Evil Couch

There is this couch. It is faded denim blue with huge puffy cushions and broken base boards. It is a black hole is disguise. It sucks you into it and is extremely difficult to escape from as it also controls your mind. Before you sit down you decide to just watch ‘something’ while you eat lunch. Somehow when you have finished eating you’ve decided to finish what you are watching. Once it is over you suddenly don’t want to get up and get on with your day you want to sit on the black hole/couch and stare at the stupid screen with those bored dull eyes. Your energy has been sapped by the evil couch, your motivation to organize your photos has slipped through your fingers.

One day, couch, I will come for you and when I do I will be escorting you to a garbage dump. You will be replaces with a less comfortable seating unit so that more of my life is devoted to not watching TV.

Trying a new app

So I’m now the owner of a smartphone and I downloaded an app to post on wordpress. I find that I seem to get interesting ideas when I’m on the go. So we shall see how it works out.

Ignored

I am doing something new this summer. Instead of getting a dead-end minimum-wage job I am working as a Research Assistant in a department of Education that is really not my forté. I actually originally planned to get a job in Road Construction for the summer. I was actually looking forward to long hours in the hot sun, coming home tired and smelly, the satisfaction of hard work on my dirty face. But, despite recommendations from a school mate and my Dad as well as numerous applications and emailed resumés, I didn’t hear back from one contracting company. Yes Dad, I could totally go to the sites and apply there too, but something else happened. That research grant that I applied for on a whim accepted me! I no long have enough time to do construction work in the summer. Bummer!

But at the same time – I still have enough time for a part time job. So here I am – trying to get students to tutor and applying to a part-time minimum-wage job at a local bookstore. I’m also applying to be the Assistant of an Assistant at a nearby College and I REALLY hope that I get that job. I would have the opportunity to do high quality work with a good friend of mine for a decent wage.

Back to the research I’m currently doing – I noticed some interesting things about my coordinator. God bless her but sometimes she ticks me off. I noticed that she doesn’t have spectacular listening skills – in that she completely ignores me the way a kid glue to the TV would. I also find that I’m not very useful in many of our meetings and I’m wondering if I should bring it up – do we want to waste my limited paid hours? I’m finding that adjusting to a sit-down office-type job is difficult as I’m used to out-doors in the sun-rain-you-name-it weather jobs. It is only for the summer, though, so I’m sure I’ll survive.

Gawd that was a boring post. Sorry about that folks.

 

Some days I feel like I’m the only person that knows what it is like to be a person. Even though I don’t particularly like some people – I know that technically they haven’t done anything wrong against me and that I probably just have my short in a knot because I don’t like their teaching style. Despite that, I still try to give positive reviews that will encourage that person to change or adapt in ways that will benefit their future students. Being a bitch about it won’t help anyone and it won’t make that person want to change. It will make them want to curl up into a ball and go cry in the corner.

Money Down the Drain

I am going to rant about University. So if you are a professor that doesn’t take the advice of his/her students, then you can stop reading now. I say that because as a student that has taken numerous surveys about classes and has heard that the crappy classes are still crappy, despite the surveys, it makes me wonder if (a) stubborn professors are simply forced to give out surveys about their class or (b) most professors aren’t stubborn but don’t have the authority to change the crappy elements of their class. 

Also, as a student teacher I have taken classes about classes. I know about what a proper assessment is and what a proper assessment isn’t. The same goes for teaching styles and visual aids. I also know that if you give an assessment that, for example, seems too difficult or out of reach of a student that student will lose motivation and do worse in the class, thus the assessment is an incorrect measure of their knowledge. And while knowing things like these I’m stuck with taking a class with a teacher who seems disinterested in the material herself, doesn’t express an interest to get to know her students, speaks into the podium/computer monitor when talking to us, often seems scatterbrained and/or stating the obvious when expanding on a topic, and reads text off of the powerpoint slide to a class of university students. It makes me feel that my tuition dollars aren’t enough to ask for a high-quality post-secondary education. Ironically in this post-secondary education we are being taught how to give high-quality secondary education. Wrap your head around that. 

Daily Prompt: Burning Down the House

Reblogged from The Daily Post:

Your home is on fire. Grab five items (assume all people and animals are safe). What did you grab?

I would grab things that (a) I can't replace or (b) have sentimental value to me. Unfortunately, I don't back up all my photos on my computer so I would be grabbing my laptop. Photo albums are an obvious second choice. I'm not super attached to my jewellery as most of it is costume jewellery or doesn't have a sentimental value attached to it. I would also grab any instruments in the house. Fourth choice is sketchbooks. Those would also be the ONLY books I would bring as all the of the rest of the books I own are replaceable. Although I'm an avid reader, I am not extremely attached to the physical books in my house the way most bookworms tend to be. And I can say that because I tried selling eReaders to people in a bookstore and found that the main reason people didn't want one was because they wanted the look of books on a shelf. Waste of space - that's what that is. Anywho, I don' think I have a 5th item as grabbing my mother's heirloom chest most likely wouldn't count as it is heavy and chock full of crafts.