Of all the horrors I endured was suffering chemistry at vassar by Mariana Begeman and that horrible Mudd Chemistry building.
First I was living in the town houses. The walk over to the chemistry building, a modern steel and glass eyesore, was a good four miles and took over half an hour.
Second, we had little choice in our classes those days, and being a req for pre-med I had to take chemistry. So it scheduled me for the 9am class. Now I am not nor have I ever been a morning person. That meant, getting up and dressed at 8am and out the door and a long near run to get over there in time.
Well the design of that building heated up the room fiercely and the sun streamed into our faces. What a dumb design for a classroom.
I went to the first few months of classes and got a perfect 100 on every test.
And too quickly I realized they were not teaching chemistry but some FEMINIST HORROR abound in math with ALL OF THE FUN STRIPPED AWAY
Now I grew up so that by 12 years old I had a home chemistry set with over 200 chemicals, many deadly, and I knew how to make stuff with it. Color changes. Smoke bombs. Thermite. The basic kid fun stuff.
So when I got to college chemistry I was appalled. It was horrific. Booring as all hell. The math was easy for me, but the boredom was not.
So I never became a doctor becuase of this one horrible class. Half way through I stopped going. I don't know why. I just did. It was my one "F" grade in college. I took the final which I did study for, but I'm sure she flunked me out of spite regardless of how well I did.
Anyways fast forward 30 years and they demolished that horrible building even though it was one of the newest ones on campus which consisted mostly of beautiful buildings as a college should be.
Now all thats left is a festering pit. I beat you in the end you pig fucker place.
Later I would go on to see how these science classes had been feminized away into textbooks that stressed not the DOING of chemistry not the awe and cool experiments that could be, but boring measuring and formulas and producing nothing of interest. Its an epidemic of horror across the nation.
Well I win in the end you mudy pit. You may have destroyed my life as a successful neurosurgeon. But at least I can look at that mud and think... MUD CHEM, what a apropo name. Good riddance.
