Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Mr. Anatomy

My Anatomy professor is a fabulous teacher. He makes everything interesting and makes sure we understand it. He doesn't use boring Powerpoints from the textbook company like all of my other community college professors. The man seems to know all of this excruciatingly detailed information on say, the different fibers in connective tissues, from memory. And he has a law degree. It simply boggles my mind that one brain could fit all of that information. Mine would have exploded. Or just waved a little white flag and fled out my ear canals. But while I do love my professor, he's somewhat of a character.

He has this tendency to liken anatomical terms to food. Our class starts at 11am and goes to 1:30. He might just be hungry. The consequence of all of this is I will forever associate adipose cells with cottage cheese (which makes perfect sense when you think of cellulite), mitochondrias to sausage links, and Golgi bodies to stacks of pancakes. He once went on a literally ten minute analogy using meat-loaf. I honestly don't even remember what the meat loaf was supposed to represent, because I was so mesmerized as he went ingredient by ingredient- eggs, spices, sauces, and made an imaginary meatloaf. I also left that class wanting some damn meatloaf.

He also has a tendency to go on tangents, long ones. He once spent fifteen minutes talking to us about skin care. I swear to God that in my notes there is this sentence. "Pat dry after a shower instead of rubbing dry." Followed by. "Shave with moderate pressure." This was on a chapter on skin, but still, quite a tangent nonetheless. This is also why we are on Chapter 6 of our text book. There are a little more than three weeks of the semester left. In my BIO class, where the professor speed lectures through the material, we are on Chapter 21.

He also seems to have a mysterious life that pulls him away suddenly from the class. Sometimes he'll leave for 10-20 minutes and come back looking unkempt and distracted. Other times he'll let us out an hour and a half early. Once he just missed an entire class. This has led me to hypothesize that he is some sort of community college version of Indiana Jones. Instead of fighting Nazis in Africa, maybe he battles mid-level bureaucrats in Fluvana (that's a place right?) But since he's a lawyer he also solves cases and stands up for the little guy and helps right the scales of justice! All in his class breaks without anyone knowing. And now I think I have a television pilot to go write.

Our professor doesn't put up with any crap. He tells people to put away cell phones. He chastises for lateness occasionally. Today he even shushed someone. I wanted to cheer, because I constantly want to shush people, and no one in community college shushes anyone usually. I honestly don't think anyone even has the energy.

But miraculously this man seems to have energy. He isn't defeated. He doesn't stare out the windows at the rain with a single tear rolling down his cheek.

And God bless him for that. Because if I were in his position, dealing with what he has to deal with, I would not only have stared out that window with a single tear, I would have also jumped through it to my death below.

The man is a hero.

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