Feb 2008
My R.A. Is Canadian
02/24/08 03:51 PM Filed in: Academia
I was sitting in a
lounge when I got distracted by this girls shirt. It
said, "My R.A. Is Canadian."
Terrific. That's two marks against you. Not only are you wearing a shirt advertising your R.A. (I love you, Joe!), your R.A. is also Canadian ... why would you intentionally advertise this and be proud of it?
Apparently there's a "colony" of followers in Maddox; obviously, their R.A. is Canadian. I'm not sure why they're proud of this. I would have requested a room change between Semesters.
Terrific. That's two marks against you. Not only are you wearing a shirt advertising your R.A. (I love you, Joe!), your R.A. is also Canadian ... why would you intentionally advertise this and be proud of it?
Apparently there's a "colony" of followers in Maddox; obviously, their R.A. is Canadian. I'm not sure why they're proud of this. I would have requested a room change between Semesters.
Comments
Student Graders
02/23/08 01:15 PM Filed in: Academia
Student Graders have
recently become some of my least favorite people.
Now, I realize saying Student Graders are annoying is
like saying women are bad drivers. It's true; maybe
there are some good ones. But from what I've
observed, they hate me.
I just got a few papers back from my Spiritual Formation class. First, I would like to point out that the point of this class is to help you develop your spiritual life; it's not a composition class. Not only this, but my Professor has given no specifications for how your papers should properly be formatted, so taking me points off for poor spacing and formatting is ridiculous. Especially if the points you take off aren't because the spacing or formatting I choose to use is wrong, per se, it's just not to your liking.
I got four Reading Questions and one Reflections paper back today. Reading Questions are questions that my Professor has prepared, usually between eight and twelve, on the reading that is due for that day. We are supposed to answer the questions based upon what the reading says. Basically, they're questions to make sure we did the reading for Renovation of the Heart (Willard). The Reflections papers are our personal responses to the reading of Steering Through Chaos (Guinness). It's not a summary of the chapter, it's just our own thoughts and feelings about what we read (i.e. how can you get it wrong?). Three out of the four Reading Questions I got back I received a +10 on. One of them the grader gave me only a +9. Her reasoning for giving me a +9 instead of a +10 was some "improper" spacing on question six. I accidently hit enter one too many times. Oops! Had this been a composition class, I would have checked for that. As it is, shouldn't we be graded on how well we understood the reading?
The Reflections paper I also got a +9 on. How? Well, I used double-spaced paragraphs (like in my blog posts) instead of single-spaced-indented paragraphs. Nowhere is it specified what type of spacing to use. Also, my margins ... well, I don't know what I did wrong with the margins. She drew an arrow from the text to the side of the page and wrong "1" margin." What does that mean? The margins were 1", which is what they are by default. Is she saying they should be or shouldn't be? And why would I change the margins from Words default? I've never been docked for the default margin settings in any other class. Again, nothing is said about this in the Syllabus.
This wouldn't annoy me quite so much if I actually got docked points for the content of my papers. But I have to wonder, did she even read my reflections, or just look to see if it met her eyes approval? Maybe you think I'm overreacting, but let me inform you of one more thing I did to test this: It's also worth noting that, in one of the papers I got back today which I did receive a +10 on, I purposely completely made up two of the answers. Just to see if I would get points taken off. Guess what! I didn't! But apparently the formatting was OK for that paper.
Seriously, you guys get paid for this! The only Student Graders I actually like are the ones that help the Math Professors, and when I took DLD, that Student Grader was alright, but for the Bible classes I have yet to be impressed. I know, you guys get a lot of papers, but let me remind you, all of the papers I got back today were a single page. There's really no excuse for not being able to read one or two pages, especially if you're getting paid by the hour. Especially if someone else's grade depends on it.
Just to clear up any confusion, I'm actually not losing sleep over this, or even that mad, I just think it's silly :P. And I still love Cedarville. Just not some of their Student Graders :).
I just got a few papers back from my Spiritual Formation class. First, I would like to point out that the point of this class is to help you develop your spiritual life; it's not a composition class. Not only this, but my Professor has given no specifications for how your papers should properly be formatted, so taking me points off for poor spacing and formatting is ridiculous. Especially if the points you take off aren't because the spacing or formatting I choose to use is wrong, per se, it's just not to your liking.
I got four Reading Questions and one Reflections paper back today. Reading Questions are questions that my Professor has prepared, usually between eight and twelve, on the reading that is due for that day. We are supposed to answer the questions based upon what the reading says. Basically, they're questions to make sure we did the reading for Renovation of the Heart (Willard). The Reflections papers are our personal responses to the reading of Steering Through Chaos (Guinness). It's not a summary of the chapter, it's just our own thoughts and feelings about what we read (i.e. how can you get it wrong?). Three out of the four Reading Questions I got back I received a +10 on. One of them the grader gave me only a +9. Her reasoning for giving me a +9 instead of a +10 was some "improper" spacing on question six. I accidently hit enter one too many times. Oops! Had this been a composition class, I would have checked for that. As it is, shouldn't we be graded on how well we understood the reading?
The Reflections paper I also got a +9 on. How? Well, I used double-spaced paragraphs (like in my blog posts) instead of single-spaced-indented paragraphs. Nowhere is it specified what type of spacing to use. Also, my margins ... well, I don't know what I did wrong with the margins. She drew an arrow from the text to the side of the page and wrong "1" margin." What does that mean? The margins were 1", which is what they are by default. Is she saying they should be or shouldn't be? And why would I change the margins from Words default? I've never been docked for the default margin settings in any other class. Again, nothing is said about this in the Syllabus.
This wouldn't annoy me quite so much if I actually got docked points for the content of my papers. But I have to wonder, did she even read my reflections, or just look to see if it met her eyes approval? Maybe you think I'm overreacting, but let me inform you of one more thing I did to test this: It's also worth noting that, in one of the papers I got back today which I did receive a +10 on, I purposely completely made up two of the answers. Just to see if I would get points taken off. Guess what! I didn't! But apparently the formatting was OK for that paper.
Seriously, you guys get paid for this! The only Student Graders I actually like are the ones that help the Math Professors, and when I took DLD, that Student Grader was alright, but for the Bible classes I have yet to be impressed. I know, you guys get a lot of papers, but let me remind you, all of the papers I got back today were a single page. There's really no excuse for not being able to read one or two pages, especially if you're getting paid by the hour. Especially if someone else's grade depends on it.
Just to clear up any confusion, I'm actually not losing sleep over this, or even that mad, I just think it's silly :P. And I still love Cedarville. Just not some of their Student Graders :).
My Toilet Paper Rant/A Tribute to Mary Greene
02/21/08 10:59 AM Filed in: Indiscriminate
I have a strange liking
of cleaning things dirty, for instance, bathrooms.
I'm not sure how this came about; perhaps it was the
wonderful upbringing I had by my two amazing parents
who instilled cleanliness into me (thanks Mom and
Dad)! Whatever it was, I'm stuck with it. I enjoy
cleaning sinks, toilets, and I especially love
vacuuming. Too bad my roommate never lets me vacuum
our room. But I digress ...
Toilet paper, as I once learned, is meant to be installed one way and one way only. See, I work at a wonderful camp over the Summers as the Camp Aid. Basically, I do all the dirty work you don't want to ... but I do :P. Cleaning the bathhouse was one of my many jobs, so, of course, toilet paper rolls needed to be replaced. Frequently. My Camp Aid buddies and I used to take statistics of the ratio of rolls we replaced in the boys bathrooms versus the girls bathrooms, but we won't go there. Although, in case you were interested and are otherwise uneducated, there were always significantly more replaced in the girls bathrooms.
Mary, our fantastic cook for the camp and otherwise handywoman, once taught me this specific way to replace toilet paper rolls. You see, when you get boxes of toilet paper in bulk, they all come wrapped in tissue paper. I never realized it until Mary pointed it out, but the tissue paper actually has an arrow on it, instructing you which way to put the toilet paper into the dispenser. And the arrow isn't just there for good looks! Oh, no. If you put the toilet paper into the dispense the proper way, the roll will unwind closest to you, and you can therefore tear towards yourself, instead of having to lean forward and attempt to tear of the roll away from yourself, which I find always ends awkwardly.
This week, the toilet paper roll was almost empty from the dispenser here in my dorm. Finally, a MASSIVE (and it was HUGE) roll showed up on the back of the toilet. The dispenser still had some left, so the maintenance guys must have just left it there in anticipation, eagerly awaiting to change our roll. The rolls of toilet paper here are huge, which is unfortunate, because when they've just been replaced, the rolls are so big that it's impossible to pull and get some toilet paper out without prematurely ripping it because the roll is too heavy to turn in the dispense ... but that's another whole post.
Anyway, the other day, the dispenser in my bathroom finally became empty, and the maintenance crew replaced the roll. I didn't realize until I went in to do my business that they replaced it backwards! That's right. They made me have to tear forward. And you can't open the dispenser to turn it around, so until this huge roll is finished, I will be stuck tearing forward.
I love the maintenance crew here, and they do a fantastic job, don't get me wrong! That just reminded me of camp, which made me happy, and Mary, who is amazing and knows everything. So perhaps this post is more a tribute to Mary, who knows everything about cooking, tractors, cars, farming, bugs, getting calk off your hands when you get them stuck together, nursing a wound after you accidently sliced your hand open multiple times on shattered porcelain from a toilet (infection?). Oh Mary Greene, how we love you :)!
Toilet paper, as I once learned, is meant to be installed one way and one way only. See, I work at a wonderful camp over the Summers as the Camp Aid. Basically, I do all the dirty work you don't want to ... but I do :P. Cleaning the bathhouse was one of my many jobs, so, of course, toilet paper rolls needed to be replaced. Frequently. My Camp Aid buddies and I used to take statistics of the ratio of rolls we replaced in the boys bathrooms versus the girls bathrooms, but we won't go there. Although, in case you were interested and are otherwise uneducated, there were always significantly more replaced in the girls bathrooms.
Mary, our fantastic cook for the camp and otherwise handywoman, once taught me this specific way to replace toilet paper rolls. You see, when you get boxes of toilet paper in bulk, they all come wrapped in tissue paper. I never realized it until Mary pointed it out, but the tissue paper actually has an arrow on it, instructing you which way to put the toilet paper into the dispenser. And the arrow isn't just there for good looks! Oh, no. If you put the toilet paper into the dispense the proper way, the roll will unwind closest to you, and you can therefore tear towards yourself, instead of having to lean forward and attempt to tear of the roll away from yourself, which I find always ends awkwardly.
This week, the toilet paper roll was almost empty from the dispenser here in my dorm. Finally, a MASSIVE (and it was HUGE) roll showed up on the back of the toilet. The dispenser still had some left, so the maintenance guys must have just left it there in anticipation, eagerly awaiting to change our roll. The rolls of toilet paper here are huge, which is unfortunate, because when they've just been replaced, the rolls are so big that it's impossible to pull and get some toilet paper out without prematurely ripping it because the roll is too heavy to turn in the dispense ... but that's another whole post.
Anyway, the other day, the dispenser in my bathroom finally became empty, and the maintenance crew replaced the roll. I didn't realize until I went in to do my business that they replaced it backwards! That's right. They made me have to tear forward. And you can't open the dispenser to turn it around, so until this huge roll is finished, I will be stuck tearing forward.
I love the maintenance crew here, and they do a fantastic job, don't get me wrong! That just reminded me of camp, which made me happy, and Mary, who is amazing and knows everything. So perhaps this post is more a tribute to Mary, who knows everything about cooking, tractors, cars, farming, bugs, getting calk off your hands when you get them stuck together, nursing a wound after you accidently sliced your hand open multiple times on shattered porcelain from a toilet (infection?). Oh Mary Greene, how we love you :)!