The Right Stuff

I have a little rant coming up, but let's get the little stuff out of the way first, yes?

House season 4 has started. I've seen the first two episodes direct from the US and it's proving to be exciting watching. House used to be about the strange and weird medical cases that no one could solve, but it later became more about the interaction between House and his three assistants, Chase, Foreman and Cameron. That became the whole point of the show, it was what made the show good. So when all three left at the end of season three, I was a bit worried that the fourth season would turn out to be a dud. Instead he has to hire three new assistants and the interaction between him and med people is so damn funny. Two thumbs up so far.

Rant time. This happened today during our neurophysiology lecture. There was supposed to be a 9-10am lecture, but the dude never showed up, something kept him away. So we had a 2 hour lecture instead starting at 2pm. So he starts his lecture and people realise that his lecture is nothing like our notes. Turns out the notes are for revision, and his lecture notes won't be on WebCT. People grumble and start taking notes. Every slide there are murmurs of complaint, yells to go back to the last slide and afterwards grumblings of discontent. The general consensus seemed to be "why doesn't he put up the slides on WebCT, the bastard...".

Okay, so the lecture slides will never go up online (copyright issues due to using pictures from a textbook) and we have to resort to pen and paper. So can you actually shut up and take notes? Why all the complaining? It's amazing the amount bitching people can make just because you have to take notes by hand. And it is taking notes! Not writing down the entire fucking slide. Come on, you know the drill. You read the slide, then jot down the essential information. Then maybe transfer to a Word document for easier revision. A load of time was spent doing nothing because people kept yelling out for the lecturer to go back, because they hadn't finished copying all the details on the action potential and the five main stages in neural activity. I think that having the lecture notes on the Web has soften most uni students. It seems that we can't survive without having notes on the net.

Yes, I'll admit that I was a little peeved off at the fact we had to do some manual note taking, but what did I and most of the understanding students do? Suck it up, break out the pen and paper and do some note taking the old-fashioned way. Not hiss and moan at every single slide. Really, this comes down to the fact that shit happens and you just have to adapt to the situation. Or don't take notes.

Hmmm...I do feel a little better now. Now maybe instead of procrastinating, I'll dig my teeth into some work.