Crosswalk speed? Um..huh?

Well, this morning I wrote my Physiotherapy Unit 2 midterm. It actually didn't go so badly. Considering the amount of time I spent reading knitting blogs last night. *sheepish grin" (no pun intended)

My academic programme is an interesting one. It is what they call "Problem-Based," which means, in essence, we teach ourselves how to be physiotherapists. We don't have professors, we don't really have lectures. We have tutorials. Facilitated by a tutor, yes, but they're just there to make sure we don't start throwing stuff. We are given paper problems, about one a week, and we work in small groups to first of all decide what we want to learn about the issue, second to research it, and third to discuss it as a group.

It's a wonderful system, it's making me a better person, blah blah blah. The problem arises when they need to actually give us tests. We have a few guidelines to keep us on track, but essentially, we could be totally learning the wrong thing.

Generally, they get around this by posing questions like:

Joe, a 55 year old construction worker, presents with acute low back pain that began 3 days ago. Etc etc. Explain 3 main topics you would cover in educating Joe about his condition

The exam today was mostly like that. Except for a very strange multiple choice section, with some very odd questions indeed. Here's one example:

For what average walking speed are most crosswalk signals timed?
a) 1 m/s
b) 1.2 m/s
c) 1.4 m/s
d) 1.6 m/s

Now, theoretically, we could have come across this in our research, say, in exploring rationale for discharge criteria from the hospital post-total hip replacement. Theoretically. I, however, was flabbergasted. Thank goodness I'm not the type to sweat the small stuff. ;) Is this seriously a piece of information I need to have at my fingertips as a future physiotherapist? If you, dear readers, have the answer to the above question, congratulations. I'll offer you a job at my clinic once I graduate.

I suppose I could mention some knitting content. Dani is coming over tonight for "Apprentice and Knitting^TM" night. Formerly "Apprentice and Sock Knitting^TM" night, but Dani finished her beautiful socks. Do check them out, they're worth a look! She's going to bring over her digital camera so I can take some pictures to post up here.

I think I'll try to finish off my ladder (Eros?) yarn scarf. It's been way too long since I started it, and it will soon be spring. Time to stop wearing scarves for warmth, and start wearing them purely for flair! I also wouldn't mind picking up the stitches for the zipper band on my Ribby Cardi, but that might require just a tad too much concentration.

Enjoy the show tonight, and wherever you are, measure how fast you're walking across crosswalks! You never know when it will be important to know...