B-team course rivalry

[Erik Jorgensen]

When we first started the worm course we were a "B team" course, which meant that we were teaching a 2 week course in the Fall rather than a 3 week course in the Summer. The other "B team" course was the phage display course. It is a well-known phenomena that oppressed people do not unify against an oppressor, or cling to one another for security. Rather, such groups take on airs to develop some rank of distinction that could elevate them slightly higher than the other oppressed class.

So it was between the phage course and the worm course. Whenever we would enter the cafeteria or the pub and find the phage course there we would shout in a retarded sort of way, "PHAGE COURSE!!". I found this very witty and thought that we had made our superiortiy abundantly clear. Ronald Plasterk, however, proved himself to be especially vicious in this endeavor and never failed to press the point home when he had a chance. He always scoffed at the notes left in Plimpton after their lectures. To make his point he colored in a red circle and a blue circle on the board and labelled one hot and the other cold, and left this on the board as an insult to the phage course.

Tired of the ceaseless taunting, one of the phage instructors stole the remote microphone and then spied on us from the second floor lab as we started a lecture. As Ronald was lecturing suddenly a voice boomed out of the speakers, "Dutch Guy!" We all looked around but there was no one about. "This is God. Approach the speaker.'" Ronald obeyed and looked curiously at the speaker like the RCA Victor dog listening to his master's voice. God uttered "confess your inferiority", while suppressing laughter. This was too much for Ronald and he unceremoniously unplugged the speaker. The next year we were moved to a summer slot. There we discovered the yeast course, which we recognized at once as an inferior course compared to the C. elegans course.