Yeah, that happens when I have coffee later in the day than I'm used to.

I hadn't realised that studies skewed towards students of the specialties!

My intro psych professor introduced the course by saying, "Psychology is a science based on rats and college sophomores."

Adventures in book festival volunteering:

I'm sure the theater people have worse stories, but I and the volunteers working for me just spent two days discovering just how difficult "no food and drink in the theater" is. The venue was the high school's relatively new and quite spiffy performance arts center. We designated an area where people could leave their food and drink. We gave them pens and Post-it notes to ID them. Yet we had the man who argued with a volunteer for five minutes because he said it was a $9 water bottle. We had the woman I discovered sitting towards the back in the aisle (also not allowed) eating ice cream. It was the sort sold in a cup with a lid, so she had apparently smuggled it in in her bag. She said to me, "I thought it would be okay if I ate it here." I escorted her out to finish it. Finally, there was the woman who drove a teenaged volunteer to tears by insisting on putting her water bottle in her purse and going into the theater. Because the volunteer was upset, I went over to the woman. I did not demand her water bottle. I spoke softly. I merely reiterated that she must leave the water bottle in her purse. I got a litany of "I had three children go to this school. You can't tell what I can put in my purse. I paid more for this than I ve ever paid for a bottle of water before." (My thought when she said the last was, "You've never been to a Braves game, have you?") I found out later that she told the volunteers at the door that she wouldn't leave her bottle of water outside because "someone could put something in it."

I knew about that WEIRD phenomenon but didn't remember the term.

Thanks for the wishes for my sister. They are quite welcome, although I don't want to give the false impression that pursuing chemo is a GOOD sign. But it's something, and hey, I'll take it.

Oy Ginger. People!

My psych prof in college mentioned how a lot of studies use a pool of freshman psych students instead of real population cross sections. We had to volunteer for a certain number of tests to pass the course. I had one grad student bitch me out for throwing off his statistical spread by being too good at picking out words from jumbled letters. Certainly didn't raise my faith in studies to hear that.

I remember once before a pop quiz that my psych prof asked if we had any questions before we began. I raised my hand and asked what the answers were.

He gave them.

Unfortunately, the final answer was "caffeine" and my pavlovian response was to write "coffee" because it was an 8am class and I am not a morning person.

Burrell, well enough to go home is great on many levels. That's excellent.

My one psych class destroyed my image of the science (including as a science--I'm still recovering from that) by using broad brushes that didn't colour me.

I just realized that Philosophy had my favourite electives.

I had a philosophy prof who used to be a marine, and cleared the room by at least two thirds by giving a scary speech about kids looking for an easy elective. We got into lots of arguments. One day he was talking about unpredictable random things, and I was pissed at him for something (most likely me using an argument of his against him, one that he used often on us, that he then dismissed as unfounded).

So I got up and walked out.

He didn't count it as an absence.

After the class was over he wrote me a nice letter about how much he enjoyed our talks.

So many teachers are just waiting for someone to yell back at them.

So many teachers are just waiting for someone to yell back at them.

And yet, so few judges.