In Psychology, One Tries To Answer Questions

With this insane professor of yours, one can never truly be prepared for your psych class, and you’re not feeling good about your odds today. Work has stacked up real quick, and all that time you spent chasing girls has left little time for your readings. You lean back in your chair, desperately flipping through your notes, but there’s too much to cover in the minutes before class starts.

{if JeanneStalker == 1} You get a strange feeling, as if you’re being watched. You look up, but it’s just the usual glut of men in the classroom and Sarah… except, no, hanging by the door, you notice a blonde girl staring at you. What’s Jeanne doing here? You ignore her and keep studying. When class is about to start a few minutes later, you look up again, and sure enough, now she’s gone. Strange. {endif}

“I hope you’ve done your readings thoroughly, because these questions are coming in hot and fast,” the professor says, pacing around the front of the room. “Let’s kick it off with some review. Freud. Softball. What’s parapraxis?”

Hands fly up, yours included, but you’re not picked. The professor points at Michael, that jerk.

“That’s a Freudean slip, when you make an error in speech due to your **** interfering with the conscious. For example, if I meant to say ‘Sarah’s breast’... shit, I mean, if I meant to say ‘Sarah’s the best’...”

But he doesn’t get to finish his sentence as the class erupts into laughter. Vishal and you chuckle, taking a glance at Sarah. She does have great breasts.

“Well demonstrated,” the professor says, not skipping a beat. “Next. Aphasic patients often have impaired sentence comprehension despite understanding single words well. What are syntax-first and constraint-based sentence processing theories, and how do they relate to this empirical finding?”

You hesitate on the answer, chewing on it for a couple seconds, but in that time, the professor’s already called on Sarah. She recites the definition of each theory with textbook precision and synthesizes the fact about aphasia into the discussion so smoothly that your jaw drops. Then, you catch her and Michael sharing a grin as the professor compliments her answer.

Damn. That was a golden opportunity that you missed. The rest of class passes with a pattern that repeats with agonizing frequency. The professor lobs a question to the class. If it’s a tough one, the same few hands shoot up—never yours, you haven’t a clue how to answer those questions—and the professor calls on them. Whenever a softball comes up, the whole class has their hands up, and you’re never picked.

“Tough going today,” Vishal says, clapping you on the shoulder once class wraps up.

“Silence is golden,” you laugh. “Seems like it’s a rule we both live by.”

“Yeah, we really got to hit the books some more,” Vishal says, grimacing.