Hell is a subway car. That is all.
Sep. 11th, 2004 12:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fredericksI checked, I really did.
As the bus was pulling up I *made sure* to open my bookbag and look in, making sure my notebook was in there. I saw a large pad of paper and so I thought to myself "Self, great job! You managed to pack everything up even though you were exhausted."
So ho-ho-hum. The Q2 to the F, walk 3 blocks, grab an egg and bacon on a roll, walk two more blocks, enter the North Building, go the the Computer Lab, check the e-mail, go down to the skywalk between North and East, sit and pull out Orgo lab...
Sit and pull out LAB...holy FUCK, where's my notebook with the lab in it?? It's 10:30, I have Italian at 11, Orgo at 12:50, and no damn Orgo Lab. So, so, check this: I have to hop back on the F, then back on the Q2, run upstairs, grab my notebook (from my dirty clothes hamper; yay me for packing...not!), Q2 back to the F, *then* transfer to the E, THEN transfer to the 6, and then, finally, walk the 7 blocks or so to the Brookdale campus. I was race-walking, thinking I'd be late, but when I got there we were all sitting outside the lab like jackasses, waiting for the TA and the Lab Coordinator to finish set-up. I missed Italian (already, and we've only met about 5 times) because I didn't want a "0" for my first lab grade. I'd much rather make due with the craptacular grade I'm bound to get for our craptacular results from last week.
That brings me to another thing that's been nagging me. For most of my scholarly life I've been surrounded by individuals that could be easily be categorized as "above average" intellectually. So I go to Hunter and...I'm running intofucking idiots slower learners in the classroom. Not all, mind you, but some. And it's a learning experience for me. In lab today I felt like screaming at my partners a number of times "Hey, fuckwads, all the answers for the labs are in the lab chapters! Anything you can't find there you can easily find online!" along with other impolite and ultimately unproductive criticisms. I had to step back and make sure I involved them in the process of the lab, fighting my urge to take everything over and do it "right". Even then, I still ended up fucking up and spilling half of our acetanilide solution on the desktop before we got to filtering it off, and at that point I got so pissed I almost picked up the hot plate and threw it at a random person. That pissed me off because it was such a stupid mistake.
And THEN, after that 3.5 hour debacle of a lab, I had to go to Shakespeare. Lovely. That didn't turn out too badly, mainly because Maria was there. She brought the Cowboy Bebop DVD (and, of course, I didn't manage to figure out why I couldn't copy Kid A for her...my bad) and we spent most of our time talking. Or, it seemed like to me, I spent most of the time talking and she spent most of the time listening. I would think, though, that if she wanted me to STFU she wouldn't hesitate to tell me so. It was nice to have someone to vent to so readily instead of bottling it all up and being all passive-aggressive with the customers (when a cashier drops your change? means they've had a bad day). I do hope we keep in contact after Shake and Co. is done with us (my last shift there is Sunday). I also picked up my books for Gay and Les Lit, and started devouring Tony Kushner's Angels in America on the ride home. It's pretty good so far.
So...I clocked a total of 4.75 hours on public transportation. That's great. Just great. Hopefully I'll spent less time tomorrow riding in smelly cars and standing away from the closing doors.
Sleep. Glorious sleep.
As the bus was pulling up I *made sure* to open my bookbag and look in, making sure my notebook was in there. I saw a large pad of paper and so I thought to myself "Self, great job! You managed to pack everything up even though you were exhausted."
So ho-ho-hum. The Q2 to the F, walk 3 blocks, grab an egg and bacon on a roll, walk two more blocks, enter the North Building, go the the Computer Lab, check the e-mail, go down to the skywalk between North and East, sit and pull out Orgo lab...
Sit and pull out LAB...holy FUCK, where's my notebook with the lab in it?? It's 10:30, I have Italian at 11, Orgo at 12:50, and no damn Orgo Lab. So, so, check this: I have to hop back on the F, then back on the Q2, run upstairs, grab my notebook (from my dirty clothes hamper; yay me for packing...not!), Q2 back to the F, *then* transfer to the E, THEN transfer to the 6, and then, finally, walk the 7 blocks or so to the Brookdale campus. I was race-walking, thinking I'd be late, but when I got there we were all sitting outside the lab like jackasses, waiting for the TA and the Lab Coordinator to finish set-up. I missed Italian (already, and we've only met about 5 times) because I didn't want a "0" for my first lab grade. I'd much rather make due with the craptacular grade I'm bound to get for our craptacular results from last week.
That brings me to another thing that's been nagging me. For most of my scholarly life I've been surrounded by individuals that could be easily be categorized as "above average" intellectually. So I go to Hunter and...I'm running into
And THEN, after that 3.5 hour debacle of a lab, I had to go to Shakespeare. Lovely. That didn't turn out too badly, mainly because Maria was there. She brought the Cowboy Bebop DVD (and, of course, I didn't manage to figure out why I couldn't copy Kid A for her...my bad) and we spent most of our time talking. Or, it seemed like to me, I spent most of the time talking and she spent most of the time listening. I would think, though, that if she wanted me to STFU she wouldn't hesitate to tell me so. It was nice to have someone to vent to so readily instead of bottling it all up and being all passive-aggressive with the customers (when a cashier drops your change? means they've had a bad day). I do hope we keep in contact after Shake and Co. is done with us (my last shift there is Sunday). I also picked up my books for Gay and Les Lit, and started devouring Tony Kushner's Angels in America on the ride home. It's pretty good so far.
So...I clocked a total of 4.75 hours on public transportation. That's great. Just great. Hopefully I'll spent less time tomorrow riding in smelly cars and standing away from the closing doors.
Sleep. Glorious sleep.
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-11 10:11 am (UTC)Mmm...must be my anti-Midas touch or something...
Seriously, though, I know what you mean about how after you've done it before, going back to school later makes it seem like you're surrounded by idiots. As a student, I always felt that everyone else was very capable (now I think that it was just a matter of perspective, since I certainly wasn't capable), but when I was in
the depths of hell(MCH11SEP04, RE) grad school, my students were all from down in Dixie or something... It was a bit disconcerting at first, but then I got jaded and everything wall good again.no subject
Date: 2004-09-11 11:04 am (UTC)*sigh* You make sense, though. You're right. Totally right. I'm going to take a step back and ask for the patience of Job.
And, yeah, thanks a lot for the Chem vibes, Megan. *grin*
No, I kid! I kid! I was just tired and frustrated...and idiotically trying to pick up a small-necked flask with a test-tube clamp. I ran another batch of the solution but got impatient in the filtering step, broke the filter paper, and contaminated the whole thing with charcoal. At that point I said "You know what, guys? We're just going to lie about our yield weight, if you don't mind." Totally totally scientific.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-12 09:37 am (UTC)Don't worry about the faking your yield...I was a pro at hiding my mistakes in lab until I got out in the real world. Just put on the same expression as your new classmates when you talk to your TA, and say something along the lines of "I have no idea why the yield is so low". Add in a few buzzwords from lecture to make you sound like you actually read the texts (who does, anyway?), and your TA will eat that right up! With a spoon.
Mmm...or if your'e feeling too honest to make a straight-faced lie up, you can learn the wonders of desperate salvage attempts. I was good at lying, but this is the area where I really shined:
*Let's see...I spilled my mixture with only one step left in purification...I'll just mop it up with these napkins I saved from dinner and squeeze it out back into the flask*
Sorry for the rambling post, but in my current state of intoxication, it's a wonder that I can write at all. (So accept it and like it, hear?!)