Playing the martyr is not recommended

So, at the beginning of the semester, I went up after class to my professors for stats and econ. I asked them if I could waive the class. They asked me about my coursework. I told them. They both said I could take another course if I liked, in a different department that would fulfill the same requirement, but I could not waive the course. I felt like I was caving in when I said “that’s okay, I’ll stay in this one.”

If I’m going to be covering fundamentally the same already-known information, I’d rather do it with classmates I know. This isn’t helping my classmates, and it isn’t helping me, really. So, today I got the first test back from my econ prof. On the first half, which was true or false with explanations, I was told that my explanations lacked depth and I lost points. I lost no points on the second half which was dealing with the exact concepts that she graded me as having ignored on the first half, in greater depth and specificity.

I went up to her after class and expressed my frustration. She said I should have opted into a different class. This reminds me a great deal of exit, voice & loyalty (still halfway through the book). Initially, I chose loyalty, while she recommended exit (to a course of dubious distinction relative to the one I’m taking). Eventually, I gave voice, and she reminded me that I’d chosen loyalty when exit was an option.

Nobody walked away from that conversation satisfied. Both she and my TA recommended that I just stop coming to class save for tests. So she’s not even pretending that she has something of value to teach me in this course. And yet the bureaucracy (value-non-neutral) cannot bend. Following the rules is more important than not wasting my time. I certainly see ‘s lack of fondness for higher education at the moment.

I know the profs here have some experience, knowledge, and understanding which I would find valuable to attain. I wish I felt that were happening in all my classes, and for that matter, that it were happening efficiently and effectively in any of them. But either way, I’ll get a pretty piece of paper to hang on my cubicle wall at some point, and a network of friends and acquaintances in high places.

today

So, I have a memo to write for tomorrow, no biggie. I have a stakeholder thing too. And a NCOD, QGPA thingie. My real question for the evening is, do I watch the debate at school, or level mesharr up to 25? Yeah it’s politically “responsible” to watch the debate, whatever. I’ll have seen what the school will be talking about for the next couple days, and it will contain applied political science lessons. On the other hand, in terms of its intended purpose, I suspect I’d get basically nil out of the debates. And working on mesharr, at least I have something identifiable to point to that I got out of it, regardless of the value I recieve. =) I’ll probably go to the debate.

Additionally, I had an econ test today. I totally wasn’t paying attention to this. And I pulled out the same behavioral scripts I used in elementary school about tests. I talked about how I hadn’t paid attention to the imminence of the test, as I anticipated no difficulty, and I corrected the teacher’s mistaken derivative (with a whispered question at the front of the classroom, I wasn’t a dick about it). I feel like I was a prick. But it’s frustrating to be in this class for me, even if it is an easy A, and even if it does give me the units I need. Bleh. My classmates definitely noticed my attitude, and, of course, found it less than ingratiating. *sigh* Old habits definitely die hard.

upcoming travel plans

most of these are kind of vague, but…

a trip to ohio for becky, which should be thanksgiving related.
a trip to montreal the weekend after thanksgiving for a moderate sized gay swim meet since I missed the big one.
a trip to austin, possibly at some point, for a lounge rats convention. Speakers on the topics of board and card games, drinking, rpgs, and recent events in various people’s lives will be assembled.
a trip to berkeley probably around finals time, but certainly before january (ubercheap airlines stop running their msp<->sfo flights after december).
I also told mom I’d be around for christmas.

That should be plenty of travel for this semester, and none of that will be until the end of october. Whee.

A word on public transportation

Prior to this week, I was taking an express bus to campus. The bus ride itself is about 15 minutes, better than half on highways. But, in terms of walking to the bus stop, and making sure I get there early enough to catch the bus, it ends up being about half an hour. Biking the four miles takes me marginally less than half an hour, door to door, with less than half of it on bike trails. A little more hair-raising, it takes away a time I’d been using for reading, but it’s exercise. And I can do it when I bloody well want to, as opposed to on the bus’s schedule. The freedom to construct my own schedule is huge, and that alone makes the choice of many people to drive totally comprehensible to me. Let alone the hauling capacity and speed.

However, much like I recognize the nutritional superiority of eating some eggs and meat, and the frequent taste superiority of dairy, but remain vegan, I recognize that cars really rock on several levels, but I will not own my own car, and will only rarely drive.

rhythym of my life

I ended up having professionals fix my broken chain tensioner. Then I biked into class today. Must have panniers. Lower back no like. I’ve accepted that I’m a busy grad student & started buying more heat & eat crap. This will sadly result in an increase in the diversity in my diet. I stayed really late on campus for the first time, so I could finish a group project and an assignment due tomorrow morning. Now I’m procrastinating the bike ride home.

Started having some serious doubts about the way I’m spending my time. I’ve been here what, a month or two? I’m feeling alot of things rubbing me the wrong way. My research assistantship blows, and must go. I’ll get a TA appointment. I’m more seriously considering the whole canada thing. Actually looked at it today. I think I would be happier living in Canada, though I’m not sure I’d travel as much as I would were I to live here. The question becomes,

Had a painful moment in my later class today. The professor screwed up some equations. He seems to have a Bush-esque difficulty acknowledging total fuckups, as he never admitted to the mistake, but muddled through as if he’d done something sensible, or done what he meant to do. The TAs were there and didn’t correct him. I felt sorry for him, and sorry for the class as a whole. And it got me thinking about whether this whole grad school thing is a valuable use of my time and money. Then we got the group assignment we’d done back, and it had valuable feedback. (turns out we got as low a grade as anyone got, which was an a-/b+).

Our TA from that class joined us at the weekly dinner thing. We talked about goals and experiences, and the class. It was good overall. Yay ethiopian food. =)

I think I’d like to do exactly the sort of stuff he was doing before he got in to the humphrey. He was working for a consulting firm which specialized in non-profits. It allowed him a chance to check out many different sorts of work in the field. That’d be a good thing for me. I can theorize all I like (and frequently do more than I like), but it’s where the rubber meets the road that we all live. And theories are there to be tested.