November 28, 2006

• Axis of Idiocy

  I’d like to use this entry to discuss those precious few classmates
  that everyone knows. You have them in your school, whether it’s medical
  school, undergrad, law school, high school, junior high – hell, I bet
  this personality type emerges even in preschool. You know them, and yet
  you may not even know their names. But you hear their voices every day
  in class. Yes, you know who I’m talking about. It’s those precious,
  select few, who cannot, will not, and dare not go through one class
  period without asking at least 3 questions. These questions can be
  relevant and clear, but more likely they are utterly pointless,
  confusing, off-topic, and likely the beginning of a string of followup
  questions. To which a logical person might ponder, why ask such
  questions? Why take up everone’s time (see calculations below)? Why not
  ask off-topic questions in a more appropriate setting, like office
  hours?

  In
  our medical school, I refer to them as the axis of idiocy. Why this
  name? because I feel these four have conspired to collectively sap the
  intelligence of whatever room they are in. Leadership changes from week
  to week, whether its the girl who wanted to know what the large letter
  on the front of her test was for (it was the test form she was taking),
  the guy who asked if it is dangerous for him to take his vitamin A
  supplements once a month after we learned about vitamin a toxicity and
  then argues with the professor why it is (*sigh*), the girl who wants
  to know if her 1 year old cousin is anorexic because she wont eat, or
  eats little (OMFG i hate you so much), and their current leader who i
  shant even begin to describe here.

  What are the consequences of
  the axis of idiocy? Profs going way overtime to finish lectures that
  were planned for ~50min (or even worse not finishing the material, and
  testing us on it anyway, angry students who don’t get a break between
  lectures and now can only focus on their overflowing bladders, and
  confused audiences who can’t get any continuity in the lecture because
  it gets interrupted every four minutes, so they don’t know what the
  hell is going on after having to tune out for 5+minutes while this
  moron asked a completely useless question and the prof struggled to
  answer it without making the person feel bad. (except Dr. Oltman’s who
  is awesome and will shut down the axis of idiocy)

  To these hypertalkers I have this to say:
  1) SHUT THE FUCK UP
  2)
  I did a little experiment, observing our most notorious hypertalker for
  one two hour lecture block, counting the amount of times she asked
  questions and the length of time it took to answer/disregard each
  question. I then used that info to extrapolate how many lecture hours
  of our lives she and the rest of the axis are taking up in a given
  year, and that number came up to 27 lecture hours per year (at first
  that seems like not a big deal, but think about it…those are LECTURE
  hours, as in, amount of time you spend sitting on your ass in an
  uncomfortable chair struggling to stay awake and pay attention). 27
  hours of me missing out on old people telling me stuff I need to know
  because these people don’t know how to shuttup. Which leads me to point
  #3…
  3) SHUT THE FUCK UP

  The Grand Solution?

   I
  proposeAt the beginning of each semester/quarter/block/whatever, each
  student is given a certain amount of question tickets. The total number
  equates to the amount of questions this person is allowed to ask per
  semester/quarter/block/whatever. Every time he/she asks a question, the
  student must give a ticket to the professor. If they use them up in the
  first week, tough shit. If they lose them, tough shit. If they forge
  them to be able to ask more questions, that’s just fucking sad (and
  I’ll individually number and track them so I’ll know which are frauds).
  Students who don’t normally ask questions can set up a black market and
  sell them to the highest bidder, making them feel at least financially
  compensated for all of the time that these people are taking from their
  lives. It’s a beautiful system…

  that, or i go back to
  whittling myself a blowgun…cant raise your hand to waste our time if
  a dart full of curare hits your neck at high speed.

  -J

  • 12:24 am
  • 3 Comments