Posted by alexandra_k on August 30, 2014, at 17:56:23
In reply to Re: exhausted, posted by alexandra_k on August 28, 2014, at 21:46:33
lab went better...
but still feels so very vulnerable indeed. with respect to whether they stay good or whether they deteriorate.
i seem to need to draw some kind of firm boundary with my lab partner each session. about her thinking about whether she might have a flat edge somewhere in her bag (e.g., some kind of bank or id card) because her borrowing my ruler to draw 25+ lines in a lab session is going to be a really very serious inconvenience to me... about how i wasn't happy with her copying my title and labels last time, that i'd spent a couple hours preparing for the lab before the lab and that was how i was managing to keep up with the time management aspects of the lab.
it is... exhausting. and i feel pissy because i can't believe that she asks. i know from linehan's whole DBT thing that apparently one shouldn't feel bad for asking / making a request, that the other person can say 'no'. but i don't actually believe that. i think that there are certain requests that are inappropriate. that ask too much. that are perhaps immoral, even (that constitute cheating). that the act of making a request can be a serious imposition on a person... especially those encultured to be helpful and kind and so on... or whatever...
mostly the issue is one of... doing what we are supposed to be doing... without cheating, yeah. we are only supposed to draw what we have seen. so what do you do if you don't see it? you can have a note that you didn't see it... but then what is to stop lazy people saying they didn't see much in the way of anything? how do you grade that? in a class full of people who can't be trusted to... display moral behaviour / integrity... that seems to be what it comes down to.
2nd lab things almost went horribly wrong... we were given slides and were told to draw that and put, like, 15 labels on structures... and the demonstrator put up a tv projection of a slide with those labels (and a bunch more) already put on it. was a bit of a task simply to copy that down and put the appropriate labels in, honestly. not many people got out their microscopes, but i thought one should probably follow instructions... so i spent a good 5 minutes setting up the microscope for viewing etc etc etc... and the slide looked nothing at all like her drawing. so i start to draw what i can see... then when it comes to labeling i have a problem because it looks nothing like her drawing. so i ask her for help... and she starts telling me that what i'm seeing isn't what i'm seeking... that things i've drawn as distinct structures are actually bits of a single structure. that there are edges where i don't see edges... etc etc... that there are problems with artifacts of staining and preparation etc etc... the slide is from, like, 1995... but of course the problem for me is that i simply don't see any of that.
and so of course things are about to go pear shaped.
i just... handed in what i'd done. what i'd drawn from what i'd seen. and i put in labels as best i could... but honestly, i couldn't see inside from outside... i didn't have any f*ck*ng idea of what the hell was going on... a bit unclear from the grading what happened with it. guess i got the good old standby of 'everybody gets a B-' (until we really decide screw you like what happened with chemistry labs)...
last lab...
they said we could choose whether to draw our specimen or whether to copy the picture. and of course everyone elected to copy the picture... then with the fish... different people got different varieties... and apparently mine was most problematic because it was smaller... and it had been frozen and defrosted... which meant that some of the internal structures might have been destroyed. it ended up not having a spleen... and so they told me that i needed to say that - and say *why* i didn't have a sample of that for the grader and so then i wouldn't be penalised. and then later... we got told we weren't allowed to copy the pictures... we had to draw from our own specimins... and i couldn't see the different parts of the heart... but it turned out that there were different parts to what was the same structure. and it turned out that my fish had retractable fins - which i didn't know fish could have. so that was cool. and the structures we couldn't see on most specimens... turned out we could feel by poking at them because we were meant to draw a transverse section showing the bones...
so all that was cool...
and i could relax and enjoy things a bit more...
but then the clean up bins are all labelled 'don't put fish parts in here'! and i simply don't understand... why they didn't have bins labelled 'gloves' and 'paper trays' and 'fish parts' so people knew WHERE to put things instead of just getting stuck... i don't understand...
i'm sure that bio-med labs will go much much much much much better... only... i won't get to do them :( because they stream you... so they put all the bio-med kids together :( so i'm going to have the same f*ck*ng problem next year of the 'physiology' kids (who i've got now) and then the 'health science' kids (lots of chatty kathys hoping to marry a doctor, i bet). sigh.
it will be alright in the end... but it will take me a couple years to get to that...
that is the problem... it isn't like i can just suck it up and i'll get there in the end... the risk is that the lab people simply don't get what the f*ck my problem is... they tell me to quit being a whiny little bitch or whatever (or decide to fail me for - for instance, not copying the picture)... and i start having panic attacks / needing to leave.
i simply don't understand...
i needed to walk out of the physics study room the other day because there was this girl there... she took a photo of someone elses page for their assignment (to copy it down later). her boyfriend AND the extra help tutor were telling her what to write every step of the way for one of the other problems... they were kinda sheepish about it... telling her to put this and that into her calculator... telling her to write this and that down... like they were walking through her work... i simply don't understand why she couldn't do the moral thing of 'you know what, i simply can't do this problem' and leave it f*ck*ng blank.
i don't get it.
but i can't function in an environment where just copying things down *despite instructions to the contrary* or her kinda working *while signing the front page: this assignment is my own work* is... the norm. those kids... will do well enough to make it such that i only come out with some kind of a B-... especially if i keep f*ck*ng up exams from panic and i get no marks for identifying a valid strategy for solving the problem...
anyway... physics... not so much in my future... biology labs... worry me. i know i'll be alright at them eventually... the issue is not having meltdowns about things that *won't be there later anyway* on the path to getting there.
this kind of thing... is hard... because people are inclined to think that i'm a whiny little bitch who needs to be punished.... that i'm smart i'll be okay on my own they need to prioritise the kids who would put their fish parts everywhere all over the f*ck*ng place (and who still did *DESPITE* the way the bins were labelled). sigh.
first year... for another three years. sigh.
but: lab seems to be going generally okay...
uh.. so i can't tell whether / how this might be imaginitus... but i think there might be another 'tutor' present in lab rooms... to help the demonstrator clarify things in helpful ways at various points where i start to get really very agitated about something... so i haven't been having meltdowns. i'm not entirely sure... but i'm just really f*ck*ng happy that labs do seem to be gradually getting better rather than disintegrating into a big heap of sh*t like what happened with chemistry... fingers crossed that things continue on that way...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1058481
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20140828/msgs/1070534.html