I'm Not A Girl: ECE 362 (And 371)

This semester, I am the only guy in all of my classes. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes it's a little hard to relate to the examples my teachers will use to try to emphasize a point. Usually they'll use an example clearly aimed at all the ladies (last week a teacher made a comment regarding periods and pregnancy), but they'll backtrack and make the example relatable for me, as well (nothing was added to the period comment to make it relatable for me, though).

Today, in one of my classes, we were discussing the behaviorist theory of child development. Part of the theory is that internal feelings don't affect behaviors, which is stupid, but whatever. The teacher then said something along the lines of, "So, if you step in a puddle, you don't get your homework done, or if your boyfriend broke up with you, that doesn't affect your behavior," but she didn't backtrack. This caught me off guard. I had to reassess my life. "Wait a minute, my boyfriend just broke up with me? What's wrong with me - I'm not even upset about it. Maybe I'm not gay. Wait...I'm gay?"

Then the whole reassessment of my life started again.

"I'm gay? But I have a girlfriend about whom I care very much. So I'm not gay. But then why did I have a boyfriend?"

I must have had a look on my face suggesting I was reassessing my life, because one of the girls at my table said "Or girlfriend for you, Joe." Phew. That was a relief. Everything made sense, then, except the fact that the teacher disregarded me as a member of the class.*

*I'm not really upset about it. But still - that's kind of what happened, right? Whatevs, yo.

Super Female

Last week in my Bio lab, we learned about different birth defects (woohoo!) that occur in humans, mostly focusing on syndromes that take place with abnormalities in the 23rd chromosome pair, or the sex chromosomes. One such birth defect my lab partners and I found to be very intriguing.

An egg with two x-chromosomes that is fertilized by a sperm with one x-chromosome yields the karyotype xxx. The consequent offspring is, apparently, called a super female. For all of the other syndromes that were listed in the lab manual, there were also descriptions. Super female, however, did not have a description. Since we finished our lab early, my lab partners and I discussed the super female and what it could possibly be:

"I think a super female would be born wearing a cape and wouldn't cry at all, and she'd, like, cut her own umbilical cord with laser vision or something."

"I think only one super female ever existed, and it was Wonder Woman."

"For some reason, I just envision a mullet."

"I think it would be the female form of Chuck Norris."
"Ha, yeah. She'd give birth to herself, round-house kicking her way out of her own uterus."

"That's literally terrifying."
"What if Chuck Norris and the super female had a baby?"
"We'd all die."

"I think, if you're a super female, your future only holds starring in pornos."
"Wait, what? Why?"
"Well, her karyotype is XXX. Like for porn."
"Ooooooooooooooh."

(There was, of course, a sandwich-related explanation. Ladies, I sincerely apologize and would like to point out that I do not support the sandwich-making stereotype of women. I mean, I make sandwiches like a boss, and I'm not a woman.)

"I think a super female would be able to make you a sandwich with whatever you wanted on it without even having to ask what you wanted on it, and she'd know exactly when you want it, and how you wanted it cut, and, even if you were at work, she'd get it to you exactly when you wanted it."

This is pretty much why we should be allowed to leave once we finish our lab.