We were not off to a good start. I parked in a crowded parking lot a long way from the door. Maybe it was just the first week of class or maybe it was because it was 10am instead of 9am. Either way it sucked since it was 10 degrees. I found my classroom across the hall from last semester's lecture hall. They crammed almost 50 of us into a room designed to hold 40 max. I got there at 10 minutes till and there were only 3 seats left. And it was table style, not lecture style. I was in the back of the room looking around people's heads to see a power point projected onto a shiny dry erase board. The teacher appeared to be around my age and introduced herself as a chiropractor doing her first teaching as an adjunct this semester. I'm not sure if she said her name, but for future reference, it is Dr. Murphy. She didn't have the syllabus or a study guide for us but did let us know that the tests would be made by the same teacher that made the 101 tests. She did have pages of power point slides shrunk down to the size of a postage stamp for us to squint at. They are straight out the textbook that everyone owns but no one else reads. Then she struggled to talk to us. She was so casual and clumsy in her style that my autistic side started to panic. This isn't Mrs. Puckett. I immediately let the judgments fly. I thought she had no idea what she was talking about and therefore I will not be learning anything. She struggled to turn the lights off. That's it. I'm shutting down. She told us how she wasn't feeling good. I'm outta here. Where's Mrs. Puckett? I dropped my pen and stared out the window. This is going to be a long semester.
Earlier in the week I had planned on reading all of chapter 15 to be ahead. One thing led to another and Thursday ended up being the only day I got to it. Of course, chapter 15 is a few thousand pages long so I didn't get very far. This worked to my advantage in class, though. My teacher only talked about what is in the chapter and she stopped at exactly the same point where I stopped. Mrs. Puckett, on the other hand, knew the textbook front to back and had no problem throwing in all kinds of stuff and going completely out of order as she saw fit. I never once made it through an entire lecture without being utterly confused at some point. Score one for new teacher.
Jason brought me some power food at noon, a spinach calzone from Angelo's and some brain juice also known as Diet Dr. Pepper. We talked about the difference in the teachers and as I explained it, I started to feel somewhat optimistic. Why am I fighting what appears to be an easier, more likeable teacher? She sticks with the text, uses lots of pictures and small words and she's not nearly as scary as Mrs. Puckett? My fear of change had reared it's ugly head but I managed to reason with it over lunch and in the end my fierce loyalty to logic, reason and reality planted a seed of optimism.
Our new lab is much more intimidating. It's a chemistry lab so every surface is covered in ridiculously expensive equipment. I found my friends and we managed to sit together in one row with a microwave, dishwasher and buffet server thing. It's an odd place. There's also a raised counter in the middle at eye level blocking our view of pretty much everything. But in this room is where Dr. Murphy really started to grow on me (not literally). The atmosphere was much more casual and she was able to walk around and talk with us more. I also realized she does actually know what she's talking about. It may not be as book detailed as Mrs. Pam Puckett, but I can understand that given their backgrounds. Dr. Murphy is a doctor, not a teacher and this is her first class. Since my friends and I are always the last ones there we were able to talk with her for awhile before leaving. She actually made an effort to learn our names.
Pam who?
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