Missing the Obvious

You know, I used to have a tag line on this thing that said something to the effect of: "Smartjuice. It won't make you smarter, but it sure tastes good!" I really should add that tag line back because it is such an apropos disclaimer. See, there are many, many times where I could use some smartjuice. If there was such a thing, that is. There are many, many times where it seems my brain loses functionality and in turn, I lose the ability to process things rationally.

Is this detrimental to me? No.

Does it make me say to myself on numerous occasions, "Self, that was pretty stupid?" Why yes, it does.

Take the other day for example. I have this large break between my morning and afternoon classes, so I usually spend it in the student lounge studying reading surfing the interwebs and generally finding anything to do to kill time. I usually like to hunker down in these comfortable lounge chairs in front of the windows so that I can look out at the activity happening outside. Lately there has been all types of construction going on at the hotel across the street. It is undergoing a major renovation, so it has been under construction for some time, On this particular day, there was a large section of scaffolding on the side of the hotel that faces the law school. On each level of scaffolding stood a construction worker. The workers were passing these metal poles to one another. The guy on the top level would take a pole and pass it to the guy on the level below him, and so forth, all assembly line style. Like little Oompa Loompas or something.

I paid little attention to this and would only glance at them occasionally. Whenever I did glance out the window, the workers would still be doing their assembly line thing. The only part I couldn't figure out is where the poles were coming from. I knew they were coming from above, so I figured they were being lowered from the roof or something. But the poles kept coming and coming...and I started to realize there was no way they were coming from the roof.

See, this is getting hard to explain. I think an illustration would best serve this purpose. So please allow me to show you some drawings I did in Microsoft Paint. I feel as if I need to issue a disclaimer first though. I am no good in Microsoft Paint. No good at all. Horrible, really. I am all thumbs when it comes to using the mouse to draw things. I have no clue how people use that program. Which reminds of a completely unrelated story...

In my senior year biology class, for every lab report we turned in, we had to include an illustration of the apparatuses (apparati?) we used for the lab. Like if we used a scale, under the 'Equipment' section of the lab report we had to draw a scale. I have no clue why we had to do this. As if 'scale' wasn't descriptive enough. As if the biology teacher did not know what we meant by 'test tube.' Why did we need the drawing?

Anyway, there was this one girl in our class who would always turn in these amazing lab reports complete with these incredibly detailed drawings of all the equipment used in the lab. And the drawings were probably done to scale as well. She did all of these drawings on Microsoft Paint. They were so good, and her lab reports were so thorough, that when me, her, and another guy got put in the same lab group, my teacher even told me, "I would get her to put together the lab report."

And that is what I did. I let her do all of my work. Hey, my teacher told me to let her do my work. Additionally, it was the last six weeks of my senior year and I really didn't care all that much. Also, the girl would spend hours upon hours making these Microsoft Paint illustrations and I had no time for that. I  kid you not when I say hours. I would go to her house to work on the reports, and four hours later she was still drawing a picture of a bunsen burner. It would inevitably end up looking like this:

Whereas my efforts would have turned out something more akin to this:

Keep in mind, I don't think bunsen burners actually plug in to anything. But I was working with some seriously limited Microsoft Paint skills, okay? Cut me a break. Anyway, after four or so hours of this I would be at wits end. So I ended up concocting this crazy story about how my parents gave me a crazy early curfew and I had to be home by 9pm. And then she would stay up all night perfecting her drawings and putting the lab report together. And then we would get an A+.

Fair? Probably not. But it's not like my teacher didn't know what was going on. HE TOLD ME TO LET HER DO EVERYTHING!

Where was I? Oh, the workers on the scaffolding. Yes. Okay, so the first time I noticed them, the situation looked a little something like this:

See the workers? See their freakishly long arms? And their freakishly large heads? Pretend the guy on the top is passing a pole down to the guy below him, and so forth. But where are the poles coming from? A little bit later:

More assembly line action. More freakish stick people. But where are the poles coming from?? And then later:

I ask again, where are the poles coming from??

Here's an idea...maybe the poles are coming from the actual scaffolding? Maybe they are taking apart the scaffolding one level at a time. Maybe since entire levels of the scaffolding are disappearing, it would have been easy to figure that out. But then again, maybe not.

You know how I said before that this blog will not make you any smarter? Well, it sure as heck should make you FEEL smarter. Smarter than me, anyhow.

Comments

[Amy]

I love when you blog. I have no recollection of anyone drawing extremely detailed drawings in Bio...actually I don't even remember having to draw the equipment...I think you made that up. Or maybe I just never got to be in a lab group with smart people who cared about their work....

Amy

[Carole]

Yay! You posted. You know I check like 5 times a day;)

i remember the drawings. i, also, was NO good at it.

[Reid]

Funny stuff. Imagine how disoriented you would have been had you been watching on the day the scaffolding went up.