Grandpa Greenbowe

My professor for Chem lecture is one of the kookiest men you'll ever meet.

In the middle of talking about electron configurations, he'll suddenly say, "Do you all know the difference between alpacas and llamas?". Then he proceeds to explain it, and moves on with electron configurations again.

Later in the lecture, he'll explain that in Minnesota and Wisconsin, men aren't very wealthy. So instead of buying a diamond ring to propose, they propose with an alpaca sweater, and later will buy a diamond ring.

But let's say later on, the relationship doesn't work out. And then the man asks for an item back, which he gave to her earlier. So does she give back the the alpaca SWEATER or the DIAMOND ring?

The answer of course is the SWEATER. Which he emphasizes thus.

And that is to teach us that when an electron is taken from an orbital, it is taken from the S orbital before it will be taken from the D orbital. Obviously.

But these are the types of stories he tells to make us understand the lecture material. It happens all the time.

Blah blah blah something about polar and non-polar molecules...
"Oh and remember: elephants and monkeys."
blah blah blah

Angela and I call him "Grandpa Greenbowe" because he's just so crazy, and he's got that classic "old man" attitude, and oh my gosh how great would it be if he was actually our grandpa?

But he was gone for the entire week, because he was in Croatia. And stupid Chad took over, who is kind of gay and kind of Asian and definitely confused.

But Grandpa was back today, for the optional lecture.
And all the things I was confused about came together in random stories about animals, and I'm just so upset that he wasn't there last week because I feel so unprepared for the exam.

It made me realize how much I appreciate him, though. His stories seemed so random, but they are actually great memory tricks, and really helpful. And I had teachers like him in high school all the time. But most professors here are serious and just teach.

So today, I've decided I'm thankful for Grandpa Greenbowe.

Also, wish me luck on the exam I have in 4 hours.
And pay your respects to my current chemistry grade, because it's about to die...