In which I have homework

Crop ecology (molecular emphasis still requires one class on ecology at least, because it's a subdivision of plant biology) has been a very interesting class so far, beyond the obvious fact that the teacher can sometimes be a bit insane. ("It's because I'm getting senile," the professor repeatedly informed us.) By "insane" I mean "having tendencies suddenly to divulge random stories about goats and featherless chickens, complete with different types of spastic motions that might be called dancing, which the TA informed us that the professor does have several versions of." There is, as it turns out, also an equal balance of grad and undergrad students in the class (not just my discussion section), with the grad students huddled respectively in their graduate groups and the undergrad students currently being more or less prodded (WITH A METAPHORICAL PITCH FORK) to join one of the groups, which will give the grad students extra credit for having "adopted" one of us.

I think I should feel vaguely insulted by this, except my brain is still mostly at the "Huh? Why? WHAT?" stage.

Also, we get a (research) problem set every week whereI have to pretend to be a farmer and pick a land somewhere and pick a crop of some type and figure out the carry capacity (and other things of a similar vein) of the land.

There are just no words....

I suspect the class is infinitely more interesting and relevant to the crop management and ecology majors but oh well, numbers are my friend in science classes (unless they're negative).

Further development in the lab revealed that the pH meter was not broken -- the salt solution inside the electrode evaporated below the critical level (we have one of the older version of the silver-chlorine electrodes with potassium chloride salt), but that was all. As a result I learned how to refill an electrode yesterday.