The Bio Files

I started my biology class this week. This is a two-week intensive course, where we are cramming a semester's worth of content into a very small space of time. The days are long, but the payoff is that at the end of the two weeks, we will be done. Of course, then we start right up with Biology II. The upshot is that it pays off in more ways than one, in that essentially, we are earning $600 for taking both courses. That's because of the way this grant is set up. You want to pay me to take a class? Sure. I might prefer sleeping in on these lazy summer days, but I won't make $30 a day. Last semester, I took that physics class at Northeastern, and now I'm taking these summer courses at UMass-Boston. So far, I am massing knowledge. You mass knowledge at UMass-Amherst, where I took courses back in 1996-1997...and you mass knowledge in Boston, too!

Some interesting people in the class. There is Fruit of the Room, the highly knowledgeable science teacher who thinks he is Mr. Know-It-All. He actually convinces you of this until he says something so random, so ridiculous, and non-sequitor that you kick yourself for buying his line of utter bull. He is Fruit of the Room because he clearly exhibits a more feminine persona at times, though I don't believe he is gay. However, he is the closest thing to having a token gay in the class, hence Fruit of the Room. He cannot be gay, I am the only gay in the room. Actually, no I'm not. I mean, I'm not gay...I mean...yeah, but no...yeah, but no...no, but yeah. In a comment during class yesterday, he said, "wow...I really love that analogy of the staircase or the bicycle down a hill...which illustrates the electron transport chain as the electron 'falls' down that path releasing a little bit of energy along the way before being caught by the oxygen which acts as a bucket. As a teacher who speaks in analogies and loves making analogies all the time, I've got to remember that one...that was so cute."

Stephanie likes coming up with nicknames for everyone. There is DH, who depending on the day can be Designated Hitter or Domestic Help. Stephanie called her Domestic Help because a) she doesn't appear to speak much English and reminds her of many of her English Language Learner students' parents...and b) because help is precisely something she doesn't do when it comes time to contribute to labs and experiments. I prefer Designated Hitter because it is not nearly as mean. When you think DH, you think Designated Hitter, so I prefer to think of her as that, because she seems quite nice - just not all with it because of a major language barrier. Apparently, she is a teacher, too. Taking this class is one thing...but how she can teach in the Boston area with apparently very little knowledge of English is an enigma wrapped up in a "huh"?

There is Special Ed. His name really isn't Ed, but he is special. I've concluded that he is a person on the higher end of the Autistic Spectrum Disorders scale - likley Asperger's Syndrome. He seems bright enough to be a teacher, which I believe he is, and bright enough for the course, but the level of his social inadequacy and apparent pragmatic language disability is quite striking. The disconnect speaks volumes as he comes late to class most days and often says some inappropriate things or overreacts to simple misunderstandings. He accused my group of stealing his test tubes and insisted the writing on the tubes was his! A wind-up monkey we were playing with in class to demonstrate potential and kinetic energy went missing. Special Ed stood as the accused. He helps himself to snacks in the other room in the middle of a lecture and blurts out inappropriate things in an effort to be funny. In reference to a McMush solution (consisting of a blended Happy Meal) we used to test for the presence of proteins, lipids, starch, and sugar, he called out (very loudly) "Yeah, five bucks for anyone who drinks that...har har ha ha!" He also asked, in the middle of class, "I heard we are going to be doing cloning in here...is that true?" The professor, who is just as annoyed with him as the rest of us, somehow manages to keep a straight face and dish it right back to him. She responded with, "Yeah...we're actually going to clone you!" Special Ed, not recognizing the joke at his expense, then says, "Yeah that's actually a good idea. They should do that. We'd all be better off, you know!" Special Ed apparently rides his bike seventeen miles to class every day, which is quite good. However, he makes it a point to somehow remind us of this each day. Again, the professor plays along. "There are various foods that can give us more energy depending upon the number of kilocalories...and the more you exercise and exert energy the more energy you need to take in...so (Special Ed), that means you can eat more of the snacks provided in the room next door, because you reminded us about how far you ride each day." To this, Special Ed laughs and says, "Yeah, I can't wait for that fresh fruit to arrive!" His name starts with an "s" and ends with a "pecial Ed" or put another way, his name rhymes with Meshal Bed.

There is Miss Extra Punitive...the toothpick-thin girl who thinks she knows it all and must put others down in order to build herself up - and she is apparently helping to teach the next course. She isn't afraid to tell you how you are messing up an experiment, but at the same time, she sees the need to check your data and make sure her group's results are similar. Another one prone to random comments, she walked up to me the other day and said, "you're wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt. Guys can get away with that...girls can't. Though we can wear floral pattern dresses." Today, I wore another shirt like that and she saw fit to observe that. She was wearing a t-shirt. I very casually told her, "yeah - even when you dress down you make it look good." I admit that I find her vaguely attractive, but I'm not attracted to her.

There is Me Me Me and My Beach House. He is an older guy who seems to do nothing. Even DH has more to contribute than he does. He likes to talk and to hear himself talk, but he doesn't much care for taking part in any labs. "If you want, I can wash out that beaker", may be the most he will offer during a given class. The other day, he did absolutely nothing. He even disappeared from sight a few times.

There is also Guarding Mess. This is a younger girl who is just an M.Ed student at UMass, not a teacher like most of the rest of us. Guarding Mess, or GM, is pretty full of herself too, and to make sure you know it, she will talk talk talk. All the talk will be about is her of course, how she once got naked with other people and took photos of herself like that, how much she loves this, that, or the other thing, her precious "boyfriend", etc. She is a bit out there and seems to have befriended Special Ed. She also saw fit to decorate her name tag with pretty colors and floral designs. She is quite scatter-brained, and one must be on their guard when near her, hence Guarding Mess.

There is also Whirlybird or TTMSIDK (Thanks Tell Me Something I Didn't Know) Whirlybird thinks is another one who thinks she's the instructor. She is pretty much our version of John Madden. "Gee, it says you need to make a graph of this...I see you made a graph" or she'll say something like, "You will need a graduated cylinder to measure out the milk before adding the enzyme" after she clearly saw you do just that a minute earlier!

In addition to them, there are some cool people in class. There is Silky Smooth, the laid-back, very intelligent older gentleman who isn't afraid to ask the big questions. "Now what I don't get you see is how this A"T" P becomes the A "D" P. Seems to me, it don't make sense. See I don't know about that. Seems like it should be the other way around - you get what I'm sayin'?" He is the only one in the class who can make biology sexy. He makes it look good!!! He'd put Tim Meadows' Ladies Man character to shame.

I could go on, but that is enough for now. Or maybe there just isn't anyone else in class who is all that interesting.

Oh yeah, Stephanie is in my class of course, but she's "okay". She's really not all that interesting - at least not as much as the aforementioned cast of characters above. We ride the T into class everyday and talk about these people. All the other commuters give us blank, silent stares, as we are the only ones talking on the ride in. Stephanie has her own nicknames, of course. She is of course, "That Bitch", because for whatever reason, she finds it odd that everybody seems to hate her with a passion. Because her life is falling apart all around her, she has come up with a new name for herself PPTW. This acronym is more appropriate when used as a credential - as one of the professional suffixes at the end of her name. When she completes this program, she can print up business cards that say Stephanie G., M.S., M.Ed, PPTW. The PPTW stands for "personal and professional train wreck".

Oh well...better get to my homework tonight. Have to finish my lab write-up on cellular respiration and the observations noted given the reactions between yeast and milk. Yummy.