Class Gripes

[hai Jay]

I hate those classes where the instructor wrote the required reading materials.

[Christian]

Yap.. it can turn out to be a sole promotion his/her book.

But on the other hand.. can be good too if that book ain't bad.

I had one of my important pre-diploma exams by a professor that said as I asked him what will be asked that it will be enough if I know the first 100 pages of his book plus an extra chapter.

But well, his book was written kinda good and it had everything I learned/needed to learn in the first semesters on those pages. The good thing is that you have an idea what is important and what not for the professor.

[hai Jay]

One class I had, the teacher had compiled the texts out of various articles, including several she herself wrote. And they were bound in that plastic cheap spiral spine. and the pages had just been photocopied, and tops and bottoms and sides of some paragraphs were missing because it was so poorly done. then to top it off, i couldn't even sell the damn thing back to the school bookstore.

She was Australian and all into aids and gender and sexuality studies. really weird lady.

[Christian]

Oh, yea.. I had those scripts too.. 'Needed' to buy them for a few bucks (mostly less then 5$) I got one where some of the prints was written in .. I think Czech and the whole thing nearly felt apart after a while.

But on the other hand.. I had three classes (math) where the professor said that his writing style is so bad that he is giving out his script for 3$ where EVERYTHING was written exactly like he did it on the board. I think it was kinda cool that he was so honest about himself and gave such a script out. You only needed to write a few side notes into it and draw a few pictures for understanding.

[Mr.Cravatte]

I have a teacher that made like a didactic biochemistry novel. It had a teen story. And those students made a study club. It was ok but the good thing is that if you read the book it seemed that you were listening the teacher's class.

[hai Jay]

that wasn't really the case with my class.

the class i'm taking now is abnormal psych, and it's pretty interesting, but i hate those classes where students don't really know beforehand much about the course, and of course ask tons of stupid questions or have tons of ideas on mental illness that are completely inaccurate. and the jokes about MI annoy me as well.

my teacher is trying to be young and hip and lets people talk and laugh and make all kinds of noise in class and it's annoying. today this fat bitch was sitting behind me and all i heard the entire time was food wrappers. ugh.

[Mr.Cravatte]

that wasn't really the case with my class.

the class i'm taking now is abnormal psych, and it's pretty interesting, but i hate those classes where students don't really know beforehand much about the course, and of course ask tons of stupid questions or have tons of ideas on mental illness that are completely inaccurate. and the jokes about MI annoy me as well.

my teacher is trying to be young and hip and lets people talk and laugh and make all kinds of noise in class and it's annoying. today this fat bitch was sitting behind me and all i heard the entire time was food wrappers. ugh.



jajajjajaj what are you studying?

I know that a lot of people may asks questions that t me are stupid. And it it is ok, they are trying to learn but, I hate when those stupid questions become more usual and they come form the same person. Like if ti seems thay make an effort to make their question stupid.

[hai Jay]

^i know exactly what you mean.
it's abnormal psych, so people are supposed to be taking the topic of mental illness seriously but are making fun of it instead. like ocd. which pissed me off today.

[Yugoloth]

i had a class last quarter where the professor was a nobel laureate, wrote the textbook (horrible, btdubz) and thought we were all morons.

[hai Jay]

oh that must have been awesome for everyone. did your grades reflect his opinions, or was he fair in grading?

[Demento]

I hate the teachers that get super aggressive at the beginning of the first day as if to scare everyone into thinking her/his rules are more important that any others. I have on more then one occasion left a class in the middle of when a teacher is going over the class rules on the first day.

[hai Jay]

^yea, last semester my microsoft excel teacher was a total bitch. but i guess she had to be, with 9 HUGE classes back to back during the week taking that SAME course.

[foxyphoenix]

I had one book written by a professor, and it was actually quite awesome. http://www.amazon.com/American-West-Risk-Politics-Recovery/dp/0195142055

The president of my college wrote my Gen Chem book, though, and it was shit.

[hai Jay]

i just friggin' started this class for uh my psychology degree that's MANDATORY. it's only 4 weeks long because it's summer 2. there's also a class before hand which is the lab, and we have to fucking SHARE old ass dell desktops to do our data input crap.

ok. today me and my partner were putting in information on a data/variables ssps or something application. uh. the thing wouldn't transpose. that button wouldn't click. we also couldn't save it anywhere.
so my teacher's suggestion to this? e-mail it to yourselves.
then i was like - well we can't e-mail it to ourselves if it isn't a file...which it isn't because we can't save it for whatever reason.

so she's like "you do it tomorrow". because we got nothing accomplished but putting like 15 things into a computer and then let us go early, with at least 30 minutes left in the 1 hr. 45 min. class.

(eat this pinecone.)

so, then she's like telling us just to save another group's information - which isn't identical to the spreadsheet we did.
then she's like "no. tomorrow."
ok. she obviously doesn't understand southern dialect with the english language. and we don't understand her not-russian-but-i-can't-think-of-another-one-that-might-sound-similar-accent. please help with that.

*Do your little turn on the catwalk.*

Her name is Yulia. Like how someone with her accent would say "Julia". But it's just the way they spell it. So...that's an example of how she talks. Any ideas?

Ok, so after we leave that class half an hour early, not even knowing to begin with the whole fucking time we were in there...we've got like 2 hours to kill before that boring ass fucking class where we have to write all these fucking analyses for our "instructor"; which she would used extremely loosely - is a fucking grad student. really? I had to take fucking statistics in order to take this class. And I worked my ass off, being told how important this was, because this is how you read manuals and all that and learn to be all skeptical about everything and notice mistakes blah blah blah.
The "question everything" part is cool...but I really don't want a grad student that's like a teeny tiny 20-something teeney-bopper sundress and cut little shoes that just need a nice sunhat with boys to finish it out.
she looks like she's in fucking high school. i mean seriously. her wardrobe consists of the summer clothes for teens at Old Navy. Or OshKosh.

So, we come in to her playing like Hannah Montana or something, before class gets started. Then we have to listen to her Ohio-an-ish-idk accent and see her shuffling back and forth and leaning side to side like a little girl with her hands behind her back.
No. I should have a real teacher.
I mean for fuck's sake the syllabus was 3 pages long single spaced, and we've been going two days straight about the scientific message which - what? Which we learned in 4th grade when we started doing science projects.
I fell asleep today. Around 45 minutes in, I started dozing off and I'm like screw it, I'm going to prop up on my wrist or hand or whatever.
Then I just fucking conk out until I hear people getting up and I immediately think "oh shit, how long have I been asleep?" because I'm always paranoid of doing something in my sleep like snoring, or jump up like when you feel like you're falling, and wake up and have everyone stare at me.
lol Last semester there was this guy outside the computer lab which was fucking long and boring and 2 hours about Microsoft Excel. Weeeeee.
And there was this guy outside the computer lab that was laid out on one of those long ass wooden benches like the guys in Ag. would do every year by the graduating class in the wood shop. Then all the varsity football and basketball and all that would sign it.
And man, there were some pretty wobbly benches. But it's a fucking bench. How can that be hard?
So anyways, this guy outside the computer lab was laying down with one of those. Haha and he's this tall, pudgy guy with big ugly ass framed glasses and acne and a long, gross hair do that's parted down the middle and it's greasy. and he's got some old "polo" shirt with holes in it around the button part by the neck. And then he's got some pants that don't match - with the pleats in the front...usually faded black or navy blue...then those Hardee's no-slip shoes. And he's got his hands in front of them clutching a trapper keeper.
And he starts snoring REALLY loud. And at the time it's only me and this one other chick out there with him, and we were trying SO HARD not to bust out fucking laughing because it was deathly silent.

Then other people started showing up and laughing at him. Then he like jumped in his sleep and more people noticed. hahahaha. Then he jumped in sleep again and made like this snorting sound and woke up himself up. hahah fucking haha I'm having an asthma attack.

So what was I talking about?

Oh yea, so I realize we're taking a break, once I hear feet shuffling and desks sliding and squeaking on the floor because it's those hard ass desks like we had in school. Fuck my ass was numb.
So I had smoked a big, fat ass bowl before class, then scrambled through the medicine drawer and found what I believe was a 1/4 of a Xanax - or like .5 mg. And I took that. And then I passed out in my class because I was stoned. So I left during the break and went home and passed out for like 3 hours.

Those classes are fucking boring. I don't even have my book yet, 'cuz even the used ones are like +$100. That is A LOT of money. And she's the kind that does like 50% lecture and like 50% on your own reading, where questions come strictly from the text.

And we've got to write papers in there. And I have until like Aug 7th. Fuuuuuuck me.

[EmperorChaos]

German. She's German. I guarantee it.

Jule Marie Nickel. I will never forget her. She had trouble understanding people with Southern accents too and she was from Berlin. Case in point, I got to talk to her a lot because I know how to fucking enunciate my words (though I've occasionally slipped into a Southern or even slightly Gullah dialect.)

Anyway, you mentioned like so much different shit in that post I don't really know what you're talking about ... was it your perhaps-German teacher or some guy with acne snoring while your ass is numb?

I was gonna TL;DR but then I read it.

[hai Jay]

she's pale and has dark hair and maybe but i'm not sure but maybe blue eyes. and no makeup and she has big frizzy hair she keeps hanging loosely off her head with an ink pen.

[GoddessDivine]

what is the scientific message? You said you learned it in 4th grade, but I do not remember something called a scientific message...

Also I think teachers should dress appropriately. Sundresses (talking the kind with tiny straps) not what I would consider professional.

[EmperorChaos]

what is the scientific message? You said you learned it in 4th grade, but I do not remember something called a scientific message...

She meant "scientific method". I just looked all over for a word that means "to use another word that sounds or is spelled similarly to the word you intended to use" but can't find one. I see this more often in typed text than I hear it in audible speech. Perhaps a word doesn't exist? Sliponym, I shall call it.

Ever used "I thing" when you meant to type "I think"? This is very common. Just search for "I thing" in Google.

Funk often uses one word (also common) when he means another all the time. I can't remember the word now though. They are, of course, very similar.

-=-=-

But seriously, I can't find a word for this anywhere. Sliponym it is then.

[Narnar]

I think the term you're looking for is mondegreen, for mishearing things that aren't quite the same but close. (It's typically used with song lyrics, but if they mishear it they'll continue to misuse it.) Might be classified as some type of homophone though..

[EmperorChaos]

That's not exactly what I'm talking about since the phenomenon I'm writing of manifests itself only in the written word. But still you've taught me a word I've never known before. Thank you, Smartnar.

[hai Jay]

what is the scientific message? You said you learned it in 4th grade, but I do not remember something called a scientific message...

Also I think teachers should dress appropriately. Sundresses (talking the kind with tiny straps) not what I would consider professional.
dude i was so fucked up.
ya know how i said i type things how they sound or like other words that sound like them?

I don't know how I get message out of method but anywho...

That's not exactly what I'm talking about since the phenomenon I'm writing of manifests itself only in the written word. But still you've taught me a word I've never known before. Thank you, Smartnar.

smartnar jason? really?

and narnar, that's interesting, but just not it. i do the "I think" thing too.

i think it's time to text KGB.

really, what happens if they can't answer a question?

[Narnar]

Hmm... well it's difficult to find anything solely for written junk. I'd still be willing to bet it's got 'phone' in it somewhere. Then again, maybe the English department isn't the place to find the word, could be a psychological blip.


If KGB can't answer a question they obviously find a way to destroy your phone so they don't look bad.

[hai Jay]

If KGB can't answer a question they obviously find a way to destroy your phone so they don't look bad.
lol that's fucking funny.

today i said my teacher "deleted" something when she erased it off the blackboard.

srsly - if we're still using chalkboards and have grad students as instructors ...uh why the fuck is my tuition so high? hrm? riddle me this. lol

[GoddessDivine]

chalkboards...really?

lol when you said scientific message i was like shit, did I forget something everyone should know cause obviously people were learning about it when they were young. Damn SC education system.

Also my Bio class keeps going over the scientific method too. I think we got it by now, how many times am I going to hear it. Like elementary school, middle and high school was not enough. I mean, it was mandatory to do a science fair project every year at my school, I don't know if it is in other states, but i thought that was pretty lame. I remember one girl in 5th grade did a project about what condoms were best and would not bust under pressure. Our teacher was like wtf and asked where she got the idea and research...she said her mother helped her...

[hai Jay]

^lol.

some classes in school made it mandatory that you do a science project, some offered extra credit points for it, etc.

we spent all of today, and will spend all of tomorrow, going over "Ethics" during research. she spent an hour going over the 1st 7 slides on our powerpoint handouts. :| and there were almost 4 pages of slides. anyways, not the problem. the problem is that she basically repeats everything in lecture and says it all like three times and so we're like yea yea yea the scientific method yea yea.
it's cool though that she lets us do little group activities to wake us back up cuz we can laugh and talk and it's like participation grade.

and that fucking pollock or whatever it is (lol jk for real) teacher in my 1st class with the computers...ok today our computer was still fucked up and she couldn't understand when we tried to tell her "ok, they didn't install it, even if they said they did". so we didn't get to use the computers, they split us up with other partners, and we didn't know what was going on.

then the instructor gave us two assignments for like a 2-tail and a t thingy for statistics. i mean i can read it and look at it on a graph and interpret it and all that, i just can't remember the name of that.

so anyways, we have to compare the different data, one two-tail and one the single variable. then we had to take the info the computer had computed - lol - and interpret it and analyze the results and come to our on conclusion about whether it was significant and all that.

i mean easy stuff, pretty much - to analyze the results.
but my god - last year in statistics, actually writing OUT all that crap - the math. jesus christ. and i took it at a diff school, so all we did was on paper.
oh, if i'd have taken it last semester at UA, we'd hve already been using that spss crap.

it's like HELLLO GET WITH THE TIMES.

[EmperorChaos]

"Phone" would mean "sound" so I doubt it'd have a "phone" in it. I'm sticking with "nym". Sliponym works for me until I find something better.

And yes, jasmine, Smartnar. Narnar is a very intelligent girl for being as gorgeous as she is.

[EmperorChaos]

Oh, and I just asked a real live KGB employee what happens if they can't answer the question.. and the simple answer was that there is no charge.

[hai Jay]

but still you insist i not do it, even though the first is supposed to be free.

what did you say my teacher was?

to me, among other things, she's extremely scatter-brained and oblivious. and i find myself making fun of her. shame on me.

anyways, our class was less than 30 minutes today, and it's supposed to last over and hour. *frustrated*

these were the last computer assignments, now we have to do all this writing shit, not knowing wtf we are doing. argh.

[Narnar]

"Phone" would mean "sound" so I doubt it'd have a "phone" in it. I'm sticking with "nym". Sliponym works for me until I find something better.


Thing Think

It's being replaced with something that sounds nearly the same. It's pretty close to a pseudo-homophone. If only I didn't cut ties with my English major "friends" for being idiots :dsppnted:


Chalk makes me cringe.. We have dry erase boards that get screwed up when the janitor decides to wax them and make them shiny. My calculus teacher hated the boards, "Dammit! They came in here and waxed the boards again, now there's the ghosts of a thousand math problems left on the board."

[EmperorChaos]

what did you say my teacher was?


I said she was Lithuanian... without really knowing. I just want someone to be Lithuanian.

Thing Think

It's being replaced with something that sounds nearly the same. It's pretty close to a pseudo-homophone. If only I didn't cut ties with my English major "friends" for being idiots :dsppnted:

I find most English majors to be idiots... uhm, that's why they are majoring in English in the first place.

Anyway, I understand the similarities between "thing" and "think" and the likelihood that they'd be mistakenly interchanged... however, I still don't think a proper word exists to explain the typically online phenomena... just as I don't think there is a proper word for something you find humorous that you've read but don't laugh at (another typically online situation).

[Narnar]

The ones I encounter are a special kind of stupid. :( They're very upsetting.

As for coming up with a proper word for the thing, I'm not smart enough in the prefix department to know of one for "similar" cause technically homophone is exact and that won't work. It could all be a psych-blip still, one of those dys-conditions except that it doesn't actually manifest into anything to show concern about.

I don't laugh at a good amount of things I find humorous. For instance movies, I can watch them and think parts are funny but don't laugh, it's not the case all the time.. just occasionally. I'd be a horrible 'member of the studio audience!' LOL :| (Same goes for things online, it's strange.)

[hai Jay]

^yea, the whole it's funny but not funny enough to laugh at thing...there's already a word for that. that word is called AMUSING.

i do that with stand up comedy.

[Zanahoria_Picante]

I find most English majors to be idiots... uhm, that's why they are majoring in English in the first place. What the crap?

This "criticism" coming from someone with no formal college education? What a pretentious, untrue thing to say.

[cstoll]

"Eggcorn" seems to come close to what you're describing. I did a Google search for "similar word errors" and then Google suggested (in its magical way) "confused word errors," which then led me to a blog that collects "eggcorns."

Yeah, I'd never heard of them either.

"Eggcorn" comes from a case of someone using "egg corn" instead of "acorn."

Here's a wiki link for eggcorns:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn

In linguistics, an eggcorn is an idiosyncratic substitution of a word or phrase for a word or words that sound similar or identical in the speaker's dialect. The new phrase introduces a meaning that is different from the original, but plausible in the same context ("old-timers' disease" for "Alzheimer's disease")

Eggcorns often involve replacing an unfamiliar, archaic, or obscure word with a more common or modern word ("baited breath" for "bated breath").

"for all intensive purposes" instead of "for all intents and purposes"
"tow the line" instead of "toe the line"
"like a bowl in a china shop" instead of "like a bull in a china shop"

or "curve your enthusiasm" instead of "curb your enthusiasm"
or "mute point" instead of "moot point"
or "far-gone conclusion" instead of "foregone conclusion"

That seems to fit the "scientific message" vs. "scientific method."
There's a similar sound, and "scientific message" makes its own kind of sense.

I don't think "I thing" vs. "I think" would count, though, because it doesn't make sense. That's just a typo, a mistake.

[Narnar]

I like it!

I motion that we call all the consistent typos pseudo-eggcorns though.

[Jenn and tonic]

What the crap?

This "criticism" coming from someone with no formal college education? What a pretentious, untrue thing to say.


Agreed.

It's quite easy to make generalizations out of ignorance; don't hold it against him.

[EmperorChaos]

What the crap?

This "criticism" coming from someone with no formal college education? What a pretentious, untrue thing to say.

Woah, settle down! Remember, when I was going to school I was an English major. Also, a history major. Also, a computer science major. I've had about five years of schooling beyond high school but never finished a course of study. I kept changing my mind about what I wanted to major in.

That being said, I still met an awful lot of idiots majoring in English: people who seemed barely capable of reading let alone adequately analyzing literature. The number of times I heard "I don't understand" or "I'm not following you" became annoying. My professors understood me so it must have been the simpletons that were around me.

What got you so upset about my comments anyway? It's not as if I said *all* English majors are idiots nor did I even single anyone out. I said that "I find most English majors to be idiots" and while that does sound pretentious I find most people to be idiots. Also, I never said I wasn't pretentious. In fact, I believe it is well-known that I am quite presumptuous and, dare I say, pedantic?

(Jenn is an example of an English major who is not an idiot.)

"Eggcorn" seems to come close to what you're describing. I did a Google search for "similar word errors" and then Google suggested (in its magical way) "confused word errors," which then led me to a blog that collects "eggcorns."

I was familiar with eggcorns, actually, having first come across them while researching the praying/preying mantis. I don't know why I didn't think of them before. I still don't feel that eggcorns represent the phenomena adequately. However, I've been searching for a word that doesn't exist for some time now and have often tried to create my own words... that go nowhere.

For example, I decreed that "jurgle" shall be the term for "laughing inside one's head" but my friends thought it was stupid. Of course, I didn't use any Greek/Latin root or anything to come up with it.... I just like the sound of the word. Jurgle.

I did once create a new word for someone who is an atheist using Indo-European roots for "without/no" and "divine/spirit" but hell if I can remember the word now. That too, went nowhere but it is certainly better than the term "brights" which has been used to define atheists. I think Brights just sounds too pretentious.

[Zanahoria_Picante]

Woah, settle down! Remember, when I was going to school I was an English major. Also, a history major. Also, a computer science major. I've had about five years of schooling beyond high school but never finished a course of study. I kept changing my mind about what I wanted to major in.

That being said, I still met an awful lot of idiots majoring in English: people who seemed barely capable of reading let alone adequately analyzing literature. The number of times I heard "I don't understand" or "I'm not following you" became annoying. My professors understood me so it must have been the simpletons that were around me.

What got you so upset about my comments anyway? It's not as if I said *all* English majors are idiots nor did I even single anyone out. I said that "I find most English majors to be idiots" and while that does sound pretentious I find most people to be idiots. Also, I never said I wasn't pretentious. In fact, I believe it is well-known that I am quite presumptuous and, dare I say, pedantic?

(Jenn is an example of an English major who is not an idiot.) I...well. Okay.

Sorry. *Sigh* I've been a bit "moody," lately, to say the least. And weirdly confrontational (in pretty much every context). Sorry to have insulted your experience.

But that did just strike me as a terrible thing to say, especially since I, too, love English. In fact, I think that's partly why it upset me so much (and, yes, partly your brazen and near' incessant condescension towards most everyone who, unlike you, lacks omniscience--but even you have come to accept that, it seems :cheeky::biggrin:).

I was familiar with eggcorns, actually, having first come across them while researching the praying/preying mantis. I don't know why I didn't think of them before. I still don't feel that eggcorns represent the phenomena adequately. However, I've been searching for a word that doesn't exist for some time now and have often tried to create my own words... that go nowhere.

For example, I decreed that "jurgle" shall be the term for "laughing inside one's head" but my friends thought it was stupid. Of course, I didn't use any Greek/Latin root or anything to come up with it.... I just like the sound of the word. Jurgle.

I did once create a new word for someone who is an atheist using Indo-European roots for "without/no" and "divine/spirit" but hell if I can remember the word now. That too, went nowhere but it is certainly better than the term "brights" which has been used to define atheists. Maybe Malapropism could be a synonym for "eggcorn" (or could describe the type of error you guys have been discussing) though it is far less jaunty and catchy (unless you favor the "British" sound [and, for me, connotations] of malapropism, which is an aspect of that word I like). :tongue:

Edit: Crap. It appears that I can't read. The first sentence of the wikipedia article shows the two words are not synonymous; I guess it depends on how other people perceive (or want to describe) the error? :puzzled:

I think Brights just sounds too pretentious. o_O

[hai Jay]

jason, i was right. my instructor is russian. you FAIL.

i was nearly 15 min. late for class. she vaguely went over the beginning of our freaking semester-long class project, then sent us on our merry way like less than 45 min. into the class.

needless to say, i came in lost and confused, but we all left that way.

[EmperorChaos]

I said she was Russian or German and you didn't think she was so I settled on Lithuanian as a compromise. I'm still saying she Lithuanian.

[hai Jay]

shut up. i searched her name on google then her name came up on the UA website as a Russian professor - as WELL stating she also taught russian.

idk why i thought it was different.
she talks so freakin' fast and she'll mumble and still doesn't know much about american culture or the whatever it's called...so like doing observations about people to write our observations and do our experiment or whatever it's called, she doesn't know a lot of things that should be obvious.
anyways anyways anyways. i say that way to freakin' much. so do my mother and sister. ugh.