meh.


watch out, this cranky lady carries sharp sticks.

Oh, Menia ! A long project, this. How I wish I were done. I knitted for two hours of this kickass online Bible class that I'm taking, and I only finished one of the "knots" in the pattern (granted, I was flipping around in the Bible a lot and writing down notes), bringing me to this:

Yaaah, now multiply that by 4. Sigh.
Check out my short row shaping, though! I wish Oma in Germany was familiar with ye olde internet, because I bet she'd be proud.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying giving away my crap via Toronto Freecycle. I found loving homes for both my TV and my old discman. It's nice to get rid of stuff.

Hey, can I do this? Can I bust my ass from morning till night trying to write on not one, but two scientific papers, only to end up in the boringest meeting ever, feeling completely bored / apathetic / dumb / delinquent, while a bunch of profs discuss why the thermal definition of the tropopause is vague in the tropics? They call it Journal Club, and it's purpose (say it with me now) is so that students can learn about the forefront(s) of our field, outside their own thesis work. What it really is is the professors discussing minute details of papers written by people they know, debating which figure they would have left out if it was up to them, while the students stare into space, thinking about sex (or knittng, or whatever), and feigning interest. And while it's entertaining to watch my co-students nod in agreement whenever something is said that sounds like we should agree with it, I really want that hour of my life back.

And now about my T.A. job. I get about 4 emails from the guy who runs the computers around here, about how he's fixed this and that and how such and such filter is now running, but for some reason any of the emails I send to the people who run the course that I T.A. arrive. I get a lot of emails from them about how I should ask students their names and how to force them to raise their hands, but none actually telling me what topic to teach this week, and how to mark the homework assignments. If you do the math, i get paid about enough to glance at every student's homework assignment and then give it a "+" if it looks more or less done, or a "-" if it looks half-assed. However, each assignment consists of like 4 components, and every student hands in some of these...which means i have to count them, subjectively judge what constitutes a "+", and then hear about how wrong my judgement was from like 5 different people.

When I live here , I wont have to put up with crap like journal club and teaching assistant training, so I'll have time to think big thoughts about atmospheric data assimilation and oceanic internal waves, will churn out papers lickety splits, and will knit and knit and knit like crazy on the side. Yeah.

Posted: Mon - September 27, 2004 at 09:17 AM        

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