and if our eyes wander off the page, they shock us? As much as I appreciated my afternoons off during the physician's office experience before, spending 5 hours today shadowing a doctor cut into time I really need to spend on other things. Maybe the shadowing I do on my own makes me appreciate this experience less, but I was in the ER for 8 and a half hours on Saturday night, so I think I'm getting in my clinical hours. This current experience seems overly excessive. And I almost fell asleep twice. With patients in the room. If we're going to regress back into our primary school roots, let me have nap time, then I'll be more aware during the time that I am awake. Since I hadn't eaten in 7 hours, I came home, ate, immediately fell asleep, woke up, and then got to work. That was like 9:30 when I actually started doing stuff I needed to do. I haven't reviewed the lectures for today, and there's no way I'm going to. (Don't even bother pointing out that I seem to have enough time to blog. That's completely irrelevant.) My only saving grace is that we have CFMP tomorrow morning, so there's no pre-reading for that. And, by the way, don't forget that we have an exam next week.


All those points above aside, I actually like the primitives. I think most of us have photographic memories, so they're just exploiting that fact, which is really intelligent. That was one of the fun things about being in med school, when we were discussing one day that we all have photographic memories. No time before this was I around so many people that could understand the concept of rotating things in their mind or 'reading their notes from memory'. And isn't it just a kick in the pants when you're taking an exam and you can picture the entire Powerpoint slide except that one word you need? It's usually blanked out like some practice slide in my mind. And that just pissed me off more because my brain decided to retain everything except that one word. I don't care that the background was a pretty shade of blue, I need to know what that channel was named.


I think it's cool having the brains in lab, but I can't help but be wary. Do we know where they got those brains from? They claim they're from last years cadavers, but what if they got them from the Ministry of Magic? Apparently anyone can break into the Department of Mysteries, so these brains might attack at any moment. Seriously, that was one of the things that bothered me most about Order of the Phoenix. It'd be like writing a book where the CIA headquarters was deserted and a group of 15 year olds breaks in and has free roaming access. "But that room spins!" Yeah, that really seemed to slow them down. That had to be the most half-assed magic defensive ever devised. Did some child win a contest where he got to design the security system and chose to base it off of a carnival ride where the room spins and everyone is stuck to the wall? And where was the security guard? AN ENTIRE GROUP OF DEATH EATERS JUST WALTZED INTO THE MINISTRY WITHOUT ANY RESISTANCE. Seriously, as much as wizards bash electricity, a couple of security cameras would have at least done something. And why didn't they lock that door? And not with some broom closet lock that can be Alohomoraed through, but some serious sealing magic. That's where you need the specialist who can hack his way through the electronic key reader. No, the door probably had a padlock with the key under the 'Welcome to the Department of Mysteries' mat. The only thing worse than the unbelievability of the whole situation was the movie. That was easily the coolest scene in the entire book and the movie skips the entire thing. That scene should have taken at least 45 minutes. They skipped the entire spinning room, the brain room, and the time room. It's as though the producers think I'm going to mind a 4 hour long Harry Potter movie. "Well, we have an incredible fan base that's willing to go to midnight showings in costume. This series created international dialogue on the loyalty of Snape, and is one of the best selling books of all time. I bet they just want a 2 hour movie that glosses most of the points. I mean, doubling our profits would be nice and all, but we're lazy." Seriously, the don't even have to write the script, it's already there. And I understand your concerns that younger children won't be able to sit through a 3 hour film. Then just release two, 2 hour films 6 months apart. Everyone would go see both of them and it would immediately double your profits. And then everyone would be happy because they got to see their favorite scenes and didn't have to have their bladder explode in the theater. Win-Win. Finally for the 7th movie they got it right and are making it a two parter. Seriously, the Harry Potter series is on par with the Lord of the Rings in its epicness and cultural relevance. The producers have a social responsibility to do this properly. Sadly, people are going to see the movies either way, and they know this, so there's no accountability.


The show American Dad isn't altogether that funny, but at least once an episode I laugh out loud. They were going through a list to make sure they had everything:

"Flashlight?"
"Check."
"Wire cutters?"
"Check"
"What do you do to yourself before you wreck yourself?"
"Check."