Official Top Ten Best Moments of the First Year - Clinical Psychology PhD Program Class of 2012

The other day in Research Methods I had a genius idea. Because I love making lists so much, yet rarely complete the tasks on my list, why not make a list of things that have already happened?! And what better list to make than one that makes me (and hopefully others) laugh. Also, I like documentation, so this list can facilitate future reminiscing about the hilarious events of this year. Some of these stories may only be funny to those who were there, although I tried to explain their hilarity to the best of my ability. Either way, I hope you all enjoy them...

10. The first is not one moment in particular but more of a general, ever-present fact that persisted throughout the year. And that is the long standing truth that no matter how behind you were with your schoolwork, you were never more behind than JS. (love you, Jen!)

9. Next one is more recent. I think we all found it quite amusing when our mature and sophisticated stats instructor told us about p-p plots, and couldn't keep a straight face.

8. The next top moment was when Jeff walked into stats class and Sarah exclaimed, "Jeff, I heard you got a puppy!" and Jeff replied excitedly with, "Yeah! Its in my backpack, you wanna see it?!"

7. When Jeff convinced Kelly that his full name was not Jeff or Jefferson, but Jeffersolonius Burl. Then Kevin, quick-witted as he is, chimed in to say that his cousin was also named Jeffersolonius, and that he couldn't believe Kelly hadn't heard that name.

6. When Dave finished class by saying, "Now for the last portion of the class, I'm going to have you all stand up and do an interpretive dance of your favorite statistic... Jeff, you start."

5. Block Design Mishap

Some of you may not know the whole story behind Sapna's first block design experience, so let me enlighten you. Upon hearing that someone in our class would be randomly chosen to administer a sub-test of the Adult Intelligence Test in front of the whole class, Sapna and I immediately turned to each other in fear. You see, our group had not yet practiced this at all, and neither of us were prepared in any way, shape, or form. Sapna turned to me and said, "I am totally going to get picked, I know it." And low and behold, her name was called first. She tried to take her time to read the instructions before starting, but the test simply has way to much detail and complicated stipulations. She had no choice but to wing it and try to guess the correct way to administer the test. She made the mistake of not leaving the block model out for the examinee to copy from and our instructor called her out on it by saying, "I forgot what the design looks like..." So Sapna, in her best fake-examiner voice says, "okay, I'll show you again... and pay attention this time..."

4. Michael's Deception

Psychotherapy class. We were discussing how our final interview projects went (we had to interview an undergraduate and videotape it). To clarify, it is unethical to videotape someone without their consent and although the undergraduates knew in advance they would be taped, we were required to ask them again if it was okay with them before turning on the video camera. This, however, was not entirely clear to everyone. Some people (cough, Michael) thought that our professor wanted to see the whole thing, even the part where we ask them if they are still okay with being taped. Thus, he thought he was supposed to have the tape on before they even came in so it would be running when he asked for their consent to tape them (yes, seems a little backwards. clearly, he was a little confused). I will never forget the look of supressed horror on our always-play-by-the-rules-professor's face when Michael asked, "So how did you guys handle the 'I'm gonna turn on the camera now' fakeout?"

3. NVLD! (stands for Non-verbal Learning Disorder)

A late night in the Bellet conference room. Everyone was in a weird mood: Jen was mad at Jeff for his attitude. Sarah and I were being moody. No one was really concentrating on practicing the WAIS. We got into a discussion about our last IQ class where we tried to convince Jen Gallo (our instructor) to have an open discussion about IQ tests instead of a final exam. In class, Sarah had even excitedly suggested we have, "breakfast and Jeopardy!" This led to more laughter and less productivity and soon, in this little imaginary scenario we were creating we decided we would actually be able to shout out answers and be rewarded with prizes on the spot. In fact, even though the room was about a big as a shoebox, we speculated that Jen Gallo would probably want to bring one of those t-shirt guns that they use at the basketball games. I could totally see it, she would ask what one possible explanation would be if your performance IQ was significantly less than your verbal IQ, Liz would jump up and scream, "NVLD!" and subsequently be hit in the face with a rolled up t-shirt that says "My IQ is higher than the president's."

2. Queen Elizabeth?

Neurocience presentations. 1st quarter. Jeff tells us he is going to present on propopagnosia, a condition that results in the inability to recognize faces. So, he does this cool demonstration where he has Xan look at faces and try to determine who they are. After the first two faces, it becomes apparent that Xan does not have propopagnosia and therefore can identify the faces of two famous people. However, the third face confuses Xan a bit. It is the face of an older, dignified-looking woman (also I should note that these faces are edited so that they are only faces with no hair or body). She tentatively answers, "Queen Elizabeth?" which was funny enough on its own but then Jeff says in all seriousness, "no actually, that was a trick, thats my grandmother."

1. The Kelly-Jeff-Dave Situation
Alright, so this one has to be number one because of the absolute hilarity of it. However, I will only elaborate on it with Kelly's permission, and honestly, I don't see myself getting that. Thus, this story will remain elusive to most, and you'll just have to take my word for it, its hilarious. (Sorry Kel!)

Final Remarks:
That concludes our Official Top Ten Best Moments List for our first year. Hope you enjoyed it. Clearly, Jeff was involved most often, both directly and indirectly. Also, I think Kelly deserves credit for her indirect involvement and gullability (its okay, Kel, embrace it!). Overall, I'd say we had a pretty humorous year and I look forward to seeing what hilarious things await us in these next 3!