Pornrat, Porncamel, Porn, Porn, Porn...
(entry written yesterday)
Better not look down
I'm taking a class here called Production and Operations Management. Now, from the title you might think, "That sounds pretty bad--I don't think it could get worse," but oh, how wrong you would be. It can get much, much worse... and this story is only about the past 48 hours.
The precursor to this story is that our teacher, the former director of the international business program, Porpan (Pornpon?), canceled class a while back because he was doing some publishing business/traveling in Laos. Great, I traveled in Laos, too, but I didn't miss class for it. Something they do here, which is alien to me, and it seems most Western students, is that when a class is canceled, it is rescheduled for a later time. You are expected to attend this class regardless of whether or not it is rescheduled during another class of yours, or at a heinously inconvenient time in either cardinal position or length (1:00 p.m.- 7:00 p.m.?!). So, our class was rescheduled for yesterday, Thursday, from 8:00 to 11:00, which would have conflicted with International Business, but that class was canceled yesterday, to be rescheduled for the week prior, during Operations. And they expect you to attend 80% of your classes.
Anyway, so I muster up the energy to be at school at the bright and early hour of 8:00 a.m., an hour far too early for any real learning to take place. My roommate Rob and I get to class around 8:10, knowing that this teacher and class rely on Thai time (which isn't really 10 minutes late, but really more of a "whenever you get there" attitude). Upon our arrival this late, there is no teacher to be seen. We wait until 8:15, where a secretary from the business school office comes to inform us (in Thai, translated by a student) that the teacher will not be arriving until 9:30--he got tied up at the Indian embassy. But, that in the meantime, we have an assignment (#13 on page 252), due at 9:30. So, we all sit down and do the assignment. The assignment is astronomically vague covering material we have not yet learned. The only answer is to bullshit through it, slap down a few numbers, and go drown our anger in spring rolls and chicken nuggets until 9:30, and that is exactly what we did. When we arrived back to the classroom at 9:20, and after two of us had left to attend an actual class they had, we see that the teacher is still not there, and some of the students had disappeared. A friend of ours tells us that he called again from the embassy and said he won't be able to make it, and that the assignment is due tomorrow. Oh, and they passed around an attendance sheet and that we missed it, but we can walk across the business faculty campus to go sign it. So, seething with anger, we do that.
Our next class was the next morning (this morning) at our regular time of 9:00 a.m. My friend Mike and I arrive early, around 8:50 a.m., and know we'll have to wait at least half an hour for class to start. On a side note, I went out the night before after a university basketball game to celebrate a friend's birthday and it was a late night, to say the least. Anyway, the teacher arrives on time (be still my beating heart!), and starts class not soon after. Maybe, for this last meeting of the semester, he might actually be a responsible adult/professor! Alas, this is not true. He gets a phone call, which he decides to take, from the Indian embassy, because I guess they hadn't inconvenienced everyone enough already. He says that it is ecessary that he fax some forms to them immediately, and calls for our break to happen a few minutes earlier than normal. This isn't that bad--a break is a break, and in a three hour class you need a break. So he leaves and says to come back in fifteen minutes, which really means half an hour, but after twenty minutes, Mike and I decided to return, just in case fifteen meant fifteen. It didn't, and we started fifteen minutes after our arrival. The professor begins lecturing, and half an hour later, answers his phone again after it rings from inside his pants (remind me not to borrow his phone). He lectures for another five minutes after the phone call before receiving another one (again, from inside his pants). After hanging up this time, he tells us that he needs to go to the embassy and that this class (the last class) is canceled. He tries to schedule a make-up class before the final, ends up scheduling it for directly after the final (someone explain to me the sense in that), and tells us the exam is going to be math-intense and very difficult (which I find hard to believe).
And it's rare that I can find a time where I have been more pissed off.
If you wanna keep on flying
If this morning hadn't sucked so bad, I could have really regaled you with an awesome tale of a university basketball game and Bangkok's nightlife when baby powder is a main ingredient (and not in the way you think, sickos). Instead, I'm going to a) stew in anger a little longer b) do some homework c) watch some Trailer Park Boys and d) quiver in anticipation of having the time to go see James Bond this weekend.
Put the hammer down, and keep it full speed ahead.
-=-David Julian-=-
Better not look down
I'm taking a class here called Production and Operations Management. Now, from the title you might think, "That sounds pretty bad--I don't think it could get worse," but oh, how wrong you would be. It can get much, much worse... and this story is only about the past 48 hours.
The precursor to this story is that our teacher, the former director of the international business program, Porpan (Pornpon?), canceled class a while back because he was doing some publishing business/traveling in Laos. Great, I traveled in Laos, too, but I didn't miss class for it. Something they do here, which is alien to me, and it seems most Western students, is that when a class is canceled, it is rescheduled for a later time. You are expected to attend this class regardless of whether or not it is rescheduled during another class of yours, or at a heinously inconvenient time in either cardinal position or length (1:00 p.m.- 7:00 p.m.?!). So, our class was rescheduled for yesterday, Thursday, from 8:00 to 11:00, which would have conflicted with International Business, but that class was canceled yesterday, to be rescheduled for the week prior, during Operations. And they expect you to attend 80% of your classes.
Anyway, so I muster up the energy to be at school at the bright and early hour of 8:00 a.m., an hour far too early for any real learning to take place. My roommate Rob and I get to class around 8:10, knowing that this teacher and class rely on Thai time (which isn't really 10 minutes late, but really more of a "whenever you get there" attitude). Upon our arrival this late, there is no teacher to be seen. We wait until 8:15, where a secretary from the business school office comes to inform us (in Thai, translated by a student) that the teacher will not be arriving until 9:30--he got tied up at the Indian embassy. But, that in the meantime, we have an assignment (#13 on page 252), due at 9:30. So, we all sit down and do the assignment. The assignment is astronomically vague covering material we have not yet learned. The only answer is to bullshit through it, slap down a few numbers, and go drown our anger in spring rolls and chicken nuggets until 9:30, and that is exactly what we did. When we arrived back to the classroom at 9:20, and after two of us had left to attend an actual class they had, we see that the teacher is still not there, and some of the students had disappeared. A friend of ours tells us that he called again from the embassy and said he won't be able to make it, and that the assignment is due tomorrow. Oh, and they passed around an attendance sheet and that we missed it, but we can walk across the business faculty campus to go sign it. So, seething with anger, we do that.
Our next class was the next morning (this morning) at our regular time of 9:00 a.m. My friend Mike and I arrive early, around 8:50 a.m., and know we'll have to wait at least half an hour for class to start. On a side note, I went out the night before after a university basketball game to celebrate a friend's birthday and it was a late night, to say the least. Anyway, the teacher arrives on time (be still my beating heart!), and starts class not soon after. Maybe, for this last meeting of the semester, he might actually be a responsible adult/professor! Alas, this is not true. He gets a phone call, which he decides to take, from the Indian embassy, because I guess they hadn't inconvenienced everyone enough already. He says that it is ecessary that he fax some forms to them immediately, and calls for our break to happen a few minutes earlier than normal. This isn't that bad--a break is a break, and in a three hour class you need a break. So he leaves and says to come back in fifteen minutes, which really means half an hour, but after twenty minutes, Mike and I decided to return, just in case fifteen meant fifteen. It didn't, and we started fifteen minutes after our arrival. The professor begins lecturing, and half an hour later, answers his phone again after it rings from inside his pants (remind me not to borrow his phone). He lectures for another five minutes after the phone call before receiving another one (again, from inside his pants). After hanging up this time, he tells us that he needs to go to the embassy and that this class (the last class) is canceled. He tries to schedule a make-up class before the final, ends up scheduling it for directly after the final (someone explain to me the sense in that), and tells us the exam is going to be math-intense and very difficult (which I find hard to believe).
And it's rare that I can find a time where I have been more pissed off.
If you wanna keep on flying
If this morning hadn't sucked so bad, I could have really regaled you with an awesome tale of a university basketball game and Bangkok's nightlife when baby powder is a main ingredient (and not in the way you think, sickos). Instead, I'm going to a) stew in anger a little longer b) do some homework c) watch some Trailer Park Boys and d) quiver in anticipation of having the time to go see James Bond this weekend.
Put the hammer down, and keep it full speed ahead.
-=-David Julian-=-