The Vent Thread

[CodeZTM]

Was sent the emergency room last night. Still currently sitting in a hospital room waiting to find out if I can be released today. Lovely way to spend Christmas.

I hope everything is ok! Get better soon!

[TEKnician]

Got hit by a car on the way home last night.

I was in a car in the rear-right side and I felt my leg just get knocked back. I didn't get hurt, but the guy was really drunk when he came out. HIm and three other bimbos (these are teens BTW). Yes, i know what you're thinking:

Spoiler :

HO HO HO!

My friend who was driving was already tired, so he didn't want to kill anyone at the time. He just grabbed his info and drove off. Luckily, the car i was in only had a bump, but the other guys ragiddy-ass ride cracked a front light and bumped the hood upwards.

Merry Christmas Mutha F****

[Dr. Derpface, J.D.]

One of the neighbor kids apparently got a new "system" for Christmas. So of course they think it means EVERYONE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD wants to hear their bass womping so loud it shakes the windows...

[drewaconclusion]

Was sent the emergency room last night. Still currently sitting in a hospital room waiting to find out if I can be released today. Lovely way to spend Christmas.

Whoah, what happened?

I had a near intestinal blockage. Quite painful, feels like your intestines are exploding. I had my large intestine removed removed back when I was 16 (11 years ago), so I can be much more susceptible to things like these. For the record, blockages hurt a hell of a lot worse than having a large intestine removed.

Don't worry though, I'm ok now, just sore. Just glad I didn't have to be cut back open. Abdominal surgery just sucks period.

[Otohiko]

Was sent the emergency room last night. Still currently sitting in a hospital room waiting to find out if I can be released today. Lovely way to spend Christmas.

Whoah, what happened?

I had a near intestinal blockage. Quite painful, feels like your intestines are exploding. I had my large intestine removed removed back when I was 16 (11 years ago), so I can be much more susceptible to things like these. For the record, blockages hurt a hell of a lot worse than having a large intestine removed.

Don't worry though, I'm ok now, just sore. Just glad I didn't have to be cut back open. Abdominal surgery just sucks period.

Phew, glad to hear you're okay! That has indeed got to be one of the worst ways to spend Christmas. Just take it easy though!


***

My vent of day:

Having to grade my last batch of essays is gradually becoming a form of torture. I left the lazy students until the end. There are 3 among them that are just fucking awful, and yet I still feel bad about giving them low grades and end up writing tons just to explain where they went wrong. Why can't this be easier

This annoys me even more, because in my current grad work and academic requirements, my supervisors keep telling me to stop flustering over quality and submit something, on time, and get my checkmark for work complete. And here in my teaching work, I see what that sort of mindset leads to. I'm almost totally certain that two of the students here knew that their essays were fucking awful, but submitted them anyway just to get something in, get their checkmark, work complete. That's such a terrible way to work. Yeah it gets the checkmark, but at the risk of repeating myself - it's fucking awful!!11

Honestly, if I could, I'd really like to be able to tell those students that this is not a way to get through university, and failing that give them a mark that's worse than fail. But sadly, the whole goddamn system actually encourages this sort of behaviour and lets people go through submitting fucking awful work knowingly and be treated better than people who are late or don't submit it at all, but at least do so consciensciously. The students who genuinely fuck up, own up to it and learn something from it, in my view, deserve a lot more credit than those who shamelessly submit barely-passing crap. But there's nothing that can be done to actually reflect that fact in the teaching system as it actually works. And that makes me as angry as it makes me also feel powerless, despite supposedly supposedly having supreme control over my course and grades. Or maybe embarassed to be doing what I'm doing in the first place, since the difference between what I think and how I'm allowed to grade or comment makes all of this seem like such a fucking joke. And all the more of a joke, because I've always said I don't care about grades to begin with. Sadly, that's not how the institution and most of the students see it. It's hardly the first time that I felt that university is increasingly turning into a joke, but it's a joke that's now becoming personally-embarassing to me.

Blah.

/vent

[Magnus]

Had plans to have my dear friend Valentina visiting today, was really stoked and had just gotten everything prepared for her arrival.
On the way to turn off my computer and get to the car, she writes me on facebook - the trains and busses are cancled due to heavy wind + snow.
My plans for the entire day, gone.
First visit since 3 months not happening. Next oppritunity for her to visit, january >10th. I'm in a really really shitty mood right now.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Oto: not sure how it is in your field, but in mine the quality of "just throw something together to complete it" for an undergrad and a doctoral grad student are miles apart. Your half-ass attempt at the last minute should be like their worked for days on it golden piece. It's not about the work needed to get there, it's how good the final product is.

[Otohiko]

Oto: not sure how it is in your field, but in mine the quality of "just throw something together to complete it" for an undergrad and a doctoral grad student are miles apart. Your half-ass attempt at the last minute should be like their worked for days on it golden piece. It's not about the work needed to get there, it's how good the final product is.

Yes, that's very true, but I'm not sure that's much relief because it leads to one of two ethical implications: either (a) the idea that bullshit is better than nothing, and well-written bullshit is in fact to be praised; or (b) the idea that undergrad students are to be held to a different standard than their faculty/grad students. Given the university's supposed focus on academic integrity and excellence, that kind of thing shouldn't be acceptable, at any level. Education should not be a product, nor should the practice of bullshit be tolerated, let alone treated in a wink-wink nudge-nudge sort of fashion by those in power positions practicing it, or god forbid encouraged. And in any situation, encouraging people to think that "something is always better than nothing" is just something I can't swallow, because I honestly don't believe that for a second. Any type of work, by definition, is supposed to be productive; counterproductive work is always worse than no work.

It would be a lot easier for me to deal with this sort of thing if I taught something technical, where yeah, at least in the end what matters is that you can make some kind of product. But since I teach writing, critical thinking and rhetorical analysis - you might as well call my class "HOW TO DETECT BULLSHIT AND NOT ENGAGE IN BULLSHIT: IN CASE OF BULLSHIT BREAK GLASS" - well, basically that goes not only against my personal ethics but against the broader ethics of what I'm supposed to stand for as such. A system that does not believe its own code of ethics is a joke.

[CodeZTM]

Honestly, I feel your frustration Oto.

Not so much from the teaching perspective as the student perspective. I like to pride myself in that I try to always submit quality work. That being said, it's frustrating when I get the same/worse scores as somebody that did the homework 5 minutes before class. As such, I started being much more lax in my preparations of homework/cases/projects, because why should I waste my time when Andy 2 seats over is going to get the same/better score as me for 1/4 of the effort?

For example. I spent nearly a week on a huge case project in my tax prep class, where the assignment was to get the "best possible refund" for our fake client. I recieved a 98% on it, because I spent HOURS pouring over cases and making sure that everything I was doing was both legal, ethical as well as beneficial My percentage points I lost (justifiably) was me forgetting to put the EIN number on a slot. That's fine, I accepted that. My good friend (and I don't blame her), got a 100% on it, and got a MUCH worse refund on it than I did, and she admitted doing it only about 5 hours before it was due, and didn't submit additional documentation supporting her claims.

ARRRRRG.

Then again, accounting is a lot different than writing, but there are a lot of ways that homework/taxes/cases can be interpreted to the benefit/hurt of clients.

What I'm saying is that unless we have the motivation to do something right, why should we bother? After that experience, I quit trying all together and just slapped the info on it for a quick 100% every time. To hell with unnecessary effort. >_>

_________________

But honestly , the whole system here in my state is pissing me off. It's why I'm not getting a masters/doctorate, and I'm just doing the bare minimum for my professional certification. The professors just DON'T CARE and aren't accountable for anything they do. Getting out-of-class help is like pulling teeth from a wild tiger on PCP, and my money feels like its being wasted on them. I've been to two universities, and it was the same in both of them. I feel like I'm just a waste of their time, and daring to ask a question is like asking the Queen if she's got some spare change lying around for the phone both. >_>

I'm not saying you're like this Oto. You seem to care, and that at least gives me a moderate amount of hope that there are teachers in this world that aren't total shit.

[Otohiko]

Oh, there's a lot of teachers in the world who are completely awesome. I wouldn't be doing what I do today if it weren't for them, and I've got into teaching in part because I feel like I owe it to them to carry on their work. But the further I go, the more I realize how difficult it is to do what's right and still get along with the system and not be constantly taken advantage of. Kind of starting to have gnawing doubts as to whether I've got the social skills and thick skin to actually pull it off myself :/