i'm not dumb, but i'd like to be smarter

a friend of mine was talking about studying and her particular style of learning and remembering on her website yesterday, so i'm sure that's what made me think of this.

my super-senior (aka fifth year of college), i took an elective course in psychology dealing with the anatomy of the brain. i can't remember exactly what it was called. i didn't take it as a blow-off course or anything. in fact, how could it have been since it was held on monday, wednesday and friday at 8:00am. no-one on the planet takes a cake-course at that time of day...... in fact, i bet cake-courses don't exist at that time.... no one would take them.

anyway, the professor was a guy called kerry williams. kerry for a man, a little weird but it really suited him. he was very dry, with an almost silent sense-of-humor. but, he always wore an indiana-jones-type-hat. he was a cool enough guy, i guess. but he gave weekly quizzes and regular exams that were really, really long. i'm talking like hundreds, maybe like 200 questions each.

so, i diligently went to the first round of classes. i came to find out that he a) never ever took role, not even on the first few days when the university insisted for registration b) he never insisted on class participation and c) what does that mean to me?...... my grade is based on what i score on the tests and quizzes. nothing less, nothing more.

this ended up making me very, very happy. in fact, thinking back there could not have been a better fit for me at that time with the subject matter. as senior slide kicked in and i started pooping out because of all the other things i had on my plate, i began skipping every lecture class period and only showed up on fridays to take the quizzes or exams. the result?

i actually ended up with one of the highest grades, if not the highest that i have ever scored in a class in my college career. it was crazy. i suppose a lot of it had to do with the biology major that i had completed by then. but all of the material 'just made sense' to me. it was great. i felt like a genius. even better, there was this girl who sat next to me in the last row (i sat there so i could lean my head against the wall if i felt sleepy) who had no idea what was going on in the class. one day she started asking me questions. she couldn't understand something, or she missed what prof. williams said. then she noticed i wasn't taking any notes, i was just sitting there (it was a quiz day). but then i started explaining whatever it was that she didn't get. so, then she wanted me to study with her and explain what was going on in the text. unfortunately, i was working nights full-time and i was a TA and was working as a lab. aid, so i didn't have a lot of time. plus, i had sold my text book back after the first couple classes.

well, this girl then was just fascinated with my scores and my exams. she would ask me what i got on every test and every exam. usually, i had missed one or not any at all. finally, i started giving all of my papers to her and she would make a copy to study, then return them to me. it ended up being an enjoyable class. the content was pretty interesting, but even more was the fact that i was a genius, the curve-breaker... just for one semester.

as, i mentioned i'm not dumb and i can grasp most things, generally school went pretty well for me. but never as well as it did in that psych class in the back row.