Day 28

Although I have not by any stretch of the imagination been cured of my inveterate coffee-drinking habits, the rather repulsive and acidic instant mix they serve here has certainly diverted me to other sources of caffeine. I've settled down to study with tea on several occasions now, and am slowly developing a nostalgia for those silly tea parties I had when I was younger with the Scotch eggs and jam tartlets and whatnot. No Scotch eggs here, though, only PBJ sandwiches pilfered from the kitchen in between meals, and definitely not as much appetite while reading about parastic Trematodes that grow up to 20 meters long in a human gut.

While on the topic of invertebrates, can I just say that I'm sick and tired of hearing people whine about how much memorization there is in this course? I know that I'm guilty of it myself at times (cf. Jan 23rd), but honestly, what are you going to do about it? It's a taxonomy class. Americans, IMHO, have been spoiled silly by this whole 21st century learning nonsense. Now no one wants to take tests anymore, everyone's all about understanding concepts rather than remembering facts. All well and good, I suppose, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet - a good memory is well correlated with other measures of intelligence in any case. It's not even as if they're being asked to take the 'O' or 'A' levels. Now that was hardcore memorization. 2 years worth of lessons for one exam, and 10 subjects to boot - pure insanity. There would be rebellion here at the very mention of the idea. Nowadays, you ask Americans to commit a few scientific names to memory and they're off crying to their mothers. Pete's sake. Grow up already. It's called education.