I finally had time

I enrolled this week in an online photography class. I've always wanted to take classes to make myself a better photographer (as you all know, I like to take pictures!), and I finally found a moment to do it.

It's great! I'll post my "classwork" occasionally for comments and critique...and I really do want critique. Since my mom tells me how good I am, I give you free rein (for this topic only, though!)

If you'd like to see other stuff I've done, cruise my archives. Photos are sprinkled around and about. The following photos are this week's assignments: get to know your camera's capabilities, and take pics while considering the basic tenets...

Go HERE to look at my slide show of today's pictures...then come back here to comment!

...oh I almost forgot

Congrats to those of you who took double time to graduate. You're finally free! (but only with a coupon.)


...seriously though, good job.

Dilbert Boren strikes again

Although I am no longer a student at the esteemed Gaylord Memorial University of Oklahoma, it has been brought to my attention that they are continuing along the path of "keep fixing it until it's broken."

We all know that graduation was canceled due to the freak ice, and some are aware that finals were screwed up too. People ended up taking finals on Sunday afternoon, Saturday night, and apparently, January 14? This is posted on their homepage:

All Students To Follow Modified Class Schedule Monday, January 14

The first day of the Spring 2008 semester Monday, January 14, 2008, is reserved to allow students to complete Monday, December 10th RESCHEDULED finals from the fall semester.

Classes on Monday, January 14 are cancelled, EXCEPT FOR those classes regularly scheduled to meet once a week on Mondays. Those classes will be moved one time only to Friday, January 18th at their regularly scheduled times. The location will be the same unless posted here. Times and locations will also be listed on OU’s Online Enrollment Web page. In the rare situation that you have conflicting classes on Friday, you should attend the Monday class on Friday.

Considering that most undergrads seem to have difficulty understanding BASIC concepts (this paper is due on Friday. Yes, Friday. Monday is not equal to Friday.)...one must wonder about the thought process that led to this particular proclamation. I think that my friend that alerted me (my choir director) and I are going to take lawn chairs to the oval and sell tickets to fund a heater for the choir room (a.k.a. Methodist Meat Locker) at the church.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

One must hand it to those weathermen in Boren's pocket. Last night, about the time of my would-be graduation ceremony, we sure were socked in. With drizzle. Sometimes it was actually rain, even.

This morning, however, it is snowing. Yipee! Not that nice, wet, build a snowman and play in the snow kind of snow, but the Oklahoma version of "something white is falling from the sky, and we can't classify it as sleet, so it must be snow" kind of snow.

It's nice to know the DB has friends in high places. Wouldn't want him to be disappointed after he took a thorough beating in the media for canceling due to RAIN yesterday...at least my party will go on as scheduled (which I'm sure comes as no surprise to those who know me!).

I wish I were more shocked than I am...

I found out at 5:02 this afternoon that the powers that be decided to CANCEL GRADUATION for those of us planning to graduate this semester because the weather forecast is calling for snow tomorrow night and Saturday.

An inch of snow.

Are you effing kidding me?!? If I can haul my ass through ice (after which most of the area STILL doesn't have electricity, Esteemed University notwithstanding) to get to where I need to go, I'm pretty sure that an inch of snow is NOT going to stop me from attending graduation if I desire. Good ole' Boren has now deprived my granny of pics of me getting my Master's degree. The news is making fun of him all over the place, and I for one, think it's in fairly poor taste to cancel graduation for everyone in order to keep a few people off the roads. Actually, I'm fairly certain that had those people decided not to come to the ceremony, they wouldn't have attended. Leave your bureaucracy crap out of it and let the show go on.

And the timing of the missive from the old alma mater? Priceless. Just late enough that the news gets it on the air, and no one has opportunity to complain in person because the offices are closed for the day.

Nothing like the university coming to bite me in the ass one last time. Yesterday I paid $50 for my cap, gown, and hood. Cox, meet OU. OU, Cox. The goat is my personalized gift to you, free of charge.

ECON SUCKS

Just in case anyone was wondering, economics sucks. Took 10 pages to solve this problem numerically and in prose, and this is the goal...GRR. (Click on it to enlarge)

It's so close I can taste it...

I attended my last class EVER last night. Yes, assuming I choose not to do a doctorate, or go to law school, or any of that (and the answer is "maybe in 10 years")...

One more exam to write and email to the prof, and I'm done forever.

It's like being in prison and looking out the front gate on the day before you're supposed to be let out*...






*at least this is what I think it would be like. I have never been imprisoned, so I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this statement. If you can, please let me know. :-)

Well, NOW they tell me...

Goal: the Admiration of all. Capitalize upon it, even?

Stream of Consciousness...

I'll apologize in advance in this post. When I come out of my stress-induced stupor, I'll probably rewrite it, but you'll just have to make do for now. This has been a rather strange week. In addition to meeting myself coming and going while burning the candle in the middle too, I've met Herr Governor (and didn't make an ass of myself) and I'm stressing over finals. *Sigh.* It will all be over soon. (14 days to be exact, not that I'm counting.)


My trusty internet at home is (again) broken (that's why it's trusty--I can always trust that it won't be functional) and has been broken since the week before Thanksgiving when the guy came to "fix" it, after which it worked for 6 hours. They're coming out again tomorrow morning. I've looked into alternative internet sources, but apparently Cox is the only provider in my complex, aside from Billy Jim Bob's Redneck Internet Service. Damn. As a friend noted today about Cox, "some know how to use 'em and some don't." Couldn't have said it better myself. :-)


In the vein of the previously posted bottle orchestra, we apparently have a bottle soloist. I have many questions about this performance, including (but not limited to) the following:
(a) What was the inspiration that culminated with "and I think that I'll attach beaters to my skates and play music. By moving past a bunch of tuned bottles."
(b) How did he get the bottles to be aligned just so for rhythm?
(c) How'd he tune the chords?
(d) Where does he practice?
(e) Why don't the bottles break?


I've gotta start studying. If I don't, I won't be graduating in two weeks because I'll fail a core course, and that would make me a very unhappy person.


In the meantime, I leave you all with this. Special for Santa and the other Elf-let. Because you're both on the top of my list!

If I had a nickel...

for every time this happened in class, I'd have a nickel.

OMG. Class was pretty much over at this point.

At least it was the freakin' hilarious prof, and not the Engrish prof...made my whole life worthwhile for almost a minute.

Pet Peeve #28H

...or, Think Before You Speak.

Those of you who know me know that the way today's people communicate in a professional setting has a great tendency to piss me off. Though there are several grammatical faux pas that come to mind, I am currently sitting behind the #28H pet peevert, and I'm trying VERY HARD to not kick him every time he says "you know" ... no, I don't know. If I knew you wouldn't have to tell me, now would you?

Well, you know, the you know manager decided to you know even out the you know playing field, so he looked into the you know overseas market and you know brought you know another expatriate into the you know company.

Holy Mother of Jesus. Are you kidding?!? (This is not exaggerated. I copied it straight from the voice recorder I had used in class...) This was a 10-second clip from a 45-second response containing 24 uses of the phrase "you know." No shit.

Without the filler words, the 45-second response could have been clipped to a mere 15 seconds. Considering that this guy responds approximately five times per class, he spends around 1 minute and 15 seconds filling his speech while he thinks about what to say next. Extrapolating to the whole semester, he has permanently stolen 18.75 minutes of my life. Assuming that I had never been in class with him before, that's the equivalent of eating lunch. Grr.

Scientists have long known that using filler words is a worldwide linguistic anomaly. Each language has its own vocalization syllables, but in English most people say um, er, or uh (or most commonly these days: LIKE). My professor for my undergraduate Music History classes (five semesters of him...) was nicknamed Captain Um. On average, we'd fill a letter-sized sheet of paper with tick marks in the span of a single lecture.

So why do people use filler words? Scientists believe it is to keep the listener listening instead of attempting to speak. The second reason is to let your brain think about what you want to say next.

This comes straight from the White House (no commentary on the monkey in office, please) by the leader of the free world:

Discussing Social Security at a March 21, 2006, White House news conference, the leader of the free world used these words to describe a recent crisis: “The system,” the president declared, “was about to, like, fall into the abyss.” Later in the news conference, Bush gave his take on the current situation in Iraq: “There are other voices coming out of Iraq, by the way, other than Mr. Allawi--who I know, by the way, like, he's a good fellow.”

Geez, people. Listen to yourselves. And use the top half of your head to ward off the idiocy the bottom half spews.

...or, Think Before You Speak.

Cost-Benefit Analysis for Dummies

As I sit in my ::yawn:: class, my mind once again turns to things that piss me off. A long-term rant that I have held near and dear is one of required college classroom attendance. Although I am in my last semester of graduate school, this concept, and the pervasive lack of cognizant thought that has been put into the reasoning behind it, has been driven home more than any other semester.

So what is the basis of this rant? In universities worldwide, professors of undergraduate programs have some type of attendance policy for their classes. In the case of the lower-division coursework (classes taken freshman and sophomore years of school), I think that this is justified by the professor feeling the obligation to force the students to *appear* responsible. By the time the 18-year-olds are twenty or so and in upper-division classes, attendance should be working its way toward optional in many courses.

The system really falls apart in graduate school. As graduates, we are all at least partially educated and purportedly lead semi-autonomous lives. A large majority of students are paying their own tuition, and are generally self-reliant. Why is it then, that about 95% of the graduate professors have the following attendance policy:

“You are allowed two absences during the semester for any reason, including family and job-related issues. Each additional absence will result in dropping your final grade by one letter. There will be ABSOLUTELY NO exceptions.” (emphasis original)

Excuse me, but am I a responsible adult? With a(t least one) full-time job? Am I not paying my own tuition?

Given the answers to the above questions, I should feel obligated to attend class. I should not be required to attend. If I feel that my continued attendance is positively correlated with my goal(s) for the class (whether they be "get the hell out" or "make an A"), I shall plant my happy ass in the desk at every available opportunity and participate in the discussion with almost religious fervor. If, however, I believe that my time and energies are better served by taking my person elsewhere during regular class time, the choice to attend or not should be mine to make.

An example of the (lack of) effectiveness of required attendance is demonstrated by my classes this semester. My first class is taught by an international professor (see prior posts about my Engrish prof), and attendance is mandated by the above-quoted policy. He teaches about three slides per night, and goes over and over and over them...My second class is taught by an adjunct professor whose teaching tools include his brain and a piece of chalk. He never uses power point, doesn't teach from notes, nothing. His attendance policy is stated as, "I don't give a flying rat's ass whether you come late, leave early, or skip and don't come at all."

Boys and girls, guess the attendance patterns of my classes. ... You'd be right. No one misses the second class. We're all invested in learning. If I had the option, my seat in the first class would never be warmed by my body.

Grr.

It's done!!!!

I can't believe it. Except for editing, the dastardly exam is finished. Roughly 60 pages, computer-generated graphs on each page in color, lots of calculus mumbo-jumbo...100 hours of effort from the group and we're done!

Suh-weet!

Bedtime!

Engrish, anyone?

I know all of you have had teachers/professors/coworkers who you really didn't understand. I don't mean "understand" as from a philosophical standpoint, but "understand" as in you can't tell what they're bloody saying as they're talking to you--usually imparting very important knowledge. Like the knowledge that your HUGE assignment that was supposed to be due at the end of the semester is now due at the beginning.

I have one of these this semester (profs, not projects). ARGH! Drives me nuts! (Hah! Drives me nuts!) Anyway, he also teaches at the pace of the Galapagos tortoise. Seriously. In three hours we covered roughly ONE TOPIC. No joke. One. Over and over and over and...

Maybe I should ride the class out on his shell. By the end of the semester, I'd have made it from my desk to, oh, halfway across the room.

It's only 11:13???

This morning has been interesting. My hands are battered and bloody from stuffing 1100 poster and letters into mailing tubes. I had help--two inmates from the nearby women's prison work here, and the guy they work for graciously asked if I'd like them to help me. It's nice to know that there are nice people around. We knocked out what was looking like a two day job in about 2.5 hours. I'm tired. My brain hurts from my calc-econ class. I'm going to hide under my desk and take a nap.