Hmm. Some thoughts.

On the first eve of the reading week (the whole nine days stretches out in front of me, just waiting to be filled with work) I have a bit of a contemplative head on, so I'm going to try to express them. I wrote a very depressing blog the night before my physics test, about how it feels to come face to face with maybe (just maybe) not being smart enough to survive at this venerable institution... test anxiety reigned supreme. So I was extremely thankful for that easy test. A 70 something is good. It means a 20% improvement in my test grades from the past ones. So, suffice to say, I feel better.

I'm someone who is always thinking. I've been thinking about what aspects of UT I've found the most difficult to adjust to and what aspects have been good. I think it's been most difficult to adjust to the fact that people see me for face value and grossly underestimate what I'm capable of. I'm a pretty intelligent person, all told. I was skipped two grades in elementary and highschool respectively, and always was enrolled in the enrichment programs. I never wanted that, however. I wanted desperately (especially after the move here from montreal and the first grade skipped) to be cool, popular, etc. so those were the things I always gravitated towards. It led to my dropping out in my last year of highschool and travelling the world, being a political activist, living in trees, drinking my face off, and generally trying mightily to conquer the "cool..."

Which will be a series of blogs when I ever get the time, but I digress. I wanted to talk about UT, and what's been difficult. When I got pregnant, I knew for the first time in my life exactly what I wanted to be, and exactly how I wanted to do it. Suddenly being cool was the least important thing on earth. Unfortunately this wasn't the case with my ex, who still had an obsession with being a certain way... which is why we eventually parted ways. All of a sudden I knew who I was... and started the long and sometimes painful journey of getting back to that person.

But, the ironies never cease.... I now find myself in a position where people don't in fact see me as the brain, but instead as a white trash single mom who has absolutely no business being at UT. UT is a pretty socially conservative place, all told. Many many students here feel that there is only one path to success, and that path consists of having as much privilege and pursuit as humanly possible. I'm not really able to fit into that mould, and likewise I'm no longer able to fit into that "downwardly mobile" politically active mould. I'm not a soccer mom, but neither am I a university student.... And as Deepayan emotes, I feel utterly schizophrenic sometimes.

In a place as big as UT, the stereotype rules... so what do you do if you defy all stereotypes? Win them over, one person at a time. Seem tiring? I think so.

On a second and possibly only partially related note: I need a boyfriend like I need a hole in the head. I have no time, no energy, and no ability to see anyone in my life in that capacity. I share my bed with Anastasia every night, and she wouldn't allow it, let alone my uncomfortable feelings about bringing someone new into my life who places their importance over her. SO WHY DOES EVERY BOY I ENCOUNTER ASSUME THAT I'M TRYING TO ROPE THEM INTO MARRIAGE???? For godsakes, I'm at UT to get an education, not get someone to support me.

That said, I have one hell of a competency crush on my Physics TA. lol

You wouldn't Teach a Calculus Course this way....

so why are they teaching physics without a single worked example in class? I bought a book called “How to Solve Physics Problems” today, and all of a sudden, what I've been struggling with since september becomes utterly clear. Why? Because it's just worked examples. With explanations accompanying them.

It's utter madness imho that they think that teaching physics without worked examples is alright, or kosher, in any way shape or form. It's analogous to giving us lego in the lectures and expecting us to build a rocketship on the tests. People can succeed in this course, but only the people with the resources, time, and energy to go and scrounge up Titanium Carbide. They teach the concepts, but give us no direction whatsoever in terms of the problems we're expected to master. I try to do the problems they assign, but there is very little there in terms of “How to start this problem” or, How to put less than 3 hours of time into banging away at this problem in the hopes that you may at some point understand it.

Physics isn't a hard subject, if it's taught. BUT it's not taught! Unbelievable. It discriminates against the people without the time, resources and energy to work for hours and hours on it (I know I'm in a significant minority in terms of having a kid, but people with jobs are not, and people who commute are not) and it's taught in an arcane way that doesn't take into account the changing demography of university life today. We're given a 10 pound textbook on the assumption that we live in residence, so our home is on campus, and we're told to read, each and every week at least 25 pages out of it, most weeks more. Then we're expected to be able to teach ourselves the quantitative aspects of the course out of it, and only it, since worked examples are non existant in the lecture. Our grading is entirely based on quantitative analyses, rather than any concepts they may present to us in lecture. Our tutorials are mindless busywork that keep us NOT ASKING QUESTIONS for the duration. And the physics help sessions are generally pretty unhelpful.

There are easy ways and difficult ways to go about just about every problem in physics. If they were actually interested in having us successfully learn their subject, rather than having the GPA at a certain point, they would just get along with teaching us the easy way.

Ok. that's my rant. I'm done. It's been a good 15 minute break. Back to physics now. :P

Random thoughts for a Tuesday morning....

I felt like screaming in Con hall yesterday. You know what i felt like screaming? "All of you assholes that want to be doctors and can't even muster up enough compassion to treat each other like human beings, let alone give the Prof the respect she deserves to be listened to!!!"
This is why I take effexor.

I am so thankful for the people without hidden agendas in my life, (you know who you are) and so dubious of the people who do have them. This dude added me to his MSN and got me talking one evening... and ever since then has decided it's his own personal mission to save me. I don't need saving. It's him that needs saving.... from this brainwashed born again morality play that says anyone who doesn't think exactly like him is shit.

There seems to be fewer and fewer moderates that I encounter on a daily basis. Why is extremism rearing its ugly head more often, I'll never know.

Then again, there are very few people who would accuse me of being a moderate.

I wonder if I've majorly screwed myself when it comes to my education by coming here for the program I've chosen. It was (and still is) a risk, as it doesn't lead to anything tangible at the end. At least with an RN I know that I can get a job after four years. This life science distinction doesn't mean a whole lot... so I wonder if this is going to get me nothing but 80 000 dollars of debt at the end. At the end of second year it will be more clear, I think... and if I still suspect as much, it's only a matter of transferring and doing 18 months to become a nurse... nice, safe, nursing. Good place for me -- out of the way, typical, easily quantifiable to my peers, can't kick up a lot of fuss and even if I did, not listened to because I'm "just a nurse." Not that I'd ever be happy being that complacent, but hey....

I wanted for years to do a photo shoot of "squat toilets of europe" ala those "Doors of Ireland" posters that you see in poshy hippies houses....

K, must go struggle with physics for several hours now. This has been a good procrastination exercise, but like all good things, it must come to an end. :)

Why my daughter is one of the strangest kids in the world....

I know everyone has funny little kid stories, but Anastasia has a few things that set her apart. First of all, she eats hair. She can't go to bed without a hair in her mouth. I keep on telling myself she's going to grow out of it, but she's almost 18 months and it's still going strong. I had to get her one of those dollar store hairpieces because I was developing a bald spot from her ripping out hair from my widow's peak. If you were ever wondering why my hair looks the way it does, that's why. Secondly, she pretends to sleep on the bottom stair. I don't know why she thinks this is a good place to sleep, but apparently it is the perfect place for her to pretend to sleep. And I'm not talking about once, or for a couple of minutes. This is a theme. She does it every time she goes past the stairs, for several minutes. She'll have her bottle, and insist that I hang my head over so she can play with my hair. Weird, weird, weird. Third, when she's in the bath, she'll dump ice cold water on herself. Then laugh. She loves to be cold, far more than she likes to be warm. She can't stand blankets and will kick anything I put onto her off. Fourth, and last, she doesn't have tastes like other babies. She loves anything strong tasting. She will drink lemon juice straight, if I let her. She adores Clamato juice and smoked salmon. Pickles are for her. She, and this is no word of a lie, had more of an adverse reaction to her first banana than to her first dill pickle.

I have a weird little daughter. But that's ok... it keeps it interesting. :)

story of my life...

Ok. So I go to this Time Management Seminar for parents, through counselling and learning skills service. Show up a little bit early, no one is there. sit my butt down, pull out my day planner, and start writing stuff down. This is the makeup of the room: there is one young-ish woman sitting with a little boy, spoonfeeding him some lunch. There's a pregnant woman sitting up at the head of the room, and there's an older woman sitting close to her. I figured that the pregnant woman and the woman with the kid were both students, there for the seminar. I think "well, it's a bit of a small group, but that's ok..." Then another woman walks in, and sits down.

So, then the woman who is heavily pregnant speaks up. "Well, I guess we're just about ready to begin. Can we go around and introduce ourselves?" The woman with the kid introduces herself as the woman who is running the time management seminar, and the older woman and the pregnant woman introduce themselves as from the family care office. So I'm still thinking that the last woman that came in is a potential parent... so I say to her: "You go first."

She introduces herself. "Well, I'm a fourth year PhD student, and I don't actually have any children, but I was wondering how people would be able to balance school and children... because I was thinking about having children in the future, and I want to be prepared."

Uh huh. Not only is she probably younger than me, she is infinitely more educated than me and is just doing this to plan ahead. Typical overachieving UT student that can't leave anything up to chance, I guess.

Cut the camera to me. With the snot on my shoulders, and the halo of motherhood that I call my rats' nest of a hairdo, the dark circles under my eyes and my inability to utter a sentence without mentioning my daughter... the most meaningful conversations I have nowadays are about the loggy loggy log and the bear in the big blue house going potty... me, in my "doing the best I can" life, is all of a sudden put on the spot as the only ACTUAL parent needing time management. What is perhaps, a bit ironic, is that I have pretty good time management skills already. It was utterly necessary for me to develop them. So, their time management seminar was useless for the most part, as I just wanted to meet some other parents on campus and succeeded in not meeting a single one. What I did manage to do was depress myself.

What's worse, perhaps is the next person that makes the mistake of talking to me is Ishraq -- he probably thinks I'm shit off nuts, because I just unloaded on him. He was looking at me like "who is this freak, and why is she telling me this?" Which I can't blame him for... lol

The most surprising things about U of T were:

1. The rampant conservativism of the people that go there.
2. The inability of most of the teachers to teach.
3. For a whole lot of really smart people, most act really stupidly when it comes to competitiveness.
4. The amount of work.
5. The mutant squirrels which I'm sure are bred somewhere in the bowels of RW.

*sigh* Somedays it's hard not to lose faith.

Well, at least I can do this well.

I wrote what I thought was a kickass midterm for my seminar course, "Women, Gender and Work". I figured A-, because they can't give out that great grades, and I knew my arguments weren't as fantastic as they could have been. That said, I felt like I nailed it, so much so that I was confident enough to leave a 1/2 hour early.

Got it back today. B. I know that seems like a good mark, but it was very disappointing. I don't understand how you can lose 25% of your mark for three run on sentences and one erroneous abbreviation of the word "position." In the marker's own words: Good essay! Your ideas were very easy to follow and well supported."

Ok yes. niggling shite that I shouldn't worry about, but still makes me mad. The prof himself came up to me and said: "this should be higher." I stared at him blankly and said, "yes, it should be higher." As in: why the hell don't you change it? I don't get upset with marks very often, but this one felt very unfair.

I guess in the quantitative courses I'm taking, I feel like I'm able to accept the fact that, when it comes right down to it, I didn't know the answer. I can see the motivation behind giving hard exams, because it pushes you to study harder and have a greater understanding of the course material. But when you do your best (as I try always to do) and it's not good enough to nail something you feel you have a very fundamental understanding of.... well, it cuts deeper, I suppose.

Ah well. Must run and catch a train now.

Later...

And let this be a lesson to me... Don't forget to take my effexor in January. :) I was really, unambigously upset, moreso than I have been since I've come to UT over that midterm. I was crying on the train on the way home... and I was super thirsty, too... and had a headache, and a dry throat... wait a sec? Did I take my drugs this morning? nope... HA. Gives me some perspective and a reason why I'm crying over a freakin B.... lol