Venting Thread- Vent about anything.

[Neist]

1 minute ago, hippyscientist said:

Oh my goodness. You should not have told me that. I don't need a couch, or a TV, or lamps, or a car, or books or anything else that I've budgeted for. My entire moving budget is going on kitchen stuff. 

I went to a (nice) big home department store today (John Lewis for anyone interested) and spent far too long looking at kettles, and woks and knives. I'm having to leave my lovely knife collection here because there is no way I'll get that through immigration and customs. I need good cooking knives people! Relatedly, it's my birthday the day before classes start and two days after my dad leaves me in the US so maybe I'll see if I can get birthday presents for kitchen equipment. Williams Sonoma. I will remember that! 

You might peruse their website.  http://www.williams-sonoma.com/

As per kettles, if you're talking electric ones, I highly recommend a Bonavita. They aren't too expensive, and they're quite nice. I use mine for all my tea, from expensive loose tea to cheapo herbal bags.

[hippyscientist]

1 minute ago, Neist said:

You might peruse their website.  http://www.williams-sonoma.com/

As per kettles, if you're talking electric ones, I highly recommend a Bonavita. They aren't too expensive, and they're quite nice. I use mine for all my tea, from expensive loose tea to cheapo herbal bags.

You've broken me! This is amazing  

[Neist]

Okay, okay.. I'm grading the last bit of papers from this semester, and I'm going to pull my hair out.

When I'm given a bit more authority this fall as an official graduate TA, I'm going to metaphorically slap some of these students. No, you can't write your paper in Arial. No, you can't write it at size 13 font (I notice!). No, you cannot insert an inch of blank space after the title of the paper to arbitrarily fulfill paper length requirements, or for that matter, microscopically increase leading to do the same. I worked as a graphic designer, and I notice minute fluctuations in leading. 

Stop trying to cheat, students.

I hope there's a word count limit instead of a page range limit in the next course I TA for.

Oh man, this person used run-ons for half of the sentences. I seriously think this person was wasted when they wrote this paper. 

Edited May 8, 2016 by Neist

[Cheshire_Cat]

So long story short, this guy I used to date keeps harassing me, and when I confront him and tell him to quit, he says he's doing it because he wants to send a signal that he isn't interested in me.  We are in the same friend group, so I tried to tell him nicely several times that I was not interested in him, but he keeps insisting that I am.  I've heard stories of how men don't take the hint, but this one... I am at a loss. I am sure that he believes that I still like him. But why, I don't have a clue. Seriously. This is the most surreal thing I have ever experienced. Luckily this friend group is dwindling, so maybe I can avoid him now.

[Need Coffee in an IV]

@Cheshire_Cat He's suffering from little man syndrome, most likely. Harassment is a no go and I would start documenting everything he does/says. Sure some people may think involving the police isn't necessary but neither is harassment. You didn't start this, but you should finish it. I understand your pain, I've gone through this before!

[Neist]

13 minutes ago, Cheshire_Cat said:

So long story short, this guy I used to date keeps harassing me, and when I confront him and tell him to quit, he says he's doing it because he wants to send a signal that he isn't interested in me.  We are in the same friend group, so I tried to tell him nicely several times that I was not interested in him, but he keeps insisting that I am.  I've heard stories of how men don't take the hint, but this one... I am at a loss. I am sure that he believes that I still like him. But why, I don't have a clue. Seriously. This is the most surreal thing I have ever experienced. Luckily this friend group is dwindling, so maybe I can avoid him now.

I'm a guy, so I'm not used to the oft rude behavior of men, and even I find this... suspicious.

I definitely agree with @Need Coffee in an IV. I'd start documenting things.

[Need Coffee in an IV]

2 minutes ago, Neist said:

I'm a guy, so I'm not used to the oft rude behavior of men, and even I find this... suspicious.

I definitely agree with @Need Coffee in an IV. I'd start documenting things.

Dude sends a "danger will robinson" vibe.

[Cheshire_Cat]

32 minutes ago, Need Coffee in an IV said:

@Cheshire_Cat He's suffering from little man syndrome, most likely. Harassment is a no go and I would start documenting everything he does/says. Sure some people may think involving the police isn't necessary but neither is harassment. You didn't start this, but you should finish it. I understand your pain, I've gone through this before!

Yeah, he's very short, so I guess little man syndrome is apropo. I am hoping that if I just don’t have contact with him except on very rare occasions, that he will stop, but if he doesn't, then we will have a big problem. Harassment may be a little strong of a word.  He's just trying to alienate me from my friends and says really mean things to and about me all the time, interjects imself into conversations I am having with others in order to insult me, ect.  Oh, and he he hangs out with my bff, and then acts completely surprised that I would show up. (Of course, that means I am following him around, lol) I am pretty sure the police won't be necessary . (Then again, I never thought in a million years thought he would do this)  I guess he won the alienation game though, since I am kind of leaving the group.  But my bff is coming with me, so that is all that matters.  He's just a scheming SOB who thinks everyone else is just like him.

[Need Coffee in an IV]

5 minutes ago, Cheshire_Cat said:

Yeah, he's very short, so I guess little man syndrome is apropo. I am hoping that if I just don’t have contact with him except on very rare occasions, that he will stop, but if he doesn't, then we will have a big problem. Harassment may be a little strong of a word.  He's just trying to alienate me from my friends and says really mean things to and about me all the time, interjects imself into conversations I am having with others in order to insult me, ect.  Oh, and he he hangs out with my bff, and then acts completely surprised that I would show up. (Of course, that means I am following him around, lol) I am pretty sure the police won't be necessary . (Then again, I never thought in a million years thought he would do this)  I guess he won the alienation game though, since I am kind of leaving the group.  But my bff is coming with me, so that is all that matters.  He's just a scheming SOB who thinks everyone else is just like him.

Tbh that sounds exactly like harassment to me, but only you can decide whether its extreme enough! Sounds like his maturity and personality is as stunted as his height. Just know you have me to vent to as well! I doubt you are the first person he has ever done this too and I'm pretty sure he will do this to someone else. Bullies are very predictable.

[Cheshire_Cat]

1 hour ago, Need Coffee in an IV said:

Tbh that sounds exactly like harassment to me, but only you can decide whether its extreme enough! Sounds like his maturity and personality is as stunted as his height. Just know you have me to vent to as well! I doubt you are the first person he has ever done this too and I'm pretty sure he will do this to someone else. Bullies are very predictable.

Thanks!  I'm just frustrated with myself because I defriended him on fb, but then he acted all nice, so I forgave him, stopped actively avoiding him, was cordial to him, only to have it start up again.  He can be a fun, charismatic guy, so it is easy to do. I should have known better.  But I shouldn’t have to actively avoid someone so they won't pick on me, especially if we share the same friends.  It's stupid.

I read about stuff like this and wonder how it happens, and now I know. And my friends who know him are like "It's not bad, he's just a little immature. " or "he just likes to get a rise, ignore him."  which is fine, except that they don't understand how much he does this. It's like I can't get away except by completely changing friend/hobby groups, or walking away any time he comes close.  So I chose the former, (but not only because of that, most of the cool people already left.)  So I really hope this is the end.  I blocked him on Facebook, and he doesn't know the new group I joined. He can still call or text, but if he does, I can block him there too. If he does anything more drastic, I'll get my dad or brothers to take care of it.

[shadowclaw]

If there's anything worse than a cheating student, it's a lazy cheating student. Students had to write a press release about an experiment we did in lab. It was a really easy assignment, there was an example in the lab manual along with really great instructions on how to do it. Students also had to submit their papers to Turn It In and they get a similarity score instantly. They also have the ability to modify their paper based on what Turn It In tells them and resubmit as many times as they need before the deadline. I was grading the papers over the weekend and one student had an almost identical paper to someone from another lab section. Pretty much the only differences were that my student plugged in some different numbers into the paper based on what our lab section's results were. I looked at the submission time and the student submitted almost 24 hours before the deadline - meaning the student could have easily looked at the score and switched enough words around to get it down to a number I wouldn't have been suspicious about.

Then again, it's not as obnoxious as a different TA's cheating problem. There was a 2 point assignment due a few weeks ago which basically consisted of reading an experiment protocol and coming up with a potential research question, hypothesis, etc. that could be answered with the data we would collect. One of the fraternities apparently keeps a drawer full of past assignments for its members to copy, so these two guys copied one of these word for word. Not only that, but what they copied was complete nonsense - it had nothing to do with the experimental protocol. So these two guys basically are going to have an academic dishonesty mark on their record now over an assignment worth about 1% of their lab grade.

[hippyscientist]

I think I now understand how some people take SO long getting PhDs (and this is by no mean directed at anyone) but three of the girls I share my workspace with have spent literally 0 hrs working today. They've bitched, they've whined and they've eaten food and gossiped, but I have yet to see any actual work get done. Sure we all have days where we're not very productive but it's like this every day. It doesn't really affect me but it's a frustrating observation! 

@shadowclaw that's just non-sensical! I think students like that will be my biggest frustration as a TA. Lazy and apathetic, combined with a lack of commonsense drives me up the wall...maybe working with undergrads isn't such a good idea haha!!! 

[shadowclaw]

Another vent: why are people unable to do basic math anymore? I proctored a biology exam and the professor made it a point to tell every TA that calculators were not allowed. There were three questions with basically 4th or 5th grade math. One of the students asked me three times to use a calculator. He wanted a calculator to find out what 30/100 was as a decimal and what the square root of 0.09 was.

[CBclone]

Finals struggle is real. Good thing I already have like a 97% in this class because this paper is probably not going to be so hot.

 

Just reminding myself that a week from tonight, I'll be sitting in a baseball stadium drinking a beer and eating a giant pretzel w/ cheese alongside my Dad. One more week.

[Cheshire_Cat]

1 hour ago, shadowclaw said:

Another vent: why are people unable to do basic math anymore? I proctored a biology exam and the professor made it a point to tell every TA that calculators were not allowed. There were three questions with basically 4th or 5th grade math. One of the students asked me three times to use a calculator. He wanted a calculator to find out what 30/100 was as a decimal and what the square root of 0.09 was.

I'm pretty sympathetic towards people who have a hard time with math, but wow...  

[spectastic]

4 hours ago, shadowclaw said:

Another vent: why are people unable to do basic math anymore? I proctored a biology exam and the professor made it a point to tell every TA that calculators were not allowed. There were three questions with basically 4th or 5th grade math. One of the students asked me three times to use a calculator. He wanted a calculator to find out what 30/100 was as a decimal and what the square root of 0.09 was.

i had a professor in religious studies once. he told me that there are three types of people... those who can count, and those who can't.

[Danger_Zone]

5 hours ago, shadowclaw said:

Another vent: why are people unable to do basic math anymore? I proctored a biology exam and the professor made it a point to tell every TA that calculators were not allowed. There were three questions with basically 4th or 5th grade math. One of the students asked me three times to use a calculator. He wanted a calculator to find out what 30/100 was as a decimal and what the square root of 0.09 was.

I've struggled with math since I was 10, so I honestly have a pretty hard time trying to do mental math. I don't think that's as common though and most students have probably become way too reliant on calculators to do work for them, so they freeze up when not allowed to use them. But there could always be the occasional student who does have a legitimate problem with math and just doesn't realize it (because math seems to make a lot of people anxious so they probably assume that being bad at it is normal.)

[fernandes]

Why is my I-20 documentation taking so long to be processed? It's been 4 weeks now!

[Danger_Zone]

Really rusty with my drawing skills lately. My friend asked me to draw him a picture and after endless attempts I finally gave him the least worst drawing I came up with. I can't tell if I'm just being hard on myself or not, because I don't think my friends are going to tell me "yeah you're right that's an awful drawing." With school I don't often feel motivated to draw. I tried to make art my major and it totally zapped my motivation and made me hate doing art, so I know it's only meant to be a hobby for me, but it still sucks to see your talents slipping because you haven't kept up with it. I just feel like there isn't enough time in the day to do everything I want, so I always have to sacrifice something.

[avflinsch]

On 5/10/2016 at 2:00 PM, CBclone said:

Finals struggle is real. Good thing I already have like a 97% in this class because this paper is probably not going to be so hot.

^ this exactly. Final papers for both of my classes this semester were absolute crap (at least I thought so), still managed 2 A's anyway.

My strategy for this is to put as much effort in the class at the beginning, this way I already have a somewhat decent grade when it comes to the finish line, and I can slack off a bit if needed.

Why are the final papers for every class due on exactly the same day & time anyway? Is there some sort of conspiracy going on that I don't know about?

 

[Neist]

Okay, so Oklahoma just is in a bit of a tight spot financially, and in response to this tightness, they've just passed legislation to remove the state EITC.

I'm probably in a minority here, but I'm poor, married, with a child. It's absurd, absolutely absurd that politicians think it's okay cut financial incentives from the poor. Did you know the federal EITC sometimes makes up 20% of my yearly income? If the federal one instantly vanished, I would no longer be able feed my family, and it's not even a question of me spending frivolously. I have no car payment, no credit card payments, and I live very frugally.

Subsistence living 2016, represent.

Rant, rant, rant. 

[drivingthoughts]

@Neist When we lost the EITC we were very sad. for the whole year. I feel ya. At least it's just a season of life... right?

[Neist]

6 minutes ago, drivingthoughts said:

@Neist When we lost the EITC we were very sad. for the whole year. I feel ya. At least it's just a season of life... right?

Yup! I mean, I'll be okay. I can take out an extra thousand a year in student loans if I have to. I don't want to, but I have the option.

I feel worse for people that I know who are in less favorable situations than I am.  

[Cheshire_Cat]

18 hours ago, Danger_Zone said:

Really rusty with my drawing skills lately. My friend asked me to draw him a picture and after endless attempts I finally gave him the least worst drawing I came up with. I can't tell if I'm just being hard on myself or not, because I don't think my friends are going to tell me "yeah you're right that's an awful drawing." With school I don't often feel motivated to draw. I tried to make art my major and it totally zapped my motivation and made me hate doing art, so I know it's only meant to be a hobby for me, but it still sucks to see your talents slipping because you haven't kept up with it. I just feel like there isn't enough time in the day to do everything I want, so I always have to sacrifice something.

Me too.  I have so many artistic hobbies, and most of them have slipped either because of time, or because theymake my tendinitis worse.

[Danger_Zone]

On 5/11/2016 at 8:21 AM, fernandes said:

Why is my I-20 documentation taking so long to be processed? It's been 4 weeks now!

Are there any e-mails or documents from your school mentioning how long it should take? I was told to contact the international students office if I didn't receive shipping information within 10 business days of having my initial information verified, so 4 weeks seems a bit long! But of course this varies, I'm sure. You could always contact somebody about this and make sure there aren't any issues.

Edited May 14, 2016 by Danger_Zone