Almost Done...

...for a few months anyway. I am in week 12 of my 14 week courses for this semester. I don't think that I can properly express my joy in ending this classes, however I will give it a whirl.

WAHOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Ahem. It is not that I don't enjoy school. I'm a big nerd and I really do enjoy learning and reading and all that nerd stuff. However these two classes have been extra ridiculous. First, let me start with the required course. Intro to Research. First of all, if you are in a graduate program, I'm thinking you probably know a thing or two about research because you had to have graduated from some sort of undergraduate program, right? I did learn a few good tips though. Honestly, instead of Intro to Research it should be called "Pre-cursor to Your Thesis. Start Worrying Now." A lot of the assignments were busy work, and completely unrealted to anything I am doing. They related to more scientific research as opposed to Humanities based research, but, again, still some interesting stuff. My biggest issue is if this is supposed to be a pre-cursor to my thesis, I wish I had had a professor who even knew who Joss Whedon was as he is the topic of my research. However, when I gave her my topic proposal, she had to google him and still was unsure who I was talking about. Really? I mean, I understand I guess, but, Really??  She has not been much help... But again, almost done. Also, I thought for this class I was going to have to write a 20 page mini-thesis, but it turns out I only have to write an 8-10 page thesis proposal. Score!

Now on to the other class... Art 623: Aesthetics. It is basically an art philosophy course. I had such high expectations for this one! Art- LOVE! Philosophy- LOVE! (I repeat, nerd) And overall the course could have been great. We read A LOT of different philosophies on art. A different philosopher every week - from Plato to Tolstoy, we ran through them all. However, when we had our discussions, our professor almost never chimed in, so we could have all been completly wrong and never known it. Great conversations with the class, but who knows if we really learned anything. We all think we did, so that's great I suppose! Even if we aren't really any smarter, we think we are and isn't that really all that counts. We have some great things to throw out at a cocktail party. Who goes to cocktail parties by the way? Not I. Sad face.... But I digress.... (I miss Mr. Fried's English Class. Anyone else?)

Then there is the grading of the papers. Like I mentioned, we are in Week 12. My Reasearch professor has finally finished grading through week 8 (and discussions through week 10. But let's face it, she doesn't really do anything for those except see if we participated, right?). My Art teacher.... only through Week 4!! You read that correct. That means between now and April 29 (the end of the semester) she has to grade 10 weeks of papers for all of us. But it took her 12 weeks to grade the first 4! She did mention she was sick at one point - even in the hospital, however it was an in and out thing. And she went out of town for several days this past week, so she is probably feeling OK now. Honestly, with this class, it didn't matter from one week to the next what the previous grade was. What I did in week 3 had no effect on week 4. It does matter in research as previous week's assignments will come together in the final proposal. My biggest problem with the Art professor is this:

In my MLA template on Word I had forgotten to change the font in the header to Times New Roman. I never really noticed, so every paper I turned in the first SIX weeks of class have the wrong font there. However, as soon as I received back my first paper graded (again, in Week SIX) I saw the note that I had the wrong font, and immediately fixed my MLA Template so all future papers would be correct. Problem is, she keeps grading papers that do not have the change because they were turned in before I received the note! And she keeps giving me attitude about having not changed the font! This week I had enough and finally wrote her back about why the font wasn't changed in all these papers and that when she finally catches up to papers that were received AFTER she graded the first one, she will see the change. I said it nicer, but I didn't want to.

Normally, when we get the end of the semester survey about our class/professor, I breeze through it and don't say anything. Boy howdy, will I have some stuff to say this time! I'm taking the summer off this year. After the past few months I need to decompress. Here's to hoping in September the same issues don't arise! I'll let you know.....

Oregon Duck Fans- Putting the Fool in April Fools

For those who don't follow college football- I live in Corvallis, OR, home of Oregon State University (The Beavers). About 45 minutes to the south is Eugene, OR, home of University of Oregon (The Ducks). They represent one of the oldest rivalries in college football. Honestly, I don't really care about The Beavers, but I will say, a lot of Ducks fans are ridiculous and, frankly, kind of dumb. Not all - I have friends that are Ducks fans, and they are lovely people who are not stupid. HOWEVER, many proved how dumb they were yesterday. Bringing the stupid even harder: the press.

(Side note before I go on: this was the LEAD story on the local news last night. And they played it like it was something serious!!  Oy.)

The Oregon Ducks players have been getting into a lot of legal trouble recently. I won't go into all of that, for many reasons. Their quarterback, who is currently suspended for his legal troubles, Jeremiah Masoli, is the focus of the story. Eugene minor league baseball team, The Emeralds, posted on their site that Masoli was going to pitch for them this season to keep in shape since he can't play for The Ducks this fall. Of course, this was just an April Fool's Day Prank. The Ems were trying to have fun. The press decided to make a big story out of it, decending upon The Ducks training camp yesterday like a pack of wolves with stories of a "source" (I use the term loosely, because I doubt there was even really a source) claiming that Chip Kelly, the coach, was making a lot of early morning phone calls about it, seeing if it was true. Kelly laughed at the press, literally laughed AT them,  and that no, that is not true, saying, "I am not stupid. I can look at a calendar and see what day it is."  Oh Chip! You're so funny! But it was still reported like this was a bad idea of a joke! How dare the Emeralds tease Eugene like that! Boo hoo.

They were probably upset to find out that Google didn't really change their name to Topeka and that Starbucks was not adding two more sizes (the Plenta and the Micro).

I can't believe this is news. At least it wasn't another weather report! We get it. It's raining. Do we need to talk about it for FIFTEEN MINUTES?!?!