Scientists! They are just the best.

I’d like to share this with you.  It’s a lecture slide from yesterday:

Now, I’m aware that some people’s computers show colors in a slightly strange way.  If you can’t read anything on this slide, you can rest assured that your screen is totally accurate.

That’s light orange text on a blue background, people.  (Also – not an isolated occurence: it was actually the lecture’s color scheme.)

It reminds me of something that once happened in college:  I was taking Journalism 101, and everything the professor taught us happened to be obvious and pointless.  (Probably not her fault – it took me a long time to realize we weren’t actually expected to learn anything in J101 – just to do in-class group projects where we’d be assigned jobs like ‘making flashcards about the 1st amendment’ as a way of teaching us that journalism requires a high tolerance for hating your life.)

But once she realized how many people routinely skipped her class, she sent out an irritated e-mail claiming that if we did the division on our tuition, we were paying $94 for every lecture whether we were there or not, and thus, we should show up, because we were wasting money if we didn’t.  (Yes, she itali-bolded $94 and everything.)

And I just sat there thinking, “Wait a minute.  Isn’t the more logical argument that for $94 – not just regular-old $94, but $94! – I should get a lecture that actually helps me learn?  I mean, if I”m not getting what I paid for either way… ”  And from that day on, I skipped every class with a clear conscience.  It really taught me something.

So, right – my point is that I’ll try to learn from that mistake:  I’m going to avoid doing any tuition division on this orange-and-blue lecture.  No matter how great a caption on that picture saying “I paid $____ for this” would look.  Ignorance is bliss.

And so is skipping class.