So like, in Psych Class today...

I couldn't get myself to stay up to do my work last night, so I woke up at 6am to finish my Psych paper and take-home exam.

I was kind of a comical mess. At one point I couldn't locate a #2 pencil to fill out my scantron, but luckily I did finally find my one Powerpuff Girl pencil in some drawer and a hand-pencil sharpener.

Then I printed out my paper. But then I found typos. When I went to edit it on my laptop, it froze. My laptop is fairly new too. I freaked out for a second, but then when I restarted, my file was still there, Phew!

Then after my paper printed out, I realized I wasn't sure I had a stapler.

After frantically hunting around my room, I found my tricky German stapler (bought from a Japanese stationery shop) that doesn't use actual staples, but I wasn't sure it could take 4 sheets. So I tested it on a couple sheets and subsequently BROKE the stapler!! I thought German engineering was reliable!!! I couldn't even find paper clips!!

Finally, I resorted to using double-stick tape to attach the four pages. I rushed to class, thinking I was late, but I wasn't late at all. Other classmates were frantically filling out and checking the remaining scantron questions still, and a third of the class showed up late. Two of them had to still print out their papers at school at class break. So I guess I did relatively ok! Phew.

Later on, in the middle of class, we heard some kind of annoying high-pitched sound and all started making twitchy faces about it. So the teacher said, "What? What's wrong?"

Classmate 1: There's some high-pitched sound! Don't you hear that?
Classmate 2: Yeah, what is that?
Classmate 3: (--whose cell phone usually goes off in classes) It's not me.
Classmate 4: I don't know. Is it coming from the door?
Professor Culler: Are you guys playing with me? I don't hear anything.

And then it dawned on me that it was that high-pitched sound that I read about... I think from Wall Street Journal! Apparently after about age 28-30, you stop hearing sounds beyond a certain level of pitch. In the news stories it said that some kids had discovered this and would use the pitch as a ringtone to get around teachers' rules about not using cellphones in class.

The professor knew about this too and explained it to the class, to explain his skepticism. I said, "Wait, but I can hear it!" I don't think my classmates realized why I was impressed that I could hear it. We figured that it was probably some strange problem with the building's PA system rather than some ringtone.

Classmate 1: Really? You can't hear that?
Prof. Culler: Wow. No really, I can't hear it. Hmm. that's a little depressing.
Classmate 4: Oh, now I don't hear it anymore.
Classmate 2: Yeah, well that's cuz it just stopped.
Prof. Culler: Well. I'm just going to blame it on that loud concert I went to last week.
Classmate 1: Yeah? What concert did you go to?
Prof. Culler: Bloc Party. You know those guys?
Various Classmates: Oh... yeah!
Prof. Culler: I am sure I was the oldest person there. Yeah, by far. Anyway, so, IQ tests!

At that point, I think we were stunned, because our professor is maybe in his fifties? I had barely heard of Bloc Party myself, except that I had seen it as a video selection last weekend when I flew Virgin America. As if it weren't already cool that he lived in the same building as Deborah Harry, he just won extra street cred from the rest of the class.

Class itself was very entertaining today, as usual. Professor Culler is always an amusing story-teller/lecturer. Today we learned about various IQ exams that they give to children. He even gave us sample questions and problems. At one point he showed us a sample puzzle that they use on the kids' version of the Wechsler IQ test, so I got to try that one out. Luckily I could do it pretty quick, so I didn't look like an idiot in front of the class.

Ok now I have to suffer my usual Thursday of hell when I cram for my massive load of homework drawings due Friday. Ack.