afieldnotebook

Today I experienced the first pangs of culture shock, though it isn't the culture of New Zealand I found so shocking: it's the culture of a first-year lecture at a large university. All of us crammed into seats in a lecture hall, sharing the expansive desks that stretch across each row. A couple references to "mother earth"--a couple light jabs at North America (our lecturer is British). The lecturer introducing the class by asking if we know the difference between information and knowledge and knowledge and wisdom--trying to tell us that we aren't in high school any more, that we need to bring some insight to the table. And on the way out, two students talking about how they didn't get the lecture, which was a diatribe on human impact on the earth (case study: Chilean copper mine) and the earth's impact on humanity (case study: Indonesian tsunami, December 2004). I think they were trying to figure out what they'd be tested on, whether they needed to know how fault ruptures created the tsunami or the market value of copper ore for the exam. 
But that's life. The lecture itself wasn't bad, and I'm really here for the information (I can extrapolate on my own). I can only hope my upper-level courses will be a little more exciting.