Steinonbar Tries to Get Brainy
Totally uncharacteristic for a Shalampaxian, Steinonbar recently decided that she wanted to further her education and pursue one of the advanced sciences. To this end, she signed up for a course on brain anatomy at an online university.
Steinonbar felt smug about her choice of neuroanatomy as her field of study. She recognized that scientific experimentation and analysis is often exceptionally difficult and time-consuming. However, her plan was, if she ever got past the basic courses, she would go on to do original research on the Shalampaxian brain. She felt that, with this choice of specialization, the subjects of her research would not be very complex.
The first module of the course, which the university predicted would take students an hour to complete, was dedicated exclusively to learning how to spell amygdala. Steinonbar breezed through the material in just 90 minutes, although she still has a tendency to forget the “g” or mistakenly double the “l” in amygdala.
Before calling it a day, Steinonbar snuck a peek at the table of contents for the next course module. It promised to teach her what the amygdala is and does.
Seeing that the curriculum was going to advance past spelling, she became extremely fearful that the material would be far too difficult for her. This triggered a “fight or flight” response in Steinonbar, which in her case meant flight.
It is thus doubtful that Steinonbar will ever learn what the amygdala is or does, let alone anything else about brains, Shalampaxian or otherwise.
Seems to me she has an intuitive understanding of the amygdala.
@Patricia: Wow! An intuitive Shalampaxian. That’s probably a first. I’ll let her know if I find her. I think her experience sent her in hiding. Of course, now we have to figure out what it is that she intuitively understands. It’s unlikely that anyone in Shalampax knows what that is. Sure beats me.
I’m pretty sure that her withdrawal from the curriculum was bound to happen sooner or later.
She would need some brains to disect for her eventual research project and I’m pretty sure no Shalampaxian would donate a brain nor would the notoriously frugal Steinonbar pay for one.
The degree program was doomed from the start. Also, when the school figured out that she paid for the course with a fraudulent credit card, they would have expelled her anyway.
@David: I don’t know, it shouldn’t be too difficult to convince a Shalampaxian to donate his or her brain. It’s not as if anyone here is using theirs.
About the fraudulent credit card … that’s not a problem. We’ve hacked into the computers of all major credit card providers. None of our transactions are ever flagged as fraudulent.
I really don’t know why Steinonbar felt so threatened by this amygdala stuff. I took a quick glance at the material from the university. I didn’t read it too carefully, but, from what I understand, they have a real bricks-and-mortar university facility called the hippo campus. (But they can’t bee too smart because they accidentally left out the space and spelled it as hippocampus.) If they can teach hippos this stuff, surely they can teach Steinonbar.
I don’t know how to spell agylmada amyglada ag…even after I saw it spelled above. I’d be bolting with her.
@Unfinished Rambler: You’re a brave person. Few people outside of Shalampax would be willing to admit that they’d have the same reaction as a Shalampaxian.