Posted by alexandra_k on May 19, 2018, at 21:47:10
In reply to Re: don't know what's wrong, posted by alexandra_k on May 19, 2018, at 20:15:59
and back... to ranting.
which is not, at all, what i like to do.
despite appearances.i'm doing a statistics paper and a physics paper.
the last 2 of the first year papers.in part... i suppose i do feel that i need to do them. or i'll always wonder whether my concerns about this or that are justified, or whether other people know more than i do and i don't have the entitlement to an opinion because i don't have the basic background that they do.
which...
to be honest...
might just be a position... of my own making.
and so now... this year... i actually have the opportunity to do those 2 papers. and i can do it all online... i don't have to get stuck in the crowded lecture theatres with all the kids... and i have a quiet house so i can't blame noisy neighbours for distracting me from my work...
and i have to finish a qualification to be eligable to apply and i found yuo can do a MPhil thesis in one year. sort of... it's a bit unclear... anyway... i need to have completed it by December 07 or I won't be eligable to be selected for interview...
and it takes up to 3 months to be externally graded... and it has to go overseas to a grader...
and will they let me when they could delay things for a whole other year?
i thought they would be supportive...
i guess it's only english lady who isn't. because she thinks it isn't fair to other students. it is true the university needs to look into how they need to do more to encourage their students to complete in a timely fashion. basically... a little honesty on how you could get sucked into spending all the time there is on your teaching work... especially if your actual genuine dream for yourself is to teach at university level. but if you spend all your time on your teachign and believe people who say 'sure, extensions on your work are no problem' then what happens is you don't finish in a timely fashion (or at all) and eventually you see that you only have temporary teaching work with no benefits and you could be replaced any time another student comes up through the ranks and so now there is an incentive to play whack a mole constantly whacking the capable students back...
and it is hard because i guess professors might pay a little of their salary to their graduate students for their graduate students to take over bits of their own teaching (contracting out in other words)... so professors have incentive to keep their graduate students around forever swamped by undergraduate teaching...
anyway... encourage the students to get a freaking move on and get stuff published asap and... well... even to avoid teaching work entirely if possible...
is the best chance one has of getting a permanent teaching job. one where, uh, you might decide not to contract out your teaching because you enjoy it so much?
ahaha.
people must do that which they do not wish to do...
anyway... in physics i learned that much of what is learned is irrelevant. some people do best-est because they have most-est years of worked examples drummed into them over the years by excellent teachers (not that they know that). all they know is 'why are the other kids so stupid?'
mechanics... we didn't learn about bridges (propping up the foot with an insert) or about springs when it comes to jumping... we modelled squatting as having no elasticity / material deformation whatsoever... the body is a rigid lever... force is calculated from that assumption... little bits i'm glad i did. i know now. i will feel comfortable now to know that i'm not missing overly much. and i suppose i did learn some useful concepts. but much of it is plugging the bits into the equations with no meaning.
stats... i will feel more comfortable with my focus on the actual meaningful content of the experimental design (it's obvious f*ck*ng problems). at the confounding. at the selection bias. at how the sample isn't representative of the general population. i don't want to be doing research making stats... but i have learned... mostly that my concerns are well founded. i was right 'we found a statistically insignificant difference' isn't actually anything to report proudly (but in a number of talks i've been to this year the presenter geninely seemed to think that it was). that it really is important ot have confidence intervals etc...
i don't think i'll do particularly well... that's reserved for people with several years of school / expensive tutors... but i'm learning enough from them to be okay with what i know... and okay with knowing more about what i do not know (for the divsiion of labour down the track).
i'm just kinda lonely, yeah.
when i was auckland i was keen for a study group... then finding people more interested in pursuading people they know everything than interested in learnign anything new. here... i went to a few tutorial sessions but not entirely useful. i get more done on my own. when i work on my own. motivation starts to flag with too much distance from the sense of urgency / slight panic, though.
i don't know...
i do know... it is the sorting. and here i've been thrown in with the worst. at auckland only the worst kids got sent out to Tamaki each Wednesday. Down here, the resiential college was for the worst kids, again. they thought i'd be alright because they put a couple med students in teh same corridor (mature students who transferred from auckland so didn't know anyone).
only... i wasn't in medicine, yet. and it's not that i didn't like them. so it's not jealousy... but more a longing that made me feel like crying... and i didn't want to talk to them about what they were doing because i didn't want to live it vicariously i wanted to be doing it myself. and so i didn't really have anything to say to them...
and in this way...
the circle of friends receeds...
from the ones who sold out who now have little in common...
to the ones who like me to have nothing because it makes me needy / supplicant on them...
to the ones who want to include me in their psychopathic circle...
to the ones who want to encourage teh hospice people to air their views on how euthanasia is unacceptable always forever (and hence will never be legalised -- if i can afford a lawyer and a hospice worker observes me leaving a small fortune to hospice and i make it clear i'll change it and not leave a small fortune to hospice if i don't die within teh next few weeks has my chance of a death with dignity gone up, down, or remained the same?)there were a couple seminar series that were... genuine. or had elements of the genuine. sometimes. one of them got hijacked by the dhb...
the other... womens and childrens health.
i guess that's how you learn about a person. . how they interact with children. animals... and then children... whether they listen to children and can assess capacity. can assess the difference between 'i don't like brocolli' and 'i don't like being sexually abused'. first the assessment and then... the attitude... when tired and caught unaware. the involuntary physiological reaction to those with capacity when their wishes are not attainable.
the measure of a person.
hunker down...
sigh.
maybe i'll have the opportunity to make friends (equal status) next year?
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1098754
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20140225/msgs/1098773.html