I have weather class. It's my senior year, in the 6th ranked entrepreneurship program in the nation (thanks Drexel, my $50,000,000,000 a year finally paid for something) and I have weather class Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
Today I did learn several interesting things today however:
1. Clouds make the earth stay warm at night. I.e. cloudless night = nipply out
2. Floods kill the most people out of the weather catastrophe category
3. When it's windy, playground fights increase
4. The Santa Ana winds correlate to higher murder/suicide rates
5. My teacher has played with mercury for years
Normally, when a BS class has to be taken, the students take it out on the teacher. The teacher turns into this horrible creature that cannot relate to students and they suck and blah blah blah, all because the class is A WASTE OF TIME.
This is an unusual case though.
Dr. Frederick House.
The name already had me intrigued. Just the thought that I may show up to class, and the professor may be a sardonic version of Hugh Laurie made me happy. As did the DU Review page which told me not a lot of work and easy grading was in my future. However, nothing prepared me for what I saw:
An old man, could be anyone's grandfather. Probably 68-75 years old, Air Force Veteran (probably served in WWII, not kidding), little stooped man, white hair (but bald on top), always nice clothes, and really cares about what he is teaching. Been teaching at Drexel for almost 40 years.
Which is why when he decided that last Friday's class would be devoted to telling us how to invest money for our future (picture Finance 101, lecture from 1985) and NOT about weather, no one got mad at him! We were frustrated, but everyone sat still, acted like they were paying attention, and quietly left at the end.
I feel like this is because he admits freely that the lecture was from 1985, and kept repeating that he just didn't want to see us old and destitute. Okay, valid reason. I forgive you. But, I just got outta Finance 301 and I'm still licking my wounds. Stop rubbing salt in them!
The other reason we respect him - other than "he's my grandfather" vibe - is because he says genuinely funny things. Like today, he was talking about thermometers and mercury. "You know, before mercury was declared "bad to touch" or whatever, we used to break thermometers and have a lot of fun just rolling those balls around with our thumbs."
How could you not love an adorable old man who still thinks it is really okay to play with mercury and that the world is just trying to take away fun by saying it is bad?
maybe the mercury has something to do with what he teaches you, but how can you not love someone who survived the great depression?
ReplyDelete-Pogo