Filling my brain with knowledge... or something like it

Hmm... This week is week 5 of the two classes I'm taking.

I haven't posted anything in nearly a month.

... Yeah, that pretty much lines up.

So, what have I been doing, you ask? Attending classes, doing homework, and working, mostly. The class with homework is a class on ArcGIS, which will hopefully allow me to progress further in the mapping field beyond CAD-lackey. The class itself has been... well... as a teacher, I feel I could probably give the guy a few pointers. The first couple of class sessions, he just quickly reviewed what we had done for homework, so we wound up getting out pretty early. The third class, however, he realized that he was well into a condensed class and should probably teach us something, so we wound up staying until 10 pm (not expecting to stay that late, I had to quickly walk over to the parking structure at the break and buy another couple hours of parking). Since then, the class has mostly been Death By PowerPoint, though he will occasionally break out the program and actually demonstrate what he is talking about.

The other class I've been taking is a childbirth class. We decided to try the Bradley method, as I had heard several recommendations and am far too self-aware to be able to do Lamaze without laughing. The reality is, for a class that is supposed to be about better childbirth through information, there is a surprisingly large amount of questionable "information" and unverified superstition. So far, it's been about half good information and half voodoo.

A number of things seem to be done right for the wrong reasons, or not explained at all. The Brewer Pregnancy Diet is advocated, though they don't really explain why other than the fact that you need more protein. However, given that protein deficiency is not an issue in the U.S. (far, far from it), I wanted to know why they were so obsessed with protein. As it turns out, it may help prevent preeclampsia, something that I'm definitely in favor of. The teacher also has this obsession with egg. Again, why? My research revealed that Dr. Brewer developed this diet to help poor women in the south, for whom eggs and dairy products were the only affordable protein.

Still, the class hasn't been all bad. We have gotten some useful information, particularly now that we've gotten down to the meat of issues. It has lead us to do a lot of research on our own. Still, from the way some of the people in the class (and the instructor) act, you'd think doctors were never trying to do the best thing for their patients.