Sunday, April 9th, 2006

And round, and round I go

I have been noticeably absent this week due to the bunch of work that has been accumulating on my plate. I think that I can breathe one last gasp before I change my life forever.

I resubmitted my portfolio on Monday to Dr. Q, and recieved some great feedback later on in the week, which was a complete shock to me. The first time I submitted the damned thing about two weeks ago, I tried to put some context into the caption sheets for each of the 24 pieces of evidence in there. This involved setting up a context, mentioning where the artifact was from, what the requirements were and what I had learned from the experience. So, once I recieved comments from Dr. Q, telling me to redo all of it, I was puzzled. What more did he want? He had mentioned something about "talking about what skills I demonstrate in each peice of evidence."

What the hell did this mean? Realizing that I had no other options but to sit down and just write down words until what I had on the screen talked about my mad skillz in some way, I went to town. I spent all of last weekend staying up till 5 in the morning each day in a drunken stupor in an attempt to describe my skills. At times, I would stare off into space and mindlessly talk to myself as I wrote the words on paper. "This piece dem..on...strates... my listening and comprehension skills...in...uhm.... working .... with clients who are anxious." The keys clicked and clocked as I struggled to type as much coherrent babble without repeating myself.  The result? Caption sheet after caption sheet of 2-paragraphed meaningless crap. I guess that really details the whole experience here - why bother doing real work when BS will get it done twice as fast!

On tuesday I had to give my presentation to the rest of the class on an intervention that I would like to implement on a population. Since I work with a domestic violence group for men who batter their spouses, I focussed on them. The intervention dealt with having such members read Macbeth for numerous reasons which I detailed in my presentation. I was pretty happy with it, but not being prepared for what questions were gonna come up, I could have used more time to iron out the details instead of working on that stupid portfolio, which, granted I didn't technically have to finish asap, but dammit, it was a huge nuisence that I simply had to get rid of.

I got my second test back from my educational psychology course, and I was pretty happy with the results. I was a bit worried about this one because I hadn't kept up with the material as I had in the previous one. Luckily, I had the presence of mind to cram the night before and read all the chapters in the unit. Ordinarily, I wouldnt have thought of doing that but, ironically, that was the course that taught me that you can do just as well on an exam if you space out your review compared to cramming the night before. Finally! Something practical. Now there's only one paper and one exam left. and since I only need a B to graduate, I need to score 98 of the remaining 150 points.

On wednesday, one of the students in my discussion sections invited me to have a conversation with him over drinks sometime when I "no longer had control of his grade", which I politely turned down, not because the prospect did not interest me, but because I don't drink. So, he proceeded to name another option: lunch? I accepted, and said that I was honored that someone like him (who is incredibly bright and expressive) would want to have a conversation with me. His response was that I had very interesting things to say. I, naturally, felt a nice sense of self confidence. Maybe I am a pretty intriguing character, after all.

The students have a 6 -7 page paper due on Wednesday on one of three books they had the option of reading. Realizing that I hadn't read a single one of those, despite the fact that I got the books from Dr. Hyde in early January, I started to read them on Wednesday night, and I did not have the chance to finish them until a few hours ago. In my defense, it was a good 480 pages that I had to sift through. They were all pretty interesting, but I'm glad that now it's over.It's a good thing that I got them out of the way because I wasn't sure if I would have time to read them on Monday due to prac, and after I got home on Tuesday, I would be too tired to finish them, plus I need to get some materials ready for discussion that evening. How many papers are expected? Well I have approximately 80 students and if each paper they turn in is about 6 pages long, that's 480 pages that I have to read through... hey, that sounds kinda familiar.

On Friday, I FINALLY had my eye doctor appointment. with some chicanery, I was able to get the exam for contact wearers (as opposed to the one for eyeglass wearers and then having to return for the contact exam in three weeks) despite the fact that I had torn my contacts after I got back from break. I left there with my eyes dialated, which was a very strange experience, made worse by the fact that I had to drive to prac immediately afterwards. To make matters more interesting, they gave me a set of clear contacts to wear with me, but with my horribly blurred vision, I could not tell if they were the right prescription. It got better as the afternoon progressed, but i needed to take a nap by the time I got back at 5. So, I'm gonna see how well the prescription is tomorrow and if all goes well, I'll be odering my new set when I get home. I have the option of going back and ordering the contacts from the clinic, but I don't wanna have to keep going there unless I have to, since it's so far out of my way.

And that's pretty much it. I spent the weekend reading those books and occasionally stopping to watch two star trek movies and nba basketball games, which was a huge disappointment considering that both the bulls and the pacers lost. Now, both teams are just barely hanging on by a thread in the playoffs, and if they somehow manage to blow it and not make it in, this will be the first time since I got back into basketball that I will have no one to root for. No Wally, No KG, no Pacers, or bulls. Go, Bucks!!! Actually, even they are playing like crap recently. and might drop out as well, but the chances of all three of those eastern teams dropping out is pretty small.

So here we are. Two days left. And still, I hesitate to move in either direction, graciously lost in the mundane tasks that might not even matter soon. Perhaps it is for the best, since the few moments of silent meditation that I have allowed myself have been frustrating and fruitless, as I constantly vacillate without any better of an understanding of what it is that I want or who I am as a human being. Are they doubts? Or just fears? Only time will tell, but as it turns out, mine is just about ready to run out...

Thursday, April 13th, 2006

I have Eighty 6 -7 page papers to grade... and two weeks to do it. Man, that's just nuts!

So, as you can imagine, my time is rather short here, but I thought I would take just a few moments and post a Press Release concerning what I have decided to do. I hope you will all be respectful of my decision, particularly during this early stage.

Ferd.

Sunday, April 23rd, 2006

I did it. I can't believe I actually did it

And in record time too. I got my papers graded and it only took a week and a half. Sure my averages were INSANELY low, but hey, that just means I have high standards, right? We were all supposed to have an average of a 43/50, and out of the three types of papers that I graded (depending on which of the three books students wrote about) the closest average I got was 40/50. The farthest away? a 36/50, which is actually kinda funny since I considered that batch of papers to be the easiest to grade. So why were my averages so low? Well, part of it is the fact that I'm not a pushover when it comes to giving out grades, but tied into that is the fact that very few people actually followed the instructions.

This was the basic set up. For almost every paper, you had to write a 2 page summary, followed by a 4-5 page analysis of what you had read. This analysis had to be a critique and evaluation of what the author put forth. Now, you could use outside sources to aid you in this analysis, but (and this is the really ridiculous part) it wasn't necessary. The worst that could happen without any sources was that you would only be able to get a maximum of 45/50 then. With five sources you had a chance at 50/50. So, of course, the slackers didn't include sources and just blabbed on and on aout matters that didnt...well, matter, resulting in very low grades.

And that's not to say that every paper that had an analysis was golden. You wouldn't believe some of the variations I got. There was the 6-page summaries of a text, the 2-page summary of text + a 4 page elaborate summary of the text, my most hated one - the 6-page summary + analysis of text, which made my life a nightmare because I would have to go through the paper line by line and dissect what was supposed to what in terms of summary and analysis. Yeah, those didnt do very well.

And every now and then I would get my personal favorite - the 6 page analysis with no summary. And I call it my favorite only because this mentality lead to the creation of one paper in particular. Seems this one student decided to dive-in head first into the analysis, perhaps completely unaware of the 2-page summary requirement. On page two of her looooong analysis, I found this critique of the book she was evaluating:

"...another drawback of the book is the way [the author] presents his findings. In each chapter he begins with a few pages of summary before getting into his argument, however how can the reader really get involved with his arguement if they already know the results ahead of time? this is like reading a plot summary of a film that gives away the ending. He would do a better job in keepijng the readers interest if he did not give away where he was going right away in the beginning of each chapter."

I couldn't stop laughing for a whole minute. Let this be a lesson to all of you... follow the damned instructions, particularly for TAs because they have very little time to devote to trying to figure out how you completely ignored simple, clearly defined instructions.

Believe it or not, the grading was the easy part. After I was done with that, I had to take care of all the administrative work, which included writing down grades, finding the averages, adding points to improve the averages, and then creating some form of a digital copy for my records. While I was at it, I decided to go ahead and also input their data from class discussion, which was a horrible experience. I had to take all these sign in sheets from the previous 13 weeks and go through each name to determine how many times they had been absent. To make matters worse, they have the option of attending ANOTHER section, so if a student hadn't signed in one week, i couldn't just write her off. I would have to look through the sign in sheets of my other three discussion sections that week to see if she had attended there. ARGH! but it's done. I'm glad I don't have to worry about that anymore. There are only two more discussions left, so I should be able to keep better track at this point and input the last pieces of data easily. I would say that that would be the end of it, but the also have the option of turning in extra credit the final week, so I'll have to go through that and add it to their grades. Once I had realized all of this, it made the goal of finishing grading papers much less meaningful. What's the point, I thought. There's just more crap on the way.

But, enough of that crap. I'm done, for now. What else is going on. Oh, I realized I never updated my entry on going to the eye doctor. I might end up having to go back because the contact she gave me for my right eye kinda sucks. I don't think it's the power, i just think it's the size because things look really blurry and it seems to get dry really easily, and it feels like it's swimming around a lot. So, hopefully I should get that taken care of this or next week. I had the misfortune of getting dumped with a bunch of papers right after my appointment so I havent been able to schedule anything. Hopefully it will all work out.

Man, it's hard to think of what else has gone on since the 13th. that's a whole ten days ago! Spring is finally here, but i really don't trust it for some reason. I guess, I felt winter for the first time in my life. Even last year, I don't recall winter just dragging on and on and on. And that's even with this mild January we got. Man, i can't wait. just three more weeks. Well, to be precise, two weeks and a break and a day. There are only 14 days left in the semester, but since I have to proctor the exam for the human sexuality course, which has the nando-luck of falling on the last day of exam week, it gives me a good five days to just do nothing. Well, i guess I do have a lot of chores that I havent been able to take care of this whole semester on account of being busy every day of the week with few breaks of any consequence. I'll probably do those.

And I still hate my prac site. What else is new? At least before, it wasn't getting in the way of anything. Monday afternoons, evenings and nights arent the most eventful, and Friday mornings and afternoons are dull as well. But now since I have to stay to do group on Mondays from 6 - 8, I'm going to be missing a huge chunk of NBA baskeball playoff action. Luckily there are only two Mondays left, but still, the first one (tomorrow) will keep me from watching most of the Bulls-Heat Game 2, which should be pretty good, and I hate to say it, but it's not like I'll have many other chances to watch the Bulls in action this year.

The bulls are pretty likable team i think. Scott Skiles felt insulted by the fact that the organization was offering him next to nothing for hs new contract last year, compared to the big bucks that other coaches - who didn't even ge their teams to the playoffs last or this year- were getting. But he saw the light and decided that he enjoyed his job enough to not be an ingrate. Ben Gordon is all clutch, and it's fun to hear Marv Albert say  "Gordon - for three... YES!" And Kirk Hinrich looks like Harry Potter. I mean, what more do you want? Well, I could see how you wouldn't like Nocioni, since he's a bit of a dirty player, but hey, it gets the job done.

I'm pretty pumped about today's Pacer game too (in a few minutes here). I really do predict an upset, here more so than in any other match up. Oh, speaking of Indiana, Funk sent me an online thing about this dude who wants ABC to bring back the NBA on NBC theme created by John Tesh, which reallyis one of the catchiest, most inspiring themes you will ever hear. In fact, I'm playing it right now to pump me up about 1) Having no paperwork for my TA-ship to worry about for while, 2) hopefully exciting games in the playoffs, and 3) washing the dishes.

So, now that I no longer have reams and reams of paper chasing me in my dreams, I'll do my best to update this thing on a more regular basis again. Until then, there's always the Remote.