Another Rant

It's been a while since I posted, and I feel compelled to write this out in order to get over it. So, here goes.

Today I had to give a group meeting talk, which is usually no big deal. We get up there, talk about whatever we're doing, and get feedback from the group (usually only the professors). So, today I decided to present stuff on the various talks I went to at the Ocean Science meeting. This was mainly because since I got back, I've either been teaching or grading, with a week off for spring break (I had to go visit my family since I haven't been home since Christmas). So, I put together what was a pretty good talk about the different causes of hypoxia and regions where hypoxia was prevalent.

So, I finished arranging the slides for my talk at about noon, and the meeting starts at 12:30. Usually I'm a bit more prepared, but having the meetings on Tuesday is throwing me off a bit. The first thing that pissed me off was that the one professor there (I'm not naming names to avoid that professor accidentally stumbling across my blog, not that he would do anything for fun on the internet) was basically not paying any attention to what I was saying. He'd be looking around the room, looking incredibly disinterested. I think that's incredibly rude. The least he could do is pay attention or zone out while facing the front.

Anyway, I had to rush back from the meeting to get ready to teach. Damn them for making the meeting later so I have to rush around like a chicken with it's head cut off. I taught what I felt was one of the best lectures I've given, and then I go back to my office. A student came with me because she wanted help on the lab, which I'm always willing to do. After helping her, I went to check my email, and one of the messages is from the professor in question. He basically wrote that we should be better prepared for our talks and make them relevant to our research. I'm thinking that the message was directed at me, but sent to the entire group that goes to these meetings (about 10 people in all). And then, as a final little jab, he says that "many of [us] give excellent talks."

Now, I don't care if he doesn't like my talk. I thought it was interesting, and it actually garnered more questions than the typical presentations. Especially this professor's, who like to make people feel ignorant at the end of the talk. The thing that irks me most is that he didn't have to common courtesy to confront me one on one. Nor did he have the tact to state things a little more nicely. And the fact that he sent it to everyone in the group is a bit cowardly.

So, frankly, I'm pretty pissed off at him at the moment. I'm starting to calm down about it, but it just annoys me when people make me feel less than worthy of their support, or even attention. It's not like I need any help in that department, with the depression and all.

But, basically my feeling that I don't care if he likes my talk or not. My feeling is that the talk, while being scientific, should also be interesting. Most of the time I see talks that meet the first goal, but overall, the majority of the talks I've seen aren't all that interesting. Basically, he can go *&#% himself for all I care.

OK, I'm done ranting now. I return you to your regular programming.

Teaching Rant

My first post back from spring break was actually going to be about the Oscars, but I just have to put in a little rant about the labs I'm teaching. So, here goes.

I'm catching up on my grading because I was out of town on a conference for a week and then there was spring break. So, I had three labs to grade during spring break, which I didn't quite get done because I wanted to enjoy my break a little bit. Anyway, while I was gone, my labs had two assignments to do, and I was being nice and giving them until I got back to do them and turn them in. At least I thought I was being nice to them. They, however, proceeded to punish me by either not doing the labs and still handing them in, or by doing them so convolutedly that I can't tell what the hell they're thinking.

I realize that all humans beings are natural procrastinators. I wouldn't have the Procrastinator's Creed on the wall above my computer if I didn't know that. However, I would have thought that by the time people reach the college level, they'd at least be able to realize how much time they're going to need to spend on any given assignment and devote that much of their lives to getting it done well. Of course, this is a general education course I'm talking about, so most of the students are just taking it to fulfill university requirements and therefore don't give a flying rat's ass about how well they do in it, so long as they pass the course. So, I guess I'm not completely surprised that many people didn't finish their assignments.

I think the thing that irritates me the most is that people didn't even ask for help. I told them that lab was optional the week I was gone, and they probably stopped listening to me list the times and places the lecturer was going to be there, thus not even knowing that there was going to be help available. And, from what he told me, two people showed up to each of the three available times. I also told them I'd be checking my email regularly while I was away, and I hardly heard anything from anyone. So, the opportunity to have questions answered passed by and they ended up screwing themselves, and pissing me off in the process. And there, they are screwing themselves even more because when I get irritated by what I'm grading, I tend to become less impartial and less forgiving of mistakes. I know I shouldn't be like that, but I can't help it. I'm a hard grader to begin with. I know this well, because I always get students complaining on the evaluations about how tough I grade (and some even grudgingly admit that they learned from it, even though that was only in the dynamics class.... the kids I teach this semester probably don't care if they learn from my grading). But, they're just making it harder for themselves.

Anyway, I just had to rant about that. I told my lab today that I was pretty disappointed with them and their performance. And my labs during the next two days are going to be hearing the same thing because I am disappointed. I realize the labs that they had to do while I was gone aren't exactly using easy to understand concepts, but they still could have made better use of their numerous resources instead of waiting until the last minute to do the lab.

Well, after all that, I'm heading to bed and hoping tomorrow brings a better round of grading. I don't have a lot of hope, but I do have some, which is good, I guess.

Passing on a meme....

I've kind of been putting this off for a while now. I've been memed by Josh, and this is the first time that I've had a lot of time to search for pictures to use in it. Here's what this particular meme is asking for:

The person who's been memed thinks of 3-5 movies that make them weep. Like really weep. Then that person goes to Google images and finds a pic from the movie that doesn't totally give it away, and paste the image into his/her blog. Then, the memed one highlights the pic and creates a link to the movie's IMDB page (that way, if someone doesn't know what movie the pic is from, they can click on the picture and it'll take them to IMDB so they can find out!). The final step is that the memed becomes the memer.

I'm modifying this a bit. Instead of limiting it to movies, I'm including pictures from episodes of TV shows that have made me cry. There are a couple reasons for this. One, I don't want to copy other people's movies that they've already used. Two, I tend to be much more invested in the characters on longer-running TV shows than I am in movies. Three, I've seen some sad movies recently, but none of them have made me cry. I just haven't been able to recently for some reason. I'm also not linking these to the IMDB pages. I'll have people make guesses for them and then tell them if they're right. (The TV episodes should be really easy for Karen, especially, since we both have the same fondness for a show in particular.)

I only have three pictures for this. I wanted to include more, but it's damn near impossible to find images from the soap episodes that have made me really cry.

I guess I have to pass this meme on to some people. Since there are only two people whose blogs I link to that actually know they're linked on my blog, this meme goes to:

Karen

Steve

So, on with the pictures....

1.) Even though I am not a huge fan of this movie, it did still make me cry.....


2.) TV show episode #1: I don't know how anyone couldn't cry during this episode....


3.) TV episode #2: Same show, different episode....

OK, have fun with this! :)