Behaviour in Various Classes

I've always been an amateur sociologist at heart, ever since I learned about it from my high school history teacher (Mr. Robert Davidson (Bobby D)). The idea fascinates me, and I often find myself studying the behavior of those I'm around instead of paying attention to the subject being conversed about. Think of it like this...at the end of the Matrix, after Neo gets plugged and resurrects and looks down the hallway and it's all the green letters and stuff rendering in 3D:



Whenever I look at a room of people talking, I seldom if ever hear what's actually being talked about, I see their behavior - their posture, their body language, their aura (if you will), the energy being exuded, their respective moods, their alpha/beta positions (observe two frat boys walking together, and one will always be alpha and one will always be beta to that alpha). I have to actually pay attention to what's being said and deliberately ignore my automatic observations of everything BUT the subject at hand - which is a very difficult task for me.

Well, today during sociology I was listening and taking notes as usual, and I somehow stepped outside myself and saw how I was behaving: I noticed that my posture had slumped, that my legs were crossed at the ankle, that I was tapping furiously and must look very silly, bouncy and animated from anyone else's POV, and upon looking back I noticed about four people watching me (three were girls, woo!), as though my fidgeting was more interesting than Dr. Lorentzen's lecture. I sat up, corrected my posture and tried to remain still.

I continued to take notes, but while I was listening to and recording on Word the points of lecture, I thought back and examined how I behave in all my classes:

In Anatomy I sit as far front as possible (front row seat today), stage right, laptop in hand, backpack at my feet, and take notes very deliberately and effectively. It's the only class where I pretty much ignore Chris (who always seems to sit right next to me!) - not to be a dick, I'm just paying a lot of attention to Dr. Froiland because when it comes to Anatomy, I'm not f'king around. I'm gonna pass this class with a vowel or damn close. My attention is drawn completely into what's being lectured, and I barely look at the clock all damn hour because I simply can't afford to drop my attention. My making the cut absolutely depends on this class, because it's the one subject i'm taking right now in which I know diddly freaking squat.

Chemistry, however, is a piece of cake thus far. I have it right after Anatomy so my brain's on overdrive, and my spot is in the second row, stage right, aisle seat, and Chris sits right next to me. Dr. Li makes the lecture interesting, but the subject is so easy to me (so far, this is stuff I learned in grade 11!) that I tend to faze out despite her attempts to captivate the audience; it's the only lecture in which I find myself resorting to self-entertainment: fidgeting with my freeware periodic table software (Freshney.org's periodic table - download this!) or something...just because (and not to be conceited) chemistry is like playing tee-ball to me. All that said, I refuse to sell out and go on Facebook or Myspace or anything like that during class (it's hard, lol!)...but that's the personal integrity I require out of myself during class hours.
However, I did spend about 2-3 hours last night making sure I had memorized the first 36 elements of the periodic table, to the point where I can recite them all by memory (almost in a constant feed!) and for what? The chemistry quiz this morning was ten multiple choice questions, all but one of them I was able to breeze through in under a minute (sometimes less than 20 seconds)...so I did all that extra work for naught. But that's okay, because now I know them.

Chem lab is fun. Besides being a dumbass and forgetting my coffee mug in there today (BTW: don't bring beverages into labs, it's a bad idea. Even if you don't get harped on by your instructor, you end up losing your mug - karma dictates that you should know better!) - I get to run around and help people. I have people request my help and that makes me feel good inside. ^_^ Mr. Dorh appears to be a TA around my age (25) so I'm not sure whether to view him as a professor or as a peer; the social dynamic between him and me is awkward right now but I'm sure it will come out good. I'm one of only three guys in the class, and one of them is Chris (whom I've known for years), so the dynamic is complex and being surrounded by all these girls, I find myself automatically acting out to entertain them. (That's what I love to do: entertain girls. That's why I'm a musician! LOL)
I tend to sit (and by sit I mean lean on the table because there's like nine stools for sixteen students) in the front nearest the door, both weeks thus far on stage left, and Chris sits right next to me. LOL.

Anatomy lab, well, I'll get back to you on that one; first impressions are that it's gonna serve mostly as a review of what I learned in lecture. I've only had it once so far, and you can't plot a line on a graph with one point.

UN100: well, I'm one of only two guys in the class, and the other is Chris, with whom I go way back (his sister dated my brother for a couple of years; in fact, his sister set Kasey and me up on a blind date back in '04; our fourth anniversary is 9/15! ^_^ ) and so the pecking order among the males is already long since established, and to be honest I've never been the alpha male in a group this size before, so it's a new experience. (In fact, I got a song out of pondering that!) Again, Seminar is Chris and me in a room full of girls, and I find myself (also) acting out to entertain them. Hence why I brought my guitar last week. :)
Also, I sit second row stage right, and Chris sits right next to me.

How I behave in Sociology intrigues even me. I sit in the front row (her rule, it's the only way you can use your laptop to take notes), stage right (see a theme?). Dr. Lorentzen is a fantastic public speaker, very passionate about her subject, and being right in the front row it's easy to feed off her energy and get amped up (especially when you're abnormally empathic and neurotic such as I am) and I find myself leaning inward, rotating my chair to face her, and fidgeting more than I do in any of my other classes (simply due to the amount of energy being projected; imagine standing next to the tower of PA speakers at a concert, wouldn't you move to the beat too, if even subconsciously?) - it doesn't help that I absolutely love sociology and take an active interest in what's being said.
Every once in a while she'll derail and talk about some personal story and whatnot, and I tend to slip into my own little world because whenever she gets personal, she turns down the psychic volume (because everyone's a little bashful about revealing personal things) and I can ponder other things (such as this!). But then she gets back on track and projects with the fervour of a conductor of a symphony. Needless to say, I'm silently taking public speaking lessons from her (aka not hiding behind the podium, using good posture, using hand gestures (although I've been told this is bad form, it WORKS) and wearing comfy shoes).

And yeah, I behave differently in every classroom environment because every class has a different feel. I'm not sure exactly how this relates, but I'm pondering it...and you should do a little self-reflection too, and discuss this and see what we have in common!