at least she is trying to learn

In the freshman class I am TAing for, today in lecture I was sitting by a girl who was taking notes on her laptop.

I glanced over and she was using dictionary.com. She looked up
periphery
semi-periphery
core
capitalism
industrialism
and "periphery" a second time
--copying and pasting a definition for each in her notes.

On second thought, maybe this is a smart thing to do, to cement the ideas in your head. But, "capitalism"? And "core"??

And perhaps this was a more effective way of taking notes than the method being employed by the guy on the other side of me. After the professor said something about how much China has changed in 30 years, etc, he showed me his notes, where he had written "China - sweet + sour."