Random School/Work-Venting Post

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I hate arrogant monograph writers:
"We have virtually no information about the rationale behind this policy. (3)"

(3): Polybius says this in iii.97 1-3: "*GREEK GREEK GREEK GREEK GREEK GREEK GREEK*." But blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah BLAH blah blah BLAH blah; blah blah ergo blah. This is the interpretation offered by Frank, Roman Imperialism, 129, cf. Mommsen, RGi(12). 618.

Not everyone can read Greek! If you can dedicate a whole paragraph to footnotes then that paragraph should be in the main text! And who the HELL is Frank and Mommsen and why should we be assumed to have a copy of their works on hand?!

*fumes*

 

Deathmage,
iirc Theodor Mommsen is a German classicist, and generally regarded as the greatest classicist of the 19th century. That might be relevant to the expectation to have one of his mighty tomes at hand.

​

But now to something completely different:

I today tried, half in jest, to sell a particularly unattractively timed extra shift to one of our students who lives nearby (and can afford the driving) to stop her incessant begging for more work (read: other people's shifts).

Not quite lose, she merely didn't get as much as it sounded (and less than she wanted) Apparently, selling credit cards on the phone in an earlier life and, more recently, watching commercial presentations when drunk, is at least good for something (hopefully) she leaves me alone, at least for now

 

Well, fair enough. I'm stupid, then.
But that still doesn't excuse him using Latin quotes in their original Latin to back up his evidence. It is, infact, absolutely useless for poor students such as I.
"This could be clearly seen in Cato's speech: *LATIN LATIN LATIN*, not to be confused with *LATIN LATIN*; cf *LATIN LATIN LATIN*."

I should be doing work...

 

Deathmage,
that's the way of old Professors I guess. I remember that some time long ago in my iirc second semester I had Business Law with the very eminent Professor Wiedemann. An old gentleman and a brilliant lawyer. When standing behind his desk he looked a little bit like a Griffon Vulture with his sharp nose and the way he held his rather unhairy head.

Point is, he was in a league of his own. In that lecture he isssued printouts of a verdict we were going to analyse because of the great insights it allagedly offered into the structure of German business law, through comparative studies. It was a verdict of some french high court, and it was, naturally, in french, worse, legal french.

He was absolutely stunned, stunned, to learned that none of us, none, was able to read and understand it. School education nowadays ...

 

My current intern is going sweet! I am working as an archeologist/programmer for the largest applied science institute in the Netherlands (TNO, we even have our own wikipedia page.)
For this job, I am programming a piece of hardware that is used to position a sensor. The cool thing, is that the original supplier dropped all support 6 years ago, the documentation is mentioning only half of the 'features' (read: bugs by design) and that a Google search for the hardware only resulted in one single accurate hit. Oh boy, its IT archeology I got my leather jacket and a whip, now I just need babes and a score of German soldiers and everything will be set

 

Today I gave one of our Turkish students work. A lot of it. And it was clear, utterly obvious, that it is impossible to finish the whole stuff in less than a day. Well, I gave her the task on 16:00 and on 17:00 I came along asking how things went, and she, heartfelt, replied: "Am I to finish this today?" And, thinking what a silly question that was, I replied: "Of course you are."

For her I am a hard driving and very evil person, and she complained about my evilness to a colleague who immediately got the joke and laughed. Scolding him for his lack of compassion she insisted that I was dead serious when I said that. Guess what

EDIT Apparently, on people who have been brought up by authoritarian parents /EDIT (oh, talking to their mothers on the phone ... ), irony and sarcasm don't work because both are ambiguous. They can't handle ambiguity.

 

You could be making a leap in logic, there. Education and authoritarian parents have nothing to do with one's understandment of irony and sarcasm, imho. Nothing like irony to be real evil on a real lousy day. It works wonders on authoritarian parents and education just makes puns easier to find. You'll still feel awful afterwards though. Sarcasm bites back. Which is why I stick to



A friend of mine sent me an SMS recently. She needed some lectures from our classes last semestar, and the first "logical" solution that came to her mind was to ask me to burn those on a CD and mail it her way (through a post), about 200 km away. The best part is that all of the lectures are on the website of the faculty, and all she has to do is click twice, and she'll download them. She has a computer, and I've been explaining to her how to do it like... 5 times this year. Computers won't bite you, for crying out loud. Also, there must be like... 20 people from our generation, all living where she does, that she could have asked for those lectures, and at least a 100 more living closer to her then me... I mean... think, girl!
I already agreed to mailing the stuff to her, mostly because I was quite surprised by the request. I don't really mind doing it, it's not much trouble, but why would I have to waste my time and energy on something that she could have done three times faster if she only used that head she has on her shoulders. She is a friend of mine, but I bet that she hadn't even tried to solve this problem before she sent me the message. That sucks. I don't mind helping out, if I can, I just wish that she tried working it out for herself. There are a lot more logical solutions. I'm not high on that list.

 

Poor formulation on my part. What I wanted to express went along the line: "Having been brought up by authoritarian parents." For the time being, it'll do fine as a working theory

It's really scary, there are three steps to do, you tell them to do two steps because you're busy, and there they stop. They won't think for themselves and conclude that going that third step is sensible and then just do it. They have never been encouraged to do that. I had to learn that about the worst thing to do is to say (which I consider encouragement and employee empowerment): "Well, you're experienced. Have a look at it and proceed as you learned it." It just doesn't work. They will literally go elsewhere and ask for explicit guidance. They also don't show the initiative and look things up themselves.

I simply conclude from their general approach to work on their comprehension on irony. When you tell them a joke, all they do is hear you That's the clash of the cultures.

 

My boss is a total, utter nutcase. I'm starting to worry about blood pressure and aneurysms. She is the only person I know of that can give me migraines and make my physically sick just by talking over the phone...

 

Ragusa: Heh, your working theory is not that bad I guess.

Ziad: Ouch... Can't imagine what she's like in a live conversation.

ION, Some of my professors need to learn the meaning of proofreading... Hunting silly mistakes in huge formulas is not fun...

 

I would like to tell all the lawyers (geez is that really how you spell it) that I am kind of a pre-law student right now. Though more likely my history major will end up being for education rather than the courtroom route.

 

Oh noes! C+ essay!

Surprisingly I'm not as angsty about it as I should be. At the end of the day, it's just a letter on a piece of paper. They can't define me by it! FIGHT THE SYSTEM!

But seriously, I did make a lot of stupid mistakes - didn't proofread enough, and there were some notes to myself leftover from drafts (thankfully, none of the angry ones). So I guess I deserved it.

Oh well, will do better next time. Can't do much worse, can I?

 

For the first time in my life, I went to an exam and returned the questions (equivalent of not taking it). It feels a bit odd.
Reasons: I haven't learned the formulas I was supposed to. I knew the other stuff, but apparently, unless you can reproduce the formulas they want, don't bother. My fault. I'm a bit sad (mostly for the time spent on it) but in general, I don't really care. I have no desire to learn the stupid thing though and I know I must... which sucks.
My family is being all nice and supportive - which makes it even worse.
I've probably ranted about this before - but who needs 500+ drug formulas learned by heart in the 21st century...?

Anyway, no use looking back. Try #2 in two weeks. Ending rant.

Deathmage: It is just a piece of paper. No real value. You have far better history knowledge then that grade suggests. Don't think about it.

 

Exactly similar thing as to why I quit studying biology. Bioinformatics and informatics in general should be in the heart of biology with the vast amounts of data produced these days. Just memorizing stuff by heart does extremely little to help finding that data from a database with huge amounts of new entries every year. By the time the books you've supposed to be memorizing even come out of press they're outdated let alone by the time you start memorizing them, so it's almost completely redundant.

The educating methods are at least 30 years past their prime concerning rapidly developing sciences. This hampers the progress that could be made if the curricula was updated to match the pace the research is going a little more.

But what do I know, I'm a drop-out, right?

 

So, earlier I was thinking about how much homework I have right now. Then I realized 'oh noes' I'm only taking 100-200 level classes... How much will there be with 300+ classes. Icky.

 

Does anyone here hate physics?? I mean the topics regarding forces and moments and friction whatnot.................................. It's just a whoodledoodle belnded with maths in it. Half the time you need to use the calculator to arrive at an answer...physics is freakin' hell to me as the concepts are like WAAAAAAAAAAAAyyyyyyyy distant

 

Defending Physics

FeetOfClay: I must say that I have a totally different opinion on physics. I love it. It's one of the few sciences with tangible concepts, imho.

I'm not sure at which level you are studying physics right now (faculty, more advanced, less?) but try to relax and focus on the situation described, rather then on the equations describing it. Once you have a good grip on what's going on, why is it happening and which elements are in play - translating it to math language becomes easy. Soon, you won't even have to think about it, the equations, diagrams and coordinates will come naturally, since, IMO, math is the easiest, most elegant way of talking physics.
It is the language of physics.

In my experience, and imho, precise numerical solutions are secondary to well defined problem settings. Set the problem right, pick a suitable equation set for it (this is usually predefined by the type of problem) and talk maths from there on. The only goal becomes to express the unknown variable through the known ones, get a numerical answer and translate it back to the situation for interpretation, if required.

Basically - most, if not all, concepts in physics can be understood on a purely instinctive level and used without any need for applying maths. Sure, you need maths for precise answers, but mathematics simply makes physics powerful.

IMHO, forget the math of it all until the very end of the analysis. Try a more instinctive approach to concepts and their application, as in thinking about the situation/problem and working on it in your head, no numbers, until you are perfectly clear on what you are supposed to say in maths. Relax. Try to enjoy the process.

I apologise for the length of the post, and I'm sorry if it sounded as a lecture of some kind - that was not the intention. Simply, physics is a science that I highly respect and love. It has solid, logical grounds and follows its own laws. It's about reality - about everything.

Hope I'm not miles off topic by now...

(In case anyone is wondering, aye, Chemistry is my vocation now, but once upon a time, Physics taught me to use my head, even if I do it poorly. )

 

My working week ended today after 48 working hours at 23:00, except for it not really ending but continuing with me going to the office tomorrow morning at sevenish and me having a meeting at 10:30ish (on a bloody Saturday, no less) that'll last for at least an hour, with homework afterwards. At least what I do is diverse, interesting and challenging, but it's so much to do and to keep in mind!!!

 

PANIC! PANIC! PANIC!

Writing course next year semester one requires a writing portfolio to be in by Oct. 31st this year.

I thought it would be due May next year, when I would've done a writing course and so hopefully have produced some good writing.

But alas.

PANIC! PANIC! PANIC! FULL METAL PANIC OH MY!

 

Freshers starts on the 22nd for me!

I hope I'm out my wheelchair for it!