* Friday of Advising Week (aka Hell Week):
Student is standing in the hall, staring at the advising sign-up calendar. I am heading out to the same calendar to find out how many more students will be stopping by my office with no idea what they will be taking next semester.
ME: Can I help you with something?
STU: Ummm. ... I thought I signed up for Friday, but my name isn't here.
ME: Are you Awesome Clueless Student?
STU: Yes.
ME: You signed up for last Friday.
STU: Oh.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Field Trip
Last Sunday was the required field trip for my sed/strat course. We met at 7:50 AM (!!) and got back to High Plains City at about 6 PM.
That's a long day.
There are maybe 30 students in my sed/strat (including yours truly), so we all packed into 5 or 6 big Suburbans, with the prof and TAs driving. My vehicle included one of the TAs as the driver, one of the 5 females in the class, and three male undergrads -- I'd say they were all around the 19-year old range. We drove for about an hour and a half, during which time I was KICKING myself for not bringing work to do. I seriously spent the whole time alternating between playing solitaire on my Crackberry and glaring at the kid sitting next to me, who was snoring out lasat night's booze. Seriously, the car was full of fumes. It was probably dangerous.
When we finally got to the first site, we all piled out of the cars, stretched, and gathered around the prof. She (and I have to say, I love her -- I think she's doing a great job) gave us a short lecture and some directions, which involved having us work in pairs to draw a strat column for a huge outcrop right off the road. Luckily, there wasn't much traffic. Unluckily, no one wanted to work with me.
So, I did a strat column on my lonesome. Which was awesome. It took me a few minutes to realize that I could just walk down the road and get up close to each unit on the outcrop, since it was slanting down into the road at about a 35 degree angle. Once I figured that out, the rest was simple.
But seriously, people. No one at all wanted to work with me? What? Because I'm old? Female? A professor? This mode continued all day.
And in the car on the way home, I did some writing in my writer's notebook (thank the universe, I had that with me!) about how I'm so not used to being taken for granted. Even if my students are pretending to listen to me, at least they're pretending! My colleagues, my students, my husband -- they all seem to value me. So... I'm not really bothered (much) that I don't get the same response from 19-year olds recovering from a drunken binge night.
Besides, on that first test?
97/100.
That's a long day.
There are maybe 30 students in my sed/strat (including yours truly), so we all packed into 5 or 6 big Suburbans, with the prof and TAs driving. My vehicle included one of the TAs as the driver, one of the 5 females in the class, and three male undergrads -- I'd say they were all around the 19-year old range. We drove for about an hour and a half, during which time I was KICKING myself for not bringing work to do. I seriously spent the whole time alternating between playing solitaire on my Crackberry and glaring at the kid sitting next to me, who was snoring out lasat night's booze. Seriously, the car was full of fumes. It was probably dangerous.
When we finally got to the first site, we all piled out of the cars, stretched, and gathered around the prof. She (and I have to say, I love her -- I think she's doing a great job) gave us a short lecture and some directions, which involved having us work in pairs to draw a strat column for a huge outcrop right off the road. Luckily, there wasn't much traffic. Unluckily, no one wanted to work with me.
So, I did a strat column on my lonesome. Which was awesome. It took me a few minutes to realize that I could just walk down the road and get up close to each unit on the outcrop, since it was slanting down into the road at about a 35 degree angle. Once I figured that out, the rest was simple.
But seriously, people. No one at all wanted to work with me? What? Because I'm old? Female? A professor? This mode continued all day.
And in the car on the way home, I did some writing in my writer's notebook (thank the universe, I had that with me!) about how I'm so not used to being taken for granted. Even if my students are pretending to listen to me, at least they're pretending! My colleagues, my students, my husband -- they all seem to value me. So... I'm not really bothered (much) that I don't get the same response from 19-year olds recovering from a drunken binge night.
Besides, on that first test?
97/100.
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