8/02/2006 11:51:00 pm

Oh shit. I'm a little concerned that I have no idea about what is going on in a number of my courses this session. For example:

1. Philosophy of science: class seems to be full of wankers who have done a lot pure pure philosophy (which I haven't) and they keep spouting off about realism and the difference between pragmatists and pragmatasists. Meanwhile, I sit there wondering how, in two years of studying various branches of HPS, I have no idea what any of them are talking about, and even less of an idea about the difference between ontology and epistemology. Oh, and I can't afford the textbook.

2. Medieval history: firstly, I really don't know much about the Bible, so in trying to prepare for a tutorial about the importance of the body in the early Latin church (let alone my confusion about the actual meaning of 'body' in the question) I keep coming across things about apostles and Moses' father-in-law and having nothing to relate it to. I feel completely out of my depth, which I know is ridiculous because I'm quite good at history, I got 92 in the HSC, but again the class is full of people who keep talking about paradoxes and paradigms which don't seem to relate at all to the set reading material. AND the tutor, who is also the lecturer, did the usual thing of going round the room and finding things out about people and it went something like this:
Tutor: who here is a medieval buff?
Class: a few geeky looking Warcraft boys put their hands up.
Tutor: what about classics, modern, ancient etc.
Class: more hands.
Tutor: I hope there aren't any people here who just enrolled because it fit their timetable... Hmmn, have I missed anyone out?
Me: (tentatively raising hand) Well, I'm actually doing a science degree...
Tutor (and I swear to god he actually said this, and make is as pompous and incredulous as your imagination sees fit): then why are you here??
Class: silence.
Me: well I'm doing an arts degree as well, and my arts major is HPS, and lots of stuff happened in Italy with universities and stuff after the middle ages (note how intelligent I obviously sounded)
Tutor: then why are you here?
By the way, my imagined response was something along the lines of "listen you self-serving pompous git, you obviously have never imagined that some people are cross-disciplinary students who are well rounded intelligent individuals capable of thinking in more than one mindset. I am one of those. And, since your department is in very real danger of being merged with two others due to dwindling class sizes I would have thought you would welcome me with open arms, science degree or not.
Me: too intimidated to say anything for the rest of the class.

3. Genetics: guffaw! Apparently it's all assumed knowledge from first year, so I can only assume that I never actually went to the lectures (because I never made it to that many bio ones), or it's assumed from the second semester bio course, which I was exempt from doing. Hmmn, all I really remember were powerpoints with lots of little circles drawn on them....

In other news, we ate cookie dough tonight and I went to Coles to buy deoderant and fruit and ended up getting pies, popcorn, chocolate, strawberry milk, and fruit.

Oh, and I called my Dad, had a conversation, told him I needed him to pay my student fees (which was a very difficult thing for me to do), and heard his wife make a bitchy comment in the background "oh, so that's why she called". Got off the phone, got upset, felt like shit, took my antibiotics and made a cup of tea. Same story, different month.

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