Being a doctor is no walk in the park, but becoming one can sometimes be even harder. At least, that’s what pre-med Junior Ron Kanielo recently discovered after receiving a failing grade on a p-set for mixing up yellow bile and black bile.
Kanielo’s class — BIO 203: Introduction to the Four Humors — is a required course for pre-medical students and covers all the basics of blood, phlegm, and the two biles. Introducing students to such key topics as why a phlegmatic imbalance can lead to a churlish disposition in even the most stoic of clergyman, or the differing effects of plague rats on the black/yellow bile ratio of Visigoths versus Laplanders, the class is a prerequisite for most higher-level biology courses.
“I felt really good about most of the assignment,” Kanielo said. “My short answer for the question on how to measure the weight of a human soul was really in-depth, and I definitely got all of the calculations right for the part about how to treat a member of the fairer gender who’s been stricken by a case of the vapors. I guess I just made a dumb mistake on the last question and mixed up the two types of bile.”
Luckily for Kanielo, he will have plenty of opportunities to make up for the lost points in future classwork. BIO 203 is graded on 10 percent participation, so as long as he always remembers to bring his bone saw and bird mask to class on lab days, that should serve as a big boost. Plus, Kanielo did some work in leeching for an internship with the Bloodletters Guild last summer, so that material should be a breeze when the class gets to it.
“I’m not super worried about my final grade, at least not yet,” Kanielo said. “But I can’t help feeling like a real idiot for mixing up something so basic. I mean, what am I — someone with a Class-D skull type?”
At press time, Kanielo had begun worrying about his entire GPA after also failing a chemistry exam on which he’d only been able to remember three of the four natural elements.
