Monday afternoon thoughts

* Rewatching the Yakyakistan episode. And it occurs to me - don't we all, really, have a yak deep inside us, a yak that wants to throw a tantrum and smash stuff when it's not to our liking? There have been times - more than once - when I ordered something in a restaurant and it was Not As Advertised and it made me very sad. But because of how I've been socialized, I did not rage and go "THIS NO TASTE LIKE ERICA FOOD!" and start breaking dishes.

Instead, I sighed. And ate as much of it as I could. (Well, okay, in one case I also cried, but there were extenuating circumstances: I'd been in a car for six hours, cramped in a backseat where the walker of a fellow passenger who had had knee surgery would roll over and smack me on the right knee every time the driver made a left turn. And also, it was a grilled cheese sandwich that was NOT grilled (toasted bread with cheese that seemed like it had been microwaved) AND they put mayonnaise on it without telling me that it was going to have mayonnaise)

I don't know. I never know the balance of things. On a recent train trip, the "medium rare" steak I ordered came out more like medium-well, but I just choked it down (and it was rather tough) because the crew was harried and seemed grumpy. I tend to err on the side of just accepting whatever imperfect thing I receive.

* Dang, that yak cake looks good to me. I would never smash that cake. (I need to figure out something good for dinner. Too many nights of indifferent cold fruit or spinach stuff)

* Field lab today. I forget what it's like having a class of mainly pre-meds. (There was some complaining: "It's hot." "The vegetation is really tall." "What if there are snakes?")

And yeah, it's hot. Not as hot as on Friday morning when I was out for a longer time. (And anyway: I'm 25 years older than many of these students. And I outweigh some of the ones close to my height by maybe 40 pounds. And I have some minor health issues going on)

I forget that a lot of the pre-meds don't have the same knowledge base as the cons. students do. I had to explain what carpenter bees were and that there was really no need to be afraid of them. I had to tell people what a praying mantis was. When we were driving back, there was a big scavenger (either a young turkey vulture or a black vulture - it had the naked head but its head wasn't the pink color of mature turkey vultures. I'm guessing juvenile turkey vulture because black vultures are a lot less common and this bird moved tentatively, like a juvenile). No one but me knew what it was.

Sometimes it's kind of fun, because people act like I'm a wizard because I know all this stuff (I'm not. I just have a good memory and have been doing this for a long time)

* Funny story from being a TA: One semester there was a guy in my class who was "too cool for school." As I remember, he was a well-off kid from a ritzy 'burb of Chicago, and also, he was a Sports Star. I forget what team - baseball, maybe? At any rate, it wasn't one of the big two (football or basketball) but he was ALWAYS reminding people how he was Important because he was in sports. (Essentially: that he was better than everyone else and deserving of special treatment)

Well, one day lab was out in the field - forest sampling. And while I was explaining how the lab worked out in the field, a stick insect happened to fall onto the guy's shoulder. And the guy Freaked. Out. Started screaming and running around in circles and going "Oh my G*d, get it OFF me!!!!!"

So I walked up to him, and gently lifted the stick insect off his shoulder, and held it up for the class to see, and talked a little bit about them and how they were fundamentally harmless. Oh, I laid it on a bit thick but as that guy had been a thorn in my side all semester, I felt okay about doing it. (No, I don't think he respected me any more afterward, though I do think some of his classmates appreciated what I was doing.)

* Another story: some years back, in the fall, we were doing a field lab as the last lab. It had been warm and sunny but we were due for a cold front. I leaned really hard on that, reminding the students that it was likely to be cold and rainy when we went out and to dress appropriately. My cons. majors showed up in hunting boots, Carhartts, and padded jackets. The pre-meds, by and large, wore what they had worn earlier in the week - one woman was in a sleeveless t-shirt.

And it WAS cold and rainy. I looked over the groups of students working, the poor pre-meds huddling together to try to stay warm, and when we had collected some bare minimum of data I just "called" the lab and told people we were going back in. My TA at the time - a cons. major himself - before getting into his van - leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Stupid pre-meds." (Maybe it is only funny if you knew him. But it was pretty funny)