Lookee my report card, ev'rybuddy!
At the start of school, I vowed to be the best student in Geology, the best student in Geography, and the best student in History!!!bbbbut, I soon ran into the snag known as keeners. Yes, each of my classes had a couple of these super-energetic know-it-alls, and eventually I just gave up trying to top them and blogged more than studied. ^^; Well, the results are finally in, and I'm shocked very much:
Physical Geology: 92% (1st!)
Geography of BC: 88% (3rd ;_; )
History of Canada: 90% (tied for 1st!)
Eh, 2 outta 3 isn't bad. :) Plus, I had a 70% average at UBC, so it feels really good to be above-average for the first time in my post-secondary studies. Anyway, I'm glad these teaching prereqs forced me back to school for awhile -- it kept my brain busy and was mostly enjoyable.
One grudge I did have was with the textbooks. They were big, they were bad, they were expensive, etc, as usual. I've been thinking about a solution for awhile, and here's the result of my brainstorming.
E-books are books packed into a CD for viewing on your computer. The benefits:
1. Better efficiency. I hate how with textbooks, you have to flip a page or two ahead to "see table 4.9," flip back and forth to the glossary to find the definition of all these bold faced words, or have to type in some 1000-character long URL from the "suggested reading" list (and then getting 404'd . . why do so many academic texts recommend Geocities pages??). With e-books, it's just point-and-click. Plus, definitions can just pop-up on mouse-over, pictures can be animated to illustrate something better, URLs can be updated automatically, etc. Notes and quotes can also be cut-and-pasted which saves a lot of time.
2. Portability. Imagine how much lighter your backpack would be with a CD wallet rather than a bunch of clunky textbooks! I'm getting goosebumps in my shoulders just thinking about it. Of course, you may say, "waitaminute, now I hafta bring my laptop to school to read these CDs! . . wait, what laptop?!" But public computers are all over campuses now, all of them equipped with CD drives, so e-books can easily be viewed on and off campus.
3. Saves trees. I mean, good god, some of these texts are 500 pages long, and multiply that by thousands of students, it probably takes a forest to sustain your Forestry 101 textbook. :P
4. Lower cost!!! I think the reason textbooks cost so much is because the professors who write them obviously want to make a lot of money from their years of research and writing. But on the other hand, they are faced by a small college-only market so they are forced to jack-up the price. Then they come up with a new edition every two years or so to make up for the money lost from used book circulation. Sure, you're gonna make less money per book (an e-book usually costs around $5 to $10, I think). But with the lower cost, you will likely sell more. More people would buy new at this price and not have to worry about highlighting or ripped pages. Used copies would dwindle as more students decide not to sell their books for a few pennies. And people outside of college may buy your book now that it's more affordable. Obviously, you have to make some kinda copy protection on the e-books, but eh, for the price of lunch, I'd personally rather buy my own copy rather than borrow one from a friend.
Find a way to make e-books compatible with the iPod and I think you have a winner! Anyway, I doubt any faculty head hancho is gonna read this and get the revolution going, but eh, just my two cents.
In other news, the animal from two entries ago is saved! The mother finally came back last night to carry it away. I sure was getting worried, it wasn't looking too healthy when we found it, and both the SPCA and Wildlife Rescue Centre refused to take it. What kinda animal shelter refuses to shelter an animal?? -_-;
If you're curious, it was most likely a baby raccoon according to my dad. We've seen raccoons in our area before, and from the pic, there does seem to be black patches developing around its eyes. So congratulations hiroe_chan, caithion, chibi_pink and cipster! You win . . um, free journal plugs! ^^b
Physical Geology: 92% (1st!)
Geography of BC: 88% (3rd ;_; )
History of Canada: 90% (tied for 1st!)
Eh, 2 outta 3 isn't bad. :) Plus, I had a 70% average at UBC, so it feels really good to be above-average for the first time in my post-secondary studies. Anyway, I'm glad these teaching prereqs forced me back to school for awhile -- it kept my brain busy and was mostly enjoyable.
One grudge I did have was with the textbooks. They were big, they were bad, they were expensive, etc, as usual. I've been thinking about a solution for awhile, and here's the result of my brainstorming.
E-books are books packed into a CD for viewing on your computer. The benefits:
1. Better efficiency. I hate how with textbooks, you have to flip a page or two ahead to "see table 4.9," flip back and forth to the glossary to find the definition of all these bold faced words, or have to type in some 1000-character long URL from the "suggested reading" list (and then getting 404'd . . why do so many academic texts recommend Geocities pages??). With e-books, it's just point-and-click. Plus, definitions can just pop-up on mouse-over, pictures can be animated to illustrate something better, URLs can be updated automatically, etc. Notes and quotes can also be cut-and-pasted which saves a lot of time.
2. Portability. Imagine how much lighter your backpack would be with a CD wallet rather than a bunch of clunky textbooks! I'm getting goosebumps in my shoulders just thinking about it. Of course, you may say, "waitaminute, now I hafta bring my laptop to school to read these CDs! . . wait, what laptop?!" But public computers are all over campuses now, all of them equipped with CD drives, so e-books can easily be viewed on and off campus.
3. Saves trees. I mean, good god, some of these texts are 500 pages long, and multiply that by thousands of students, it probably takes a forest to sustain your Forestry 101 textbook. :P
4. Lower cost!!! I think the reason textbooks cost so much is because the professors who write them obviously want to make a lot of money from their years of research and writing. But on the other hand, they are faced by a small college-only market so they are forced to jack-up the price. Then they come up with a new edition every two years or so to make up for the money lost from used book circulation. Sure, you're gonna make less money per book (an e-book usually costs around $5 to $10, I think). But with the lower cost, you will likely sell more. More people would buy new at this price and not have to worry about highlighting or ripped pages. Used copies would dwindle as more students decide not to sell their books for a few pennies. And people outside of college may buy your book now that it's more affordable. Obviously, you have to make some kinda copy protection on the e-books, but eh, for the price of lunch, I'd personally rather buy my own copy rather than borrow one from a friend.
Find a way to make e-books compatible with the iPod and I think you have a winner! Anyway, I doubt any faculty head hancho is gonna read this and get the revolution going, but eh, just my two cents.
In other news, the animal from two entries ago is saved! The mother finally came back last night to carry it away. I sure was getting worried, it wasn't looking too healthy when we found it, and both the SPCA and Wildlife Rescue Centre refused to take it. What kinda animal shelter refuses to shelter an animal?? -_-;
If you're curious, it was most likely a baby raccoon according to my dad. We've seen raccoons in our area before, and from the pic, there does seem to be black patches developing around its eyes. So congratulations hiroe_chan, caithion, chibi_pink and cipster! You win . . um, free journal plugs! ^^b