![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 54 to 78 of 495. Go back in thread:
Posted by alexandra_k on February 17, 2014, at 23:18:10
In reply to Re: a better life, posted by alexandra_k on February 17, 2014, at 22:50:04
and part of why i would like to stay here is that there is a significant segment of the community that isn't focused on australia / the us as something 'better than' as something to aspire to...
but is focused on... pacific island communities (for example). and is focused on... just how f*ck*ng lucky we are. in the broader scheme of things.
i mean... think about the population of the world... the significant majority... are struggling with basic (basic basic) needs. things like access to sanitary drinking water is an issue while people argue over whether coconut water is paleo.
it... affects me. and i want to... help. contribute to the world in some way. genuinely. i don't want my focus to shift... in some sense... but in another sense... it needs to remain focused.
because it is about bringing the best there is to the worst there is. that is the point.
i hope... i do get the opportunity to do something... to contribute in some meaningful way...
Posted by alexandra_k on February 18, 2014, at 0:01:29
In reply to Re: a better life, posted by alexandra_k on February 17, 2014, at 23:18:10
So... If you are a full time student you can borrow up to 1,000 for course relate costs. (factor in exchange rate before you judge me)
Course relate costs involve such things as... Course books (where the department prints off a big book of lecture notes / course readings for $30 or so), lab coats, calculators, computers, stationary etc etc etc.
Pretty sure transport is a claimable cost.
It is stipulated that accommodation is not.
(Even though in fact a lot of students are left with no other means for bond / down payment for accommodation).
You are supposed to be full time to qualify... I have dropped my enrollment back to part time... But I could apply for Limited Full Time Status (because it is in my best academic interests to be part time as advised by the science student centre) but... That would involve my further harrassing teh science student centre and I'm fairly sure they are well and truly sick of me... Along with my writing a report to present my best case to the folks down in wellington...
Only... 1,000 found It's way into my bank account today.
So, uh... Samsung Galaxy 4 MINI (with memory upgrade) has been booked... And, uh, weightlifting chalk, speed skipping rope, and wrist wraps (which as sorely needed...) Hrm...
The accommodation people... This year is the first year they have provided a proper 'accommodation account' apparently. Instead of.. Expecting Mummy and Daddy to pay the full year costs in advance, one can only suppose. They undercharged me moving in costs by $100 and when I notified them of that they undercharged me still further... There comes a point at which they are accountable for their own stupidity - yes?
I... Can't seek assistance for costs when I'm not charged for costs.
I don't know what to say.
I feel guilty.
Should I??
Probably/
I should be buying clothes... And I'm investing in speed skipping ffs...
Posted by alexandra_k on February 18, 2014, at 0:08:51
In reply to Re: a better life, posted by alexandra_k on February 18, 2014, at 0:01:29
oh...
because here is the thing: I have loss of faith in mac product.
2 pop ups from the mac game store (when the mac game store application was not launched)
the mac app store incessantly launching google chrome (when safari is the default mac browser and firefox is stipulated (by me) to be (my) default browser)
the mac genius people not being conversent in english and insisting I phone them
(even after I accepted defeat by saying I had a disability that made phone problematic)
Still insisting I phone them...
I have loss of faith in mac product.
Before all that... I would have invested 2x the price for my fingerprint recognition and been extremely happy with it.
now... it isn't worth the cost. not with the mac people (who are supposed to protect me) being the spammers.
f*ck you mac.
samsung: i'll invest in you.
and i'll invest my time in linux.
f*ck you mac.
Posted by Partlycloudy on March 1, 2014, at 13:38:12
In reply to Re: a better life, posted by alexandra_k on February 18, 2014, at 0:01:29
I am completely conflicted about the Android/Mac smartphone options. I bail on just about every "allow/don't allow" choices. I have an iPad, considered a mobile device, and a Samsung Galaxy smartass phone. Not completely in love with either. The Samsung does not crash as the iPad does, mid application. Depending on what I want to do, I am even ambivalent about browsers. Some of them are so heavily influenced by advertisers now that I truly don't trust search results.
I know that you will find your niche in the social puzzle ground that is uni. It must be incredibly stressful to have to put yourself out there. I would be cocooned up in a duvet and eating ramen noodles. Showering only if I had to go to class. But I am in a pit of despair, actually, right now. Don't give a sh*t how I look. Today I am wearing green and red, a la Grinch, because they offer the right level of comfort. Don't sink to my level. You are my beacon of hope.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 1, 2014, at 19:46:59
In reply to Re: a better life, posted by Partlycloudy on March 1, 2014, at 13:38:12
hey. i'm sorry to hear that things are still rocky with you and your so... i'm not sure where things are at - but i do want you to know that i support you with whatever you do. whether you stay... whether you go... whatever. it is hard to know what is best for you... but i'm here. mostly.
:)
i ended up setting up a new gmail account and working out filters to set up forwarding from my old account. i guess the idea is i'll check it less frequently. along the way... i looked into more of the settings options etc. google actually has pretty good explanations about various options etc. i started to feel a bit better. understanding why things are set the way they are, being able to change aspects of that (to get the minimal look i was after). feeling... better about google now.
feeling better about my phone, too, now that i'm getting the hang of the settings there, too. i think a huge part of it is about control... i want to know (in a way i can understand) what it is up to. partly because i want to keep a track on usage costs because i'm on a budget. partly because i want to keep things minimal. partly because i invested a lot in it... and i want it to help my life run smoother not complicate it up in unnecessary ways.
it really is useful for grocery lists. and keeping track of spending (with the calculator etc). that is very useful indeed, and i never really envisaged that utility. i thought i'd get into the voice control... but actually... i like it to be silent, basically. then have it close enough to feel / hear it vibrate. i think i want one of those leather wallet cases for it so i can keep a couple cards and a bill or two... that's about all i need in my wallet, anyway... and i'm used to carrying my wallet around... i don't think they design them for my phone, though. and i think it is a little wider than the i-phone. sigh. the flip cover is kinda cool... but it would be better to replace my wallet...
i probably would be eating ramen noodles if i didn't have a slow cooker ha!
so autumn has just begun. the weather has started cooling off a little in the evening (starting to want to shut my window a little). a little bit of briskness in the air... classes start tomorrow... lots of second and third year students about today buying their books etc (avoiding the mass of first years last week)...
the undergrad place i started out at I think around 1/4 of the student population were 'mature' (25 or over). it is very common for solo parents to return to uni study when their kids hit school age - or even more common for women to return once their kids hit high school age (when they don't need to be home for them after school) whether they are solo parent or not. and then there are all the career change people wanting to move from a trade to something more professional... lots of them in law and computer science and psychology...
everyone loved them. because they were study focused, generally pleasant (not caring about appearing 'cool' / afraid of being seen associating with people who might be perceived as 'uncool'), hardworking etc. they tended to do well. their main problem was lack of confidence (and potentially in thinking it can't be as simple as it actually is so their convincing themself that this other things must be going on... but it isn't).
here... i think there are less mature students. but we will see. the students present during orientation week are not representative. they are mostly the first year students in the halls (18 year old school leavers). the chemistry class is actually fairly small... only 2 lab times for it... so no more than 60 people... i am cautiously optimistic about meeting good people in that class... people who are new to science / chem... who have the maturity to actually take this class (instead of going gung-ho into organic chem as i was initially going to do).
i've done my pre-reading for this week and... uh... things move at a fairly rapid pace. math for this week: scientific notion. significant figures. rounding. all for the purpose of: calculating density. there is a lot more math further in... but that is it for this week. i think i'll timetable myself time to do that website math... and keep that ticking along in the background... just do it by time spent...
I'm excited about class. Has been too long :)
Posted by Partlycloudy on March 2, 2014, at 8:23:46
In reply to Re: a better life, posted by alexandra_k on March 1, 2014, at 19:46:59
Thanks. It is a tough road for me. We are starting to getting into the land of tall tales and just who is crazy. I thought I won the prize long ago, but it would seem not. He is making up some incredible factoids, and my tummy just keeps clenching as the stories come tumbling out.
Really, really sad.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 2, 2014, at 23:52:36
In reply to Re: a better life, posted by Partlycloudy on March 2, 2014, at 8:23:46
i guess he is panicking a bit... trying to scare you into staying, or something. i don't know. maybe you could take a trial run? separate for a prearranged period of time. 6 months or something. then reassess things. you could let him take you on dates during that time maybe. lol. i honestly don't know.
i had class today. it was weird. first years. all the little first years. and this is a class for people with no background... so... often times the ones who were not particularly dilligent in school. sigh. there were loads more people than i thought.. couple hundred, i'd say. i think something different is going on with the labs than i thought... they are split into pods... maybe the lab is more of a whole floor and each pod is more of a classroom than a bench (as i'd envisaged). anyway... we will see...
only half a lecture today... i'm well ahead... but some trouble with density calculations...
or maybe not... i'm given a number in cm3 and i'm meant to give the answer in cm-3. and i'm not quite sure what to do with this... if i was meant to give the answer in mL (m-3) i'd understand... I think mL = m-3... Or maybe it was mL=cm3??? But even then... AAAARGH. units are tricky buggers.
i need to photocopy the rest of a chapter from a textbook and work through that... the textbook is... wonderful. pitched at just the right level for me and explains things in a way i find straightforward. i forget just how... much of a verbal learner i am... they have this really well designed website, too, which is helpful... but less text. more learning by problems. i don't like being asked to solve things i haven't been given the information to solve :( it is another way of learning, i guess... i'll get used to it -- and it does display nicely and function really well on my android.
and... they run organic chemistry for next year in much the same way, so i best get used to their style of teaching.
:)
so many people... this uni is... around 2x the size of any other i've spent much time at. people are packed outside the lecture theatres waiting for the last lot to come out... i wonder how much things will ease off over the next two weeks?? i mgiht head back tonight for some more photocopying... i wonder how busy things will be at this time of night...
Posted by alexandra_k on March 3, 2014, at 21:17:14
In reply to Re: a better life, posted by alexandra_k on March 2, 2014, at 23:52:36
the evening turned out to be wonderful.
there is a little bit of a bite to the air... deja vu back to my undergraduate days...
the thing was... i did one year part time. the year i did dbt. i did two papers each semester - whereas a full time workload is twice that. one philosophy and one psychology. i was scared of psychology... because of the stats. and i ended up doing really very well in all my papers... and making some good friends...
then the next year was very full on. psychology pulled this trick where they ran a bunch of year 2 modules where a module was half a course and about 2/3 of the work. so i had 3 modules each semester and two year 3 philosophy papers each semester - or something equally ridiculous... but me and my mates... we pulled through. worked out assess off... and pulled through with A's (well, me and one other) and the odd B+ for the other two who didn't care / work quite as much.
so i'm thinking: the same again. this will be the same again. part time this year. i'll make some good friends and work hard and build up my confidence... then we will haul each other through next year. so... the mission is two-fold: to get A's in my papers this year (which will be pretty darned hard since i don't know 'basic rules' like 1 divided by an exponent produces a negative number - go figure why the f*ck that is or how the f*ck that got into density calculations-still figuring this out) and: to make some friends who are good study people who are ALSO going to be doing bio-med next year. if at all possible...
the weather was brisk last night... there was only one other person in the short loan libarary (where they put the text-books). silence... dark... traffic zipping by and people bustling... they have bean bags which are perfect for moving about and remaining comfortable... tired... that feeling... all the world's a dream... feeling sleep deprived and like the text is flowing through my brain after the odd swirl rather than sinking in but 'better than nothing: you learn more than you think just by going through the motions sometimes'. learning chemistry, i am.
happy.
:)
i'm going to have to identify with being Maaori / Pacific Islander, i think. they have loads of extra help tutorials with free pizza and i need all the help i can get. i met the tutor. he was very helpful. that stuff about the 1/a negative exponent. i was, like 'are you sure that isn't a typo?' 'why can't that just be a typo?' but no... it is more complicated than i thought...
i need to look into it some more... (it actually looks like i can just ignore the units really and simply replace cm-3 with mL as the unit -- but i'd really like to understand. is it... because meters is the fundamental unit of length and thus a measurement in cm3 / mL is -3? if so... that would make me VERY F*CK*NG HAPPY INDEED)
our lecturer froze an egg today with liquid nitrogen. and wrecked some flowers. it was pretty cool. i think it might be wise to sit a few back from the very front.
:)
Posted by alexandra_k on March 5, 2014, at 1:15:49
In reply to Re: a better life, posted by alexandra_k on March 3, 2014, at 21:17:14
well... i'm still enrolled in bio-med. which makes me happy. i thought at some point they changed my enrollment to physiology... not entirely sure why... but it makes a difference to me. even though none of my courses for this year will count towards that major.. it makes a difference. i can tell people i'm doing a foundation year for bio-med. instead of i'm doing physiology but hoping to transfer...
reading more chemistry... it is interesting. heaps of stuff i never knew... stuff about oil drilling and mining and how to (in four simple steps) ensure a lucrative processing plant. lol. stuff about the nitrogen cycle and the water cycle... stuff... it is pretty interesting, yeah. part of... being educated. knowing about stuff. pretty sure that the modern atomic theory of matter and evolution by natural selection are meant to be the two main, revolutionary, theories of the conception of the natural world that any educated person must know. according to Dennett... Or Searle... or some philosopher or other. and so i guess it must be true, ha.
i found a nice app that has 3-d organic structures in ball and stick form and it rotates them about. helpful. i found a surgery app, too, but it kept freezing so i gave up. pretty sad about that.
it seems to be all about the website, really... will get stuck into a day of it tomorrow...
the chemistry building seems weirdly... industrial. perhaps mostly because it is an old building and parts are being demolished or massively renovated for a new monstrosity of a building that will be finished within my undergrad lifetime. lots of construction... but even that aside... there is something weirdly industrial feeling about it all. heavy metals and pollution and... f*ck knows quite what. i'm not sure how i feel about any of it... pouring liquid nitrogen on the bench and watching it evaporate (i think?) off was cool. but seeing the flowers be snap frozen and crushed was... just kinda wrong.
bracing myself for ratios and proportions. here. we. come.
Posted by Partlycloudy on March 5, 2014, at 6:47:54
In reply to Re: a better life, posted by alexandra_k on March 5, 2014, at 1:15:49
My sister went into chemistry as her major as uni, and she really enjoyed the precise-ness of it. (Be careful of too many repetitive small motions, such as with pipettes. She eventually developed carpal tunnel problems.) but again, that was her main focus. Being able to read a chain of letters and numbers on a screen and understanding the molecular structure was like, well, alchemy to me, the little sister.
I hope you find it interesting, a challenge, and enjoy it as part of furthering towards your goal. Your post obviously struck a chord with me today.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 5, 2014, at 20:05:36
In reply to Re: a better life, posted by Partlycloudy on March 5, 2014, at 6:47:54
thanks, pc.
i think it really is a case of practice. the brain is kinda like a muscle with respect to adapting to the demands you make of it. stuff that is very hard to start with... gets to be easy and automatic with enough practice.
our lecturer has been banging on a lot about the macroscopic (what you observe), and the sub-microscopic (e.g., atoms too small to be seen by microscope).. how we represent the submicroscopic with models - like the ball and stick diagrams - and also with reaction equations. apparently chemistry is all about learning to see / imagine each of those three... and that it is a skill that develops.
my main worry is the equations. but i guess they will get to be automatic with practice... there is something about cm3 morphing into g/cm-3 that i don't quite understand... it might just be that... something something about a rule where if you divide into an exponent it becomes negative..? but that isn't important, for the moment, i don't think. i have to be able to figure how much to add to a solution to dilute it... then make a concentration curve with the known values... then use that and whatever it's called that displaces the solution... to figure out the concentration of solutions of unknown sugar content.
what fun.
i wonder what nutrasweet / sugar substitute weighs...
i'm not entirely sure why we need safety glasses and lab coats for that... to get us used to such things, i suppose.
it kinda is fun, really. i just need loads of practice at the math.
i wonder what the tests will be like... if it will be lots of calculations or more 'what are the two features of matter'? i'm heaps better at the later...
Posted by alexandra_k on March 7, 2014, at 2:24:35
In reply to Re: a better life, posted by alexandra_k on March 5, 2014, at 20:05:36
Well that was... Hard. Both good and bad at the same time. What did I expect? I seem to miss a lot of sh*t that seems glaringly obvious to everyone but me.
A lot of the academic game is about appearances. I suppose doing what I've done isn't something that affects only me. In saying that I don't know enough about science etc, I mean. I mean... I'm an embarrassment to my institution? What is to say?
Lots of people pretend to know more than they should. I've been around enough to know that. I guess it is the done thing to nod along...
I don't know.
I just need to remember that scoffing doesn't mean anything. It's supposed to light a fire under your *ss not demotivate. I... turned my back on them... What do I expect? All to be done is to suck it up. Get on with the job. When things are on the up everyone always was your friend.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 7, 2014, at 22:41:47
In reply to Re: a better life, posted by alexandra_k on March 7, 2014, at 2:24:35
... and that wasn't even it.
wow. talk about stirring stuff up.
i should have been happier for him. i do think he's earned great things. sad for this hemisphere... only even that isn't necessarily true. could work out better long term. good to have people from this part of the world in the other part of the world. moving things around over there.
it's all good, of course.
nostalga... yes. everybody has a bit of that. from what was... that has now passed. moved on. changed. nice to know i share a bond with a really amazingly wonderful group of people where all of us reminisce a bit on what a great time it was in so very many ways. it's not just me. other people move onto things that might be considered greater but still they have fond memories, too. i feel so privileged to have been part of that.
there was no judgement. no hard time. except my own head games in my head. lots of physics in the talk. or actually... next to no physics. problems in physics... communicated so simply even a philosopher with no background in physics could sorta almost kinda understand. very nice. someone else used to do that for me... with problems in probability theory...
i will learn the physics. i'll be back...
Posted by alexandra_k on March 9, 2014, at 0:09:34
In reply to Re: a better life, posted by alexandra_k on March 7, 2014, at 22:41:47
i am.
i am truly happy.from the little things...
there is a beautiful garden on my way to work. well, a slight detour, the scenic route, and it is pretty and peaceful and calming.
the sun is lower in the sky as the weather gets cooler and the sunlight is angling in my room heaps better. need to shut my curtains mid-afternoon because it's blinding. i'm not sure what the depths of winter will bring... but i'm cautiously optimistic. and the wind comes through... i'm not going to have humidity (potential mould) problem...
things are a bit noisier now with more people about... but not heaps. seems that this whole floor is full of studio's actually and that... people want to live in studio's because (like me) they value their own space. i think others do have people over occasionally and you hear them a bit... but not for more than a couple hours... and not all the time... it is fine. people just do their own thing and... it is fine. even old stompy upstairs just amuses me... i think it is a little girl flinging herself about the place. that is actually more what it sounds like... a gymnast bounding about the place. so few people turned out for the social thing... they do market this hall as the place to go for 'more independence'. it is... perfect for me. yeah.
i have found my spot at the top of the information commons. right at the back... tucked into the corner... there is a wonderful view of everything... and a firm couch for me to lay on... and no supervisory people to tell me to get my feet off... or tell me my coffee isn't allowed...
people are using the space. quietly. amazing. people actually... working. quietly. it is... wonderful.
i'm enjoying chemistry. the concepts are fun. the equations are... well... i can do the problems (thus far) no problem. any problem (so far) comes from me trying to do other things... thinking that we might need to understand things this way and that way and the next way... probably any problems come from me complicating things unnecessarily... and there is this older (as in about my age) guy up the front who was like 'does that mean it is 2.5x the density of water' and so i might try and be his friend... and i've found that sitting off to one side people seem cool (happier even) about sitting in every second seat so we don't need to be all squished together like sardines... people who can diffuse into the environment instead of clumping. yay.
the gym was nice today. it is mostly. i just need to accept that there will be times where it is better for me to... do something else. there is no shortage of things to do. it really is very well equipped. so sometimes guys want to bench with the women's eleiko bar (not knowing it is the women's bar, clearly). just... leave them be. there are other things i can do. i'm not really training anymore... just exercising and moving about. its okay. really. it is okay.
i do feel scared that i'm going to lose all this... which is... something that i'm better not dwelling on overly.
i'm so happy that the only work i've got to be getting on with... doesn't feel like work. i remember when i first arrived in australia and i was having a ball and producing. until i got so demoralised that what i was producing wasn't any good and then i got stuck. then it wasn't any fun any more. feeling hopelessly inadequate and powerless to change it... perhaps the people too dense / with too high an opinion of themself do turn out to be the better academics at the end of the day. as judged by posterity i mean. perhaps it is better that the people who aren't robust enough to persist with the whole of the academic community... not against them exactly... but... agnostic about them. about their value... perhaps it is better that they be weeded out. i don't know. whatever. it doesn't matter. there are things where... the solution is clear. whether you got it or not, i mean. instead of... what? at some point people decide to say 'not bad'
?
whatever.
i'd doing some editing for a friend who is close to finishing. it is... it reads really well, actually. i'm impressed. she was terrific with giving an estimate of about how long it should take (based in word length etc) and providing instructions of the kind of feedback she was looking for. wonderful way of doing it, actually. it makes me feel... happier about doing the task. that i'm doing something the way it should be done... that i'm making progress on a finite project with end in sight. i can sit myself down and just focus on that for a couple hours. then put it away and go do something else. doesn't sound like much but that kind of... doing a task to schedule (feeling good about making progress on it) and then moving on to do something else is something that seemed to have... fallen out of me. or eluded me for so long. glad to rediscover it. or discover it. basic time management...
my phone is growing on me, rather. as i get used to it. it is... tiny. tiny screen. i don't mind. i wanted portability / pocketability as the most important feature, honestly. i have a laptop... i like the gmail layout. that is important. and it is SO VERY USEFUL INDEED for the chemistry website. to have a pocket portable thing for that. and to have textbooks (next year's admittedly - couldn't get the chemistry one) for that. so if i need to look something up. i'm near the end of my billing month and have heaps of data left, too... i don't think i'll need to worry about data, actually. emails and text based websites (like this and the chemistry one and google search and even the documents i read as the result of google search) use next to nothing. i don't use it for youtube or whatever... the battery life honestly is awful... free wireless about campus... i can use my computer (cable)... but i don't think i'm going to have a data problem with it. so... that is terrific, really. i'll get a lot more use out of it than i thought.
things are okay. things are going to be okay. i am so very happy here.
:)
i love my compression tights. still.
i have a little grading work for next semester... so that will be a little more money through for odds and ends... other than that... i have everything i need. except for a sheet of graph paper for the lab - but i have the means for that... the ante will be upped a little then with an extra class... but for now... ticking along. i need to schedule in math practice and keep up with that. perhaps not waste so very much time on stats and stuff i don't need... but really trying to move through to the scientific notation and exponents... the ratio stuff... decimals and percentages... functions... graphs... algebra. proper equations... that freak me out just by the way they are set up... balancing equations stuff... more practice with my times tables... more confidence... practice practice practice. at least 1 hour per day. and i should still be doing the 3x5minutes of times table practice...
Posted by alexandra_k on March 10, 2014, at 16:16:34
In reply to Re: happy, posted by alexandra_k on March 9, 2014, at 0:09:34
happy-ish. ha.
math math math math math. it all comes back to the math. it probably always will from here on in. or out. can't even get that right ahaha.
i can do the problems okay, but then he said that he expects us to rearrange them and something something about cross multiplying...
the trouble with that website i've been using is that i just... figure things out. see the answer. until... i can't anymore. and usually that isn't up until those last few at the end with crazy looking numbers (that only occur in pure maths and not even so much in applications like science?) i don't know how much to stress about those cases.
(in the good sense of stress).
it is just like it always was: i can do it. rather a lot, actually, right up until... i can't. i can't see the answer. and then i'm totally stuffed. i have no freaking idea what to do. and i don't have much practice with learning / following a method. particularly one that seems unnecessarily complicated compared to my way...
but i guess there is a reason to do things that way (then use my way to check whether the answer seems reasonable once i'm done). the problem... still... is that nobody ever taught me math.
so i'm meant to be doing cross multiplying to get out the... bottom number on the fraction on the equation. or something. only none of the problems he's given us seemed to require anything like that... so i felt in a sh*tty mood... that he didn't just run through how to do it (for people who wanted him to do that) and provide us with lots of examples of problems requiring us to rearrange the equation in various ways... that would have been a help. because right now... i don't know whether i've got it good enough already so move on... or whether this will bite me in the *ss later. whatever... it just puts me in a sh*tty mood, is all. i suspect because it doesn't feel like there is an awful lot of other stuff to be getting on with. the pace is... i mean, things are progressing steadily and logically in a way that everybody really is appreciating... but the pace feels... snail-like. but the problems can be tricky... so...
the website turns out to be heaps more extensive than i appreciated. i have access to the class i'm enrolled in at uni (and none of the others). but i also paid $20 for access to the high school curriculum for a year. there is HEAPS of stuff on that. 3 years of high school... but actually more than that... cambridge curriculum... ncea curriculum... scholarship stuff... olympiad... some of it seems more advanced than stuff we're covering in the course i'm enrolled in at uni (of course - this current course is for people who didn't do high school). so... i can work through any / all of that, too.
it is wonderful, actually. lots of it is repetition. but little bits are different. and higher levels start things off a bit further down / progress through a bit quicker then add a new bit at the end. i'm starting to see how science is taught / learned. and ideally... most of next year will be revision for me. ideally... most of organic chem will be familiar to me already... so... i have quite a lot to be getting on with with the website and of course it is all really relevant to organic chem...
i think i'm a bit flustered because the peer tutorial thing didn't go quite as i'd hoped. basically... full of 18 year olds... who are only just learning how to study at university. here is a stock thing that happens over and over and over and over again: students ask 'do we need to learn your particular definition or can we rephrase in our own words'. teacher says 'i'd encourage you to rephrase in your own words'. outcome is that students say things that are false and lose marks. tears. students learn the hard way that they should in fact wrote learn the teachers definition (trying to gain some appreciation of why it is that the particular words are chosen by many many many many many if not all textbooks on the freaking subject).
anyway... there is no reason for people to hear me / believe me on this... any more than there is no reason for people to disbelieve the person who thought that you can solve for c in an equation of the form a=b/c (by dividing a by b - pretty sure)... people are just... really nervous. and very concerned to appear quick and smart... and i do have empathy (really). i'm feeling a little... deskilled myself... but i just need to find the person or two who encourages me to sit back... take a deep breath... and reason through the obvious. slowly. or... there needs to be a voice like that in the sessions... i suppose it is a case of me standing up... or just... being like that. and seeing what comes. sigh.
we could have had lots of repetitions of the definitions we needed during the course of the tutorial by asking and answering asking and answering over and over in a way that ticked along in the background and became automatic without much... effort. but instead it turned into a bit of a race about who could finish their handout on time. sigh. time. it will just take some time for people to relax. and i need to accept (not being grandiose) that my moods seem particularly catchy for people and i was feeling stressed about the math, yeah.
there was an older chick... but she's presently overwhelmed. doing 3 papers - one of which is stats and she lacks basic algebra, too. and has never done university before (pretty sure). she was having trouble doing the homework set (which i got through okay) which was why the lecturer was talking to her about rearranging equations (which i didn't need to do - i don't understand)... anyway... it reassured me that i've made the right decision in not filling up my course-load with other papers...
i think when it comes to study... i might well be on my own this year. i suppose time will tell and i should be so quick to judge... i don't suppose it would be such a bad thing. sigh. i do miss the community. trying to persuade a friend who i do work well with that he should study medicine too... until then... i guess he is my study buddy. when he feels like a break from his thesis. sigh.
i've been thinking... philosophy is... i can't think of the word... the research funding people are... funding decisions often aren't fair. i guess people think they are doing you a favor (longer term) by preparing you for the way things are. you do great work. you work really hard. you lose your center for excellence. you don't get it in that journal. you don't get a book contract with that publisher. you don't get tenure. whatever. that is just the way things are. if you are about ready to kill yourself each time you take a hit like that... you best be going to do something else. because that is just the way things are. you need to be a person who takes that stuff and uses it to fuel things... or who is impervious to it. of course it helps if you have family or whatever to unwaveringly believe in you. money to weather the storms. etc. whatever. anyway... point it. i'm not strong enough, really. and there it is. what makes me think i'm strong enough for other things? i don't particularly know that i am. maybe with more time... i'll learn. who knows.
i just thought... i know some people who bailed on phd's in other fields in order to persue philosophy. that is probably why they are fairly accepting of the thought that i bail in philosophy to do other fields. meh. it's cool.
i really do appreciate the arts... but i'm not a producer. i can't deal with teh emotional rollercoster involved in that... the personal vulnerabililty..
sigh. who am i kidding? they were the smart, interested, motivated ones. we will be alright.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 12, 2014, at 4:17:46
In reply to Re: happy-ish, posted by alexandra_k on March 10, 2014, at 16:16:34
So... what am I? Like, 1 and a but weeks in to what could be a 5 or 6 year degree... but, still... I am worried that I won't meet people sufficiently like me. Easter w-end=magic mushie season... who's in? Sigh.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 12, 2014, at 21:42:52
In reply to Re: happy-ish, posted by alexandra_k on March 12, 2014, at 4:17:46
the lab was horrible.
overwhelming. everything was new. all the equipment and everything. and a lot of procedure. which is easy when you have spent time doing it, but cognitively demanding when you haven't. translating written instructions / verbal knowledge into actions... trying to read between the lines sometimes (e.g., and then what do i do with it - or whatever)...
2 hours in and i'd had enough. didn't get to the write up until the last hour and i'd had enough. my graph was sh*t. i... fell apart, basically. not a little pool of tears... but close.
i just need time... time to practice clamping the thing on the bench... practice pouring... practice. and then to take deep breaths so i'm steadier. and instead everyone is... well... still trying to appear quick and smart and mostly... people get through by following along what everyone else is doing. borrowing this and that to see what everyone else is writing down...
and i don't work like that. :(
at least... we are assigned to our positions for the rest of the semester, now, so that is that. one of the girls next to me is pleasant enough. helpful.i really didn't do very well, though.
note to self:
- do everything that can be done before the lab: before the lab. all those questions and calculations should have been done.
- suck up the fact that i probably won't do very well in labs because i... uh... don't have the social skills to go around peering at everyone elses work etc.
not sure why i thought labs would be a bit more... of a solitary affair. i didn't realise there would be time pressure. but of course i'm thinking of grad school...
i don't entirely know what to say...
i just need to think back... i hated my first english lit tutorial, too. and psychology... hated those labs... the first few... until i got the hang of things. developed a bit of a schema.
maybe next time i'll be able to envisage actually DOING what we have to do. now i have some stuff... where the equipment sorta lives. what it sorta looks like. etc...
i really don't want to hate these.
demoralised.
please tell me it is going to be okay.
:(
i... don't know that i can learn like that... following along what people are doing... med school etc will probably be like that as well... huh... then all the horrible pecking order hierarchy b*llsh*t... i just want to... understand what i have to do and get on with doing it. i... can't deal with sheeple. i... can't. i don't know what to say.
i wonder... if i can get some extra time in the lab, somehow. to practice using the gear. i.. don't know what to say. bio is going to be the same... with slides... with the microscopes. i'm scared.
oh... and people are... well... people are. lots of... helping some people and tryign to screw over others (or not putting them right). i... don't know what to say.
i'm scared about how i deal with being overwelmed, too... get kinda... short. barky. brain turns off.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 12, 2014, at 21:49:36
In reply to Re: well, that sucked, posted by alexandra_k on March 12, 2014, at 21:42:52
i'm pretty sure the first lab i had for psychology i failed it. it didn't matter in the grader scheme of the course... it was only worth 5% or something and i picked up a 2 or a 1.5... but demoralizing that was. just because... i didn't know what on earth i was supposed to be doing.
i don't suppose it matters how badly i did today (about that bad, pretty sure, possibly worse). what matters is how much well i learn from this...
it is going to be okay.
thank god i'm taking this extra year.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 20, 2014, at 1:08:26
In reply to Re: well, that sucked, posted by alexandra_k on March 12, 2014, at 21:49:36
well... i'm still having nightmares about labs.
i think the situation is that it was one of those 'this is supposed to be fun and easy' things that is... fun and easy for everyone but me. like how tech was supposed to be funner and easier than university. and it seemed to be... for everyone but me. hopefully... they will become more prescribed and... well... hopefully... they won't continue to suck :( i do have to pass the practical component to pass the course :( and the labs are worth 15% which is... 3 grades... enough to drop me to a B even if i really ace everything else :(
the theory is fun! lots of stuff to memorise (that i'm actually quite good at since i'll put in the time) and the concepts are cool, too! starting to feel like i'm outgrowing parts of the textbook which is terrific, too! i mean... it is a high school level course... but still... organic chemistry next week. only 2 weeks of it... just a little taster, really. but the same lecturer as will be next year...
i had a thought... i wonder how soon they get the av recording of the lecture up online? i would be prepared to not go to lectures if they are reliable with those. but i don't trust there won't be a transmission failure... so i'd want them to be up before the afternoon times so i could get to one of those if there was a transmission failure... i don't think i can cope with the jostling etc involved in trying to attend over-stuffed lectures...
i don't think open entry is working.
i guess i have close to a year to figure this out.
but i'm enjoying the chemistry for now. which is good. whatever will be... will be.
i've realised that there are so many people hanging about the place because a lot of people have a long commute to get in / out. the tuakana tutorials seem to be more about free pizza than anything else... the silent study floor doesn't work for me... people are incapable of being silent. there are other places... the top floor of the library was pretty good last night. it is good for me to get out of my room and into another space sometimes... not least for the little bit of a walk about... but my room is reliably quiet. i feel so very lucky indeed to have it. to be able to come home for lunch (not sure how i'd afford to eat otherwise). come home to shower (i simply wouldn't use the gym otherwise).
i don't know how i'm going to learn to do focused work with other people talking around me... i just find voices (even non-descript murmerings) to be attention capturing in a way that i simply can't tune out. it is odd that sometimes i can tune out tv voices (only if i have control over it so i can turn it off for the other times when i can't) and sometimes i work well in a place like a cafe with a general murmer of voices... i can't figure a pattern in the sensitivity... but mostly... a solo voice (or a particularly pitched one) totally captures my attention and sends me into an inner rage... anyway... i need to get a bit better at exploring than i have been... and try and learn to be more tolerant... and i'm just so very grateful that i still have my home :) i still loves it very very much :)
anyway... back to common polyatomic ions... -ate... acids...
Posted by alexandra_k on March 22, 2014, at 21:43:25
In reply to Re: chin up, posted by alexandra_k on March 20, 2014, at 1:08:26
so... when i was staying with friends in wellington they mostly used this eco-store stuff... natural cleaning products, basically. or, as natural as you can get (i don't really understand labels yet)... organic contents rather than... chemicals? not entirely sure what to say about that, but i'm sure people get the general gist. the idea was sort of to buy new stuff when the old stuff was running low... so i'd contribute by buying the same stuff since one of the flatties was a bit particular about stuff like that.
to start with... it was odd... i remember that often things didn't smell quite *clean*. but i suppose i adapted and didn't think much if anything of it when i left.
anyway... after moving into my own place i got... stuff i would have got when i was living on my own in aussie. which was... basically the same stuff as stuff i got when i was living on my own in nz... anyway... it took ages... i went through different laundry detergents until... i found myself right back to the eco stuff. the other stuff... the deodorisers smelt awful strong and overpowering... and... stuff didn't smell cleaner to my nose anymore... just... heavily deodorised. which is kinda nasty. like when people spray deodorant or cologne on their bo so you get wafts of bo all mingled in there...
and now i've started extending... my hair is doing much better now. i got the toilet cleaner and my toilet smelt... clean, actually. not heavily deodorised... again. i think... the more i pay attention to little niggly things... the more my body responds by... becoming more sensitive, if that makes sense. i mean... i swear my sense of taste / smell has gotten even more discriminating now i've moved to filtered water for everything... i can smell sugar wafting about when i take the lid off the sugar jar...
i think food can be like that, too... when i really do get into just eating meat and veges and rice... each vege tastes totally different. i get cravings for particular veges... for crunchy carrots or for the texture of brocolli or whatever... when i start eating all kinds of junk... or stuffing myself on carbs... i lose that.. like how all jelly started to taste the same... all there was was the color...
not sure what i'm saying, really. i'm fighting off getting sick. i think it made me hyper-sensitive today... damn that boy who was sick next-ish to me in chemistry on friday... still... at least my class schedule actually allows me lots of sleep... i might just be able to stave this off...
Posted by alexandra_k on March 22, 2014, at 22:01:31
In reply to Re: increasing sensitivity, posted by alexandra_k on March 22, 2014, at 21:43:25
so... chemistry is starting to get awful complicated. at least, that is the way it is seeming to me...
after going really slow through the first week or so of content... the pace picked up rather fast and... one needs the website / textbook for the full version of the content of the later stuff, really. things are starting to recur... like how earlier we learn that the alkali metals form 1+ cations and the alkaline earth metals form 2+ cations etc... then later we learn that they gain / lose electrons to get to previous / next noble gas configuration... which is sort of (almost, nearly) the same thing twice... so stuff is starting to feel like familiar ground and then a little bit more... which is much nicer than it feeling like everything was completely and utterly new. it does help have a little hook to hang new stuff off of. i hear you on that ot...
i guess the thing is that some little bits you get introduced... open up vast tracts of... things to do. like getting the building blocks for naming binary compounds or molecules and then all of a sudden we're off into another language nearly all of the time. It is going to take some getting used to the idea that while we will have some conceptual knowledge to demonstrate... Mostly it is about... Doing problems. Drawing structures or whatever. That does require conceptual understanding... It is just that it is very different from the sorts of (largely multi-guess) psychology assessments I'm used to. Or philosophy essays, of course.
It is good that this course is turning out to be at just the right level for me. Not pitched too high, I mean. I had tried to teach myself by just going really very slowly through more advanced text-books but I see now why that strategy was doomed... It was supposed to be a memory refresher for the... More extensive knowledge I'm doing now. I didn't appreciate just how much information was packed into things... E.g., I just thought that carbon has four spaces to bond and nitrogen has three etc... Not realizing about valence electron sharing and how that is important for geometry and polar bonding (which I didn't have any idea what the hell that was supposed to be before either, or how on earth you would be able to predict that).
Anyway... Done with the 'foundations' block now. Lots to revise on that for the test... But on to organic chemistry for two weeks from tomorrow... I'll try and sit closer to the front away from sneezy...
I think the oddest thing... Is that it looks like we are actually going to be getting through the whole textbook. My past experience on things has always been... No more than 1/2 a textbook for a one semester course. But this textbook... Well... I am looking forward to being able to well and truly throwing it away at the end of this course. I mean -- I am enjoying it. In many respects it is a very good textbook (is at the appropriate level and explains things clearly)... But... It will be nice to be at the level where a... More advanced textbook is appropriate. Lol.
Actually... They have a website... And in many respects it seems to be heaps more important than the textbook. A bit of a blurb... Then problems - and immediate feedback on the problems. They seem to have a knack of getting the level of the problems just right... So you get the last few wrong and learn something new (they really push the concept so you get how to determine hard / tricky cases)... But sometimes it is nice to have a bit more of a detailed explanation... Even though at the end of the day... Answering the questions seems more important, really... Apparently physics is like this too, hur...
Posted by alexandra_k on March 26, 2014, at 20:02:04
In reply to Re: increasing sensitivity, posted by alexandra_k on March 22, 2014, at 22:01:31
well, that lab was worse than the last one. think i did an even worse job of it, actually, because i didn't get much of it done. messed up one of the earlier steps (would have dissolved if i had have been able to find a cork and had shaken it harder) and didn't find out about that until half way through which... messed things up, rather. i can't really think with so many people about. i get stuck on things like 'there aren't any corks left' or 'there isn't any of that solution left' or whatever... everything feels all disorganised... i guess that's how undergrads are supposed to learn. like puppies... let them play together / hash things out. i... don't really learn like that. and there it is.
i passed the last lab, of course. you can't really fail people who try. it's just demoralising and exhausting, is all. the past couple years tests all look alright. i mean... i am not getting cocky. i have some work to do to be sure... but they seem manageable. i'd be shocked (after a lot of work to be sure) to pull less than 90%... but of course these labs will pull me down...
had a... i'm not entirely sure what to say... with the organic chem lecturer. which is... not good. she has... the most beautiful set of powerpoints i've ever seen. succinct. clear. a manageable block of content (which i never managed to carve off myself in my own readings on the subject). i didn't tell her that... but it got me feeling upset that we don't have access to those notes prior to the lecture. we have this course book that is... lots of bits missing. and we're supposed to copy the missing bits during the lectures. it ruins the lectures for me. i can't just enjoy listening because i'm busy copying. i'm feeling fairly stressed about accurately copying important things like reactions etc that aren't meaningful yet because i haven't had time to think them through... anyway... i asked about getting proper notes before the lectures so i could do prereading... because for psychology i used to do the weeks powerpoints on sunday then just refresh the 5 minutes before class and then the lecture was nice and easy to follow and i could actively think about the content... whereas now i have... lecture notes that i don't trust to study from... lectures that i didn't get to enjoy properly because i was too busy copying... i just feel overwhelmed. like i'm always playing catch up on content because we can't read ahead or do much to prepare properly for lectures.
even labs... doing prereading doesn't help me find the corks. or know what to do when this or that isn't there. whatever... too many students... i just... can't learn like that.
anyway... i guess i came across as abrupt with my being upset about the half filled course notes that chem and bio-sci does... anyway... she smirked something about my taking it to the disability office.
so that bitch has been yap yap yapping about me. still. and that will carry over to next year. i feel... violated. i mean... this lecture think is more of a student course rep / union issue... and perhaps i will persue it that way... talk to the teaching / learning people on campus and see what they have to say about these half filled course books... she only mentioned it was a disability issue because...
?
because she wanted me to feel that it was a problem only i have and she wanted me to shut the f*ck up?
i don't like it here anymore.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 27, 2014, at 21:35:09
In reply to Re: increasing sensitivity, posted by alexandra_k on March 26, 2014, at 20:02:04
feeling a little better today, but still fairly crumbly. fragile. that time of the month so that doesn't help. also feeling fragile re: self esteem etc. labs turning out not to be okay.
i got an email about meeting with the lecturer, too... and i was worried about that. whether it was going to turn into one of those 'we are very concerned about your inappropriate conduct' talking to's that the last place started throwing at me... or... what, exactly...
it started out in something along those lines... but then i made it clear i wasn't going to take that on board entirely... when i said i wasn't happy about her trying to turn it into a disability issue - because that was to try and locate the problem / blame with me rather than consider how the teaching of the course could be improved she looked a little shocked... she didn't mean that... then she said that i was asking for a fair revolution in the way the courses were taught... and then i looked a little shocked, i guess. because i didn't mean that...
anyway... i was still a bit... quck. and jolty. and stuff. so the conversation didn't go the best. but i suppose it didn't go the worst, either. i told her how much i liked her notes and described my ideal way of studying to her... and i think she took some of it on board... in class she said she'd put her powerpoint notes up in case people would rather just listen in lectures instead of trying to note things down... i noticed several people around me (at least) put down their pens at that point...
she said... that she could give me the powerpoints for next week this weekend, if i wanted. to see if i found that they actually helped. she didn't believe it would help me, you see. i thought... and said that i don't think i could let her do that. because i think it would offer me an unfair advantage over the other students...
she said that students preferred to fill in the blanks in class. that that is what their self reported course evaluations were saying... i said that first years don't know how to study yet... people tend to like what they are good at / comfortable with and their way of teaching was much more like high school (not expecting people to preread before class. giving them stuff to jot down so they don't fiddle about with their fingers etc).
anyway... i think she looked a bit surprised when i said about the unfair advantage thing. i said i'd want to mention it to other students and see whether they would think it was fair if i had access to the full notes before class and they didn't. if they didn't think it was unfair... well, then. great, i guess. i can stop complaining and if the lecturers give them to me i'm happy. i really... don't think that they are going to think this is fair, though. sigh.
this does seem to be the way to go about asking them, though. i don't know. i feel... dirty about all this... that i've doen something wrong. ugh. crumbly today...
-- oh... she was like 'oh you are just like some people i know murmer murmer' when i asked about why she raised disability. she had the courtesy to look embarrassed. i basically threw her and she felt ambushed was why she said that... but... people have been yapping. unbelievable. lecture notes are super confidential bits of information that can't possibly be distributed to students enrolled in the course but confidential information about a person's disability... ffs. she said something about multi-tasking... so... that is what the chemistry people think... that i suck at labs because i'm not able to multi-task. that isn't it.
first lab: i sucked because i didn't realise you were supposed to follow along what everyone else is doing and that one or two know how to do one or two bits because they have done labs before. i thought i was supposed to work independently and i was trying to follow the written instructions. trying to keep my eyes off others and not copy, actually.
second lab: i sucked because i don't know how to ask for help appropriately. i'd let the tutor know i wanted something from him and he'd be 'yeah i'll get to you' because of course the happy puppies are all falling over each other to get his attention. i'd leave him be thinking he was keeping mental track of order or people in the cue but no, he wasn't. in other words... i wasn't sufficiently supplicant and smily and flirty enough to get the attention i needed.
i do work slowly. because i have questions about almost everything. i'm one of these people who like to read the instructions before turning on the new toaster. i like to examine the dropper before using it. oh, there are the different measurement markings on it. here are the increments they go up in. oh this is about the pressure you use to suck up roughly that amount and here is how quickly / slowly you can get it to dispense...
where are the corks? i don't see any. shall i ask where the corks are? then wait 10 minutes before realising the tutor forgot i needed something? is it important that the only test tubes left have bits of crap in the bottom of them so i can't see whether or not my solid dissolved? how do we wash it with iced water? can we just stick a cube of ice on it and let it melt while we go do something else (that strategy got ridiculed so clearly not).
why do i suck in labs?
because i can't multi-task. uh huh.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 28, 2014, at 17:36:17
In reply to Re: increasing sensitivity, posted by alexandra_k on March 27, 2014, at 21:35:09
and i don't know why anybody would expect chemistry people... or bioscience people... to know how to teach. i mean... i started out university with education and english literature and then picked up psychology later... the value of getting all your english literature reading done over the summer prior to class should be obvious to anybody who thinks upon it...
now i'm remembering stuff i read something, something about the number of repetitions a person needs for retention. how the average is... i forget. four or six or something like that... how some 'gifted people' only need hear things once or twice... how others need... many many more repetitions than that... etc.
thinking back to school... the teacher would explain the same thing over and over and over and over and over. and really... probably half the class didn't get it the first time. something distracted them. some kid next to them was fiddling or there was this banging outside or they couldn't see because the piller was in the way or the kid in front was bobbing about... maybe they were hungry or sleepy or... and so on...
i never really worked at high school... but actually, i was placed in the year 13 calculus class for math... it was supposed to be punishment for me. because my current maths teacher couldn't keep throwing me out of class and the calculus was what the head of department happened to have going on at the time... and i think about how they were working... much as we are working now in our chemistry tutorials. teacher would go through some stuff for a bit... then the students would work. and there was a little chatter... but not much. people were working through things individually together. a... fairly nice work environment...
and now i'm thinking about how the curriculum is cumulative... so much of it is repetition on the previous year. i'm thinking... the teacher goes through something then people do the problems and the teacher probably goes through that very same thing again for people who don't feel they get it (and the others overhear that while going about their work). even if you don't get much in the way of homework done... you get lots of repetition of the content just by going to class...
and now i'm thinking that people have 2 years of chemistry in high school. and actually a bit before that there is a bit before that. then they get to university... and much of it is repetition. so they can just turn up to the lectures without having done any preperation whatsoever... they can have their half filled in course notes (that they can probably fill mostly in from memory before the lecture even starts)... they can half heartedly listen to the lecture and half heartedly jot down what they already know... probably while simultaneously wondering where they are going to meet their friends for lunch... for much of the semester.
and so the party line is 'you don't have a hope in hell of doing well in the course if you don't have the solid school foundation behind you'. but... if they gave me the lecture notes prior to class... i could do a focused read of them... and i can focus good... then quickly go through them again in the 5 minutes before class while most people are yapping about to their neighbours about sh*t... and then... well, now the playing field is a lot more level when it comes to following along what the lecture is saying in class...
i think the lecturers have mostly been spoiled by being sent heaps of really well prepared students. so... they don't know how to teach. they don't need to know how to teach. they don't actually teach. it is just a... culling year. it gets rid of a bunch of the high achievers from high school who basically get lost in the alcohol / drug / sex haze they find their way into in first year...
they think it is about... the content being particularly fast or hard or whatever... i don't think it is about that... i think it is about their teaching / learning methods not being as efficient as they could be. i wonder what the med curriculum is like? most everyone says the amount of information is overwhelming... i couldn't find a lecture schedule... people say it is more like high school because you are with the same bunch of kids for everything all day everyday...
i think... they keep the teaching style like high school (fill in worksheets during lectures) because... the kids doing the best are the kids who worked like that... because they are in the position of hearing it for the 4th or 5th or 8th time... whereas people like me... hear it for the very first time. and then people think i'm dumb or disabled that i can't listen to you talk about stuff that is alien to me while simultaneously drawing branching alkanes with f*ck knows how many methyl groups...
pre-reading? sigh. i'm not entirely sure what to do. i want... i know that people update ppts a bit on the fly... but... the weekend. i need the opportunity to read them in advance of the lectures. everyone would do better working that way (then the content is novel) but... you can't rely on student feedback... its like asking us how best to moderate babble ha... going about this the right way seems important. with the right... manner. not getting people upset. not having them feel criticised. i don't know how to go about this appropriately. :( i don't believe this is a disability issue :( i need full notes to have any chance next year...
if they want to give people a chance who didn't get to go to the best high schools or who didn't work the best in high school (if they really want to make the playing field level as much as they can) then doing things like providing the lecture notes before hand... makes it a little more possible for people like me to play keeping-up.
otherwise... its just about whose parents were rich enough to send them to the better schools with the less dumb teachers with the smaller class sizes with the kids who are eating better so more well rested and alert and less fiddly... its just about those doing well keeping on... and everybody else was just f*ck*d over from the start, really :(
its like... how the maths people... i got tested for the foundations program and... they woudln't tell me how i did - but i think i did quite badly. and the maths lady said something about how the questions were designed to test mathematical ability and not mathematical knowledge. so, for example, there was this one with boxes and shapes in them... then numbers outside the box. and you were supposed to assign a number value to the shapes. she seemed to think that that was a test of mathematical ability and not mathematical knowledge...
i explained to her... that i assumed the idea was that each row / column would (with some function, i was going with 'plus' applied to them) produce the number outside the box. i was assuming the rule of the game was that each number was to be a positive whole number. i had the mathematical knowledge to know that 20 divided by 4 was 5 and thus four clubs in a row would mean that each club was worth 5... but i couldn't figure a consistent assignment of values for the other shapes that had ALL the rows / columns add up. because i wasn't able to work very well with those other numbers, obviously.
i explained to her... that the triangles with numbers in the 3 corners and a number in the middle... was something i'd never seen before. there were four of them in a row and so i thought there was going to be some function or pattern or progression from the number in the top corner... from left to right across the page... and the bottom left corner... and so on... but later google told me the idea was to multiply the corners and put the product in the middle. i said i didn't see that because i was still learning my times tables so that pattern didn't have visual pop-out for me. that i was looking for sequential pattern along the shapes... not pattern within them...
all this is supposed to be unalterable by teaching?
anyway... her point seemed to be that if i couldn't get most of the test right already then i couldn't do science math. i was like... so... you don't actually teach anybody anything. you just take the kids who can do it already and then give them a piece of paper at the end of the course for what they could do from the start? and she looked a bit sheepish. so... yes. i expect that that kind of is what they feel they are doing. because they don't know enough about learning to realise the value of what they do do... what they can do... what they could do... to actually teach.
i think that... to at least some of the science people... yeah. that is kind of how they feel about it.
like athletes, i suppose. they don't appreciate all the work (teachers working within the bounds of attention and retention and repetition etc) that went into those wonderful 'gifted' abilities that they believe simply to be 'natural'.
sigh.
maybe i'll have to go crawling back to psychology after all.
beyond that... things will be different because we will be in the same boat at least. i bet the reason why people say they feel overwhelmed by human bio in the second semester is because they didn't do human bio at school. so... how well do they do on first hearing? i wonder if prereading could bring up objective performance?
Posted by alexandra_k on March 28, 2014, at 21:03:53
In reply to Re: increasing sensitivity, posted by alexandra_k on March 28, 2014, at 17:36:17
it is their cunning plan to see who can separate what is important from what is not important.
perhaps...
my strategy will have to be...
to wait for the ppt to go up. then to work through it... then to listen to the lecture online.
if there is a technology breakdown (if someone doesn't get their lectures up quick smart and / or if the lecture fails to record properly) i'll be f*ck*d.
but...
i won't have to deal with the security b*llsh*t of trying to push myself a place in overstuffed lecture theatres at 8am 4 days per week. which will mean i'll be far less likely to get sick... i'll be a lot less likely to have outbursts at noisy fidgets... and it will be a much more efficient use of my time...
but...
it will put me a few days behind, at least...
hmm... what to do...
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