Nothing to be done.
Today it is Friday and thus far I am having an utterly boring Thanksgiving weekend. Most people from my floor (and I assume the other residences as well) have left for home, wherever that may be. This includes my roommate, so I have the room to myself from now until Monday night. I thought I would highly enjoy being solitary for the weekend, but after two hours I am already so bored! I have been texting people, but it really is not an adequate means of replacing their presence.
I have finished my second Political Science assignment, so I have to spend the weekend writing my first English essay. It is complicated, but I think I have a handle on it. Hopefully. I wrote out an outline for it, though it is not a standard essay where you get a question and must answer it and back up your thesis. Basically it is a two-part essay where you summarize a critique of Frankenstein and then spend the next half saying why the critique is or is not an acceptable analysis of the novel. I am writing about the Feminist critique, as opposed to the Marxist theory or the Psychoanalytic one. We'll see how it all turns out.
Frankly, I don't know what to think about English and my future with the subject. All the kids in my class freak me out because they are very...responsive to what we have been discussing thus far in the course. I have never dealt with that before on this scale for 200 kids. My AP classes were supposed to be geared toward literary kids, but in the end most of the people were just keeners trying to amp up their transcript. Every time I say something in my tutorial class, I feel like an idiot because the TA basically just poses question after question and there are sporadic opinions expressed, but then the TA doesn't follow up or play devil's advocate. He just sits there, nods, and occasionally nods sagely. It's all very strange. Tutorial is alright though, compared to the actual English class on Tuesdays. I sit there for 2 hours while my professor very passionately and animatedly talks about Mary Shelley and makes creepy associations to things that no one wants to hear. Awkward! I like that he is enthusiastic, but after 110 minutes, I want to get out of there. Maybe our next unit will be a bit more bearable.
My favourite class is Political Science, which I have Monday, Wednesday and Friday for an hour. It is a great class because the professor is young and interested in government and has all these anecdotes to tell us. He is very reminiscent of two people that I hold near and dear to my academic heart: Bill Nye and Warren "Beaver" Marcotte aka my social 10 AP teacher. The downside to Political Science is my tutorial class, which is held on Mondays from 2-3. The TA is this crazy girl who is, I swear, 22. She is BONKERS. On a power trip to the ultimate degree. She is marking us on how many times we raise our hand during the class. This marking criteria angers me so much, so I just put up my hand and contribute anything that comes to my mind. It doesn't even matter when I say, though, because it is only me and this other girl who bother to contribute. Despite this, I don't feel like I have a secure mark in the class. She gave 4/5 on my first paper, which I thought was decent considering I am the only first year in the tutorial, but I am pretty sure she took off 0.25 for my (minor) mistake of writing 'Uganda citizen' instead of 'Ugandan citizen'. What a joke! I had awesome examples for a 400 word limit, and yet she is like, "you need to expand on your case studies"...well I would if I had an extra 300 words to spare you crazy lady! I summarized them as thoroughly as possible without glossing over the point of incorporating them. Whatevs. I finished the second assignment, went over the world limit by 150 words and lied about the final count. I tried my best to answer the question specifically, but it really isn't worth fretting over because no matter how many times I email her asking for advice like she encouraged us to do, it takes her 4 days to reply back. I don't have time for that!
I had a math midterm on Wednesday. I will tell you straight up: it is really difficult to do 7 questions that are worth 10 marks each within a 50 minute time frame. Especially when you aren't allowed a calculator and more than one of the questions requires root finding such as -q^2+500q-40 000. Now, I could easily do these questions with a calulator present, but when I only have 4 minutes left, I don't have time to try and guess-and-check which numbers multiply to give me -40 000 and add to make 500. Yep! Definitely am banking on part marks carrying me through.
I love how much my standards (and everyone else's) have already dropped after being here for just over a month. It is truly amazing the power that pressure has over people. No more keeners anymore -- we're all on the same level.
Speaking of low standards, I am off to go eat some tent food. Oh the joy. I wonder what kind of medium they'll find to shove couscous down our throats tonight...today at lunch it was stuffed peppers.
Bon soir!
I have finished my second Political Science assignment, so I have to spend the weekend writing my first English essay. It is complicated, but I think I have a handle on it. Hopefully. I wrote out an outline for it, though it is not a standard essay where you get a question and must answer it and back up your thesis. Basically it is a two-part essay where you summarize a critique of Frankenstein and then spend the next half saying why the critique is or is not an acceptable analysis of the novel. I am writing about the Feminist critique, as opposed to the Marxist theory or the Psychoanalytic one. We'll see how it all turns out.
Frankly, I don't know what to think about English and my future with the subject. All the kids in my class freak me out because they are very...responsive to what we have been discussing thus far in the course. I have never dealt with that before on this scale for 200 kids. My AP classes were supposed to be geared toward literary kids, but in the end most of the people were just keeners trying to amp up their transcript. Every time I say something in my tutorial class, I feel like an idiot because the TA basically just poses question after question and there are sporadic opinions expressed, but then the TA doesn't follow up or play devil's advocate. He just sits there, nods, and occasionally nods sagely. It's all very strange. Tutorial is alright though, compared to the actual English class on Tuesdays. I sit there for 2 hours while my professor very passionately and animatedly talks about Mary Shelley and makes creepy associations to things that no one wants to hear. Awkward! I like that he is enthusiastic, but after 110 minutes, I want to get out of there. Maybe our next unit will be a bit more bearable.
My favourite class is Political Science, which I have Monday, Wednesday and Friday for an hour. It is a great class because the professor is young and interested in government and has all these anecdotes to tell us. He is very reminiscent of two people that I hold near and dear to my academic heart: Bill Nye and Warren "Beaver" Marcotte aka my social 10 AP teacher. The downside to Political Science is my tutorial class, which is held on Mondays from 2-3. The TA is this crazy girl who is, I swear, 22. She is BONKERS. On a power trip to the ultimate degree. She is marking us on how many times we raise our hand during the class. This marking criteria angers me so much, so I just put up my hand and contribute anything that comes to my mind. It doesn't even matter when I say, though, because it is only me and this other girl who bother to contribute. Despite this, I don't feel like I have a secure mark in the class. She gave 4/5 on my first paper, which I thought was decent considering I am the only first year in the tutorial, but I am pretty sure she took off 0.25 for my (minor) mistake of writing 'Uganda citizen' instead of 'Ugandan citizen'. What a joke! I had awesome examples for a 400 word limit, and yet she is like, "you need to expand on your case studies"...well I would if I had an extra 300 words to spare you crazy lady! I summarized them as thoroughly as possible without glossing over the point of incorporating them. Whatevs. I finished the second assignment, went over the world limit by 150 words and lied about the final count. I tried my best to answer the question specifically, but it really isn't worth fretting over because no matter how many times I email her asking for advice like she encouraged us to do, it takes her 4 days to reply back. I don't have time for that!
I had a math midterm on Wednesday. I will tell you straight up: it is really difficult to do 7 questions that are worth 10 marks each within a 50 minute time frame. Especially when you aren't allowed a calculator and more than one of the questions requires root finding such as -q^2+500q-40 000. Now, I could easily do these questions with a calulator present, but when I only have 4 minutes left, I don't have time to try and guess-and-check which numbers multiply to give me -40 000 and add to make 500. Yep! Definitely am banking on part marks carrying me through.
I love how much my standards (and everyone else's) have already dropped after being here for just over a month. It is truly amazing the power that pressure has over people. No more keeners anymore -- we're all on the same level.
Speaking of low standards, I am off to go eat some tent food. Oh the joy. I wonder what kind of medium they'll find to shove couscous down our throats tonight...today at lunch it was stuffed peppers.
Bon soir!