I've been in the dark for so long that I can't see
Bloody load shedding again, ye gods I hate living in a third world country. I am at the stage where I can tell that the lights are off when I get home by the quality of the alarm system's beep, it's a semitone lower when on battery power than it is when on mains. (I don't actually have perfect pitch, but I have sufficient musical training that I have about a 90% chance of hitting the right note on the piano to replicate one I'm randomly singing. And the alarm beep is by now extremely ingrained after five years in this house).
This morning's planned power cut is going to add a new dimension of difficulty to the day's deadline, today being Absolutely Positively The Last Day for late registration or change of curriculum, which means we'll infallibly have a rush of disorganised dilatory students trying to sort their lives out. I have been sending "riot shields and brace!" sorts of messages to my advisor squad, hopefully I am being overly pessimistic. But I don't think so. The combination of Gen Z individualism and just-post-adolescent lack of perspective means that students are extremely likely to assume that a 4pm deadline means that they can arrive at one minute to four and be assisted. The real-life practical implications of a bureaucratic process apparently don't actually occur to them, and obviously advisors and administrators are droids or golems who don't have a home life and can simply stick around until all students are assisted. Bleah.
It occurred to me this morning that it's extremely telling that one of my recurring typing blind spots, as in a word I reliably mistype every time I use it, is "curriculum".
(Subject line from the Fratellis, "I've been blind", which was playing in the car this morning, and which I shall endeavour not to read as a commentary on my unaccountable continued existence in this bloody job). And now I have to post this quickly before the power goes. Sigh.
This entry was originally posted at https://freckles-and-doubt.dreamwidth.org/974130.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
This morning's planned power cut is going to add a new dimension of difficulty to the day's deadline, today being Absolutely Positively The Last Day for late registration or change of curriculum, which means we'll infallibly have a rush of disorganised dilatory students trying to sort their lives out. I have been sending "riot shields and brace!" sorts of messages to my advisor squad, hopefully I am being overly pessimistic. But I don't think so. The combination of Gen Z individualism and just-post-adolescent lack of perspective means that students are extremely likely to assume that a 4pm deadline means that they can arrive at one minute to four and be assisted. The real-life practical implications of a bureaucratic process apparently don't actually occur to them, and obviously advisors and administrators are droids or golems who don't have a home life and can simply stick around until all students are assisted. Bleah.
It occurred to me this morning that it's extremely telling that one of my recurring typing blind spots, as in a word I reliably mistype every time I use it, is "curriculum".
(Subject line from the Fratellis, "I've been blind", which was playing in the car this morning, and which I shall endeavour not to read as a commentary on my unaccountable continued existence in this bloody job). And now I have to post this quickly before the power goes. Sigh.
This entry was originally posted at https://freckles-and-doubt.dreamwidth.org/974130.html. Please comment there using OpenID.