crazy people

so i had my first avian flu event today... it was interresting. I went to several events last year when i was a p1 and i could always just defer hard questions to the girl in charge... the only big difference this year is that i have to reference all the questions to myself... its interresting... more so than i imagined.

we do our first event at the library, and it turns out that there are A LOT of conspiracy theorists who hang out in libraries...

person #1) said he had a PhD in physics, and that he scored over 98% on every test he ever took... said he was related to the founder of some principal of electromagnetism and said that the faraday flashlight should actually be called the (whatever his last name was) flashlight... he was pretty serious about that... i have no idea how we got talking about that at a bird flu exhibit... yikes. I guess that all would fit better if he didnt smell horrible... and he was convinced you could catch cancer and tried to tell me about genetics, unknown to him that i've had genetics, genetics lab, Advanced genetics lab, and pharmacogenitics... so i was more or less laughing on the inside... but if i put him in his place, he would talk for another 10 minutes... so i just let him say the avian flu was a bacteria and tell me that in 10 years we'd all be catching cancer from eachother... it was quite funny...but i acted interrested like a good pharmacist might...

person #2) said "who's in charge here... and my 4 p1s all pointed to me... 'great'... he proceeded to tell me all his conspiracy theories... which... it seems that all conspiracy theorists actually think their ideas are REALITY instead of crazy theories... he told me they were putting nanotechnology in babies so the government could control people... he told me that only 11% of all MDs took the hypocratic oath (thats really not true... they all do) and that they didnt know what they were doing... told me that the avian flu is just all made up for people to make money... and again... i just smiled and nodded and made him feel good about himself, and put another tick mark on my "contacts" sheet... he left after about 10 minutes

person #3 was alittle harder to crack.. he was halfway sane... and i enjoyed talking to him until he told me that the government is releasing a coating of inorganic metals into the air above major cities to protect them from terrorists with lazers... yeah... i'm not joking... he was like "you know... sometimes you can just TASTE the metal in the air... and THATS what it is!" and i just said "well... i mean... i've never really noticed that before, but it sounds interresting"... (interresting was the word of the day for me... it doenst mean i agree or am OK with them having that opinion, but i think its unique and special... everyone wins)

so that was fun... checked afew BPs and everyone was ok... man.... one thing i've learned from this so far is that, half the people dont care about the actual issue or what you're talking about... they just want YOU to think they are smart so they come over, use big words and concepts that they really dont fully understand and walk away... i need to get some trophys ready for the next event so when they do that i can be like "wait... dont leave without your TROPHY".... yikes... and the OTHER half of people, just want to talk about everything... it could be a tribute to our society in that i think we've become more connected in some ways, but less connected in other ways... those other ways being like person-to-person talking and stuff... its like... i'm a captive audience and they know i cant run away and they just get it all out of their systems... and i listen the whole time and nod... its fun... 1 event down, 14 to go... i'm gonna be better after this semester is over! see ya