innocentmind

Today was the first day of Individual and Family Development class, and we went around the room doing personal introductions. I feel this is a totally useless practice that teachers use to fill up time on the first day, since no assigned reading can be discussed yet. I don't particularly care about other people's backgrounds, nor do they probably care about mine (but maybe I'm projecting here). But I made the most of it and had the class laughing when I said "My mother's originally from Holland, and I speak the language. My father's Texan, but I don't speak that language."

This one fat Armenian girl who claimed to be Jewish by ethnicity and born again Christian by choice was so dumb (just being descriptive, as some Armenians can be cool). We were discussing nature versus nurture. I brought up recent research showing a direct connection between the two by demonstrating how environmental influences switch on and off certain genes to determine expressed traits and characteristics. Immediately after me, she commented that she's definitely more in favor of the environment side of the argument, since "everything outside of you is what makes you." Did she not even listen to my or other students' points saying there must necessarily be both?

The teacher then spoke about genes predisposing people to certain temperaments, addictions, etc., and the same girl asked "What does the word 'predispose' mean?"

I just don't know how some people get into grad school.