Marks are back. I got 94% for The Most Annoying Subject I Have Ever Taken, so I guess I did okay on the Short Story... sorry, I mean "case study".
I wonder if I'll do as well on a case study where I don't make the entire thing up.
I'm actually a bit concerned about the maths involved because, unless they don't count half-marks, even if I didn't lose a single mark on the "case study" I should have only gotten 93.5. And, let's face it, I really should have lost marks for the short story... er, "case study". Even if they didn't notice it was completely fabricated and contained unnecessary details, it was too long and didn't have an introduction or conclusion (mind you, they didn't ask for those).
Score 1 for Autonomous Learning, though. I decided I was going to find what they wanted me to learn and learn it regardless of any lack of guidance. It might just have worked.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
They call it "football"
I saw the last 15 minutes of a rugby league game the other night. Well, if you live in one of two states in Australia it was the rugby league game: The State of Origin.
Every year, the regular "football" season is interrupted by this meta-game that involves people from teams all over the country (*ahem*) coming together to play in a state team based on where they were "born" (or, at least, where they can pretend they spent some formative years).
By "all over the country" I mean the third of it that actually cares about or watches League. Most other places think of a different code when they say "football".
I have no idea why we call rugby league "football" in this country. They very rarely touch the ball with their feet. Mostly, it seems to be a giant wrestling match with a ball involved.
Here's my description of the rules of the game, based on limited periods of observation:
Someone kicks the ball, then someone catches it. That person then becomes "it" (like in tag). He attempts to run forward, but usually only makes it a couple of paces before several members of the opposite team drag him to the ground and sit on his head. There is a moment where he apparently tries to free himself, then he just gives up and passes the ball to someone else on his team. That person then becomes "it" and attempts to run forward a few paces before someone sits on his head.
At some point in time, after quite a bit of head-sitting, the person who is "it" manages to take the ball over a line, where he attempts to put it down. The members of the other team try to stop him from doing this - largely by dragging him back over the line and sitting on his head.
If he manages to put the ball down on the other side of the line, he's allowed to kick it at the goal. I think he can give away his turn at kicking to one of his other team members, but I'm not sure. Then the process starts again.
If anything goes wrong, and they aren't sure who should be "it", the teams form two horizontal human pyramids and try to push each other away from the ball. Somehow, as a result of all this pushing, the ball gets to someone hanging out the back of the pyramids, and he then throws it to someone who becomes "it". Then the head-sitting starts again.
As I said, I'm not sure why people call this "footy". I expect it's ironic.
I'm also curious to know why rugby league is considered manly while dancing is considered a threat to one's masculinity. There is much less full body contact between grown men in dancing - and fewer occasions where a man can expect to find another man's groin in his face.
But, there you go.
Every year, the regular "football" season is interrupted by this meta-game that involves people from teams all over the country (*ahem*) coming together to play in a state team based on where they were "born" (or, at least, where they can pretend they spent some formative years).
By "all over the country" I mean the third of it that actually cares about or watches League. Most other places think of a different code when they say "football".
I have no idea why we call rugby league "football" in this country. They very rarely touch the ball with their feet. Mostly, it seems to be a giant wrestling match with a ball involved.
Here's my description of the rules of the game, based on limited periods of observation:
Someone kicks the ball, then someone catches it. That person then becomes "it" (like in tag). He attempts to run forward, but usually only makes it a couple of paces before several members of the opposite team drag him to the ground and sit on his head. There is a moment where he apparently tries to free himself, then he just gives up and passes the ball to someone else on his team. That person then becomes "it" and attempts to run forward a few paces before someone sits on his head.
At some point in time, after quite a bit of head-sitting, the person who is "it" manages to take the ball over a line, where he attempts to put it down. The members of the other team try to stop him from doing this - largely by dragging him back over the line and sitting on his head.
If he manages to put the ball down on the other side of the line, he's allowed to kick it at the goal. I think he can give away his turn at kicking to one of his other team members, but I'm not sure. Then the process starts again.
If anything goes wrong, and they aren't sure who should be "it", the teams form two horizontal human pyramids and try to push each other away from the ball. Somehow, as a result of all this pushing, the ball gets to someone hanging out the back of the pyramids, and he then throws it to someone who becomes "it". Then the head-sitting starts again.
As I said, I'm not sure why people call this "footy". I expect it's ironic.
I'm also curious to know why rugby league is considered manly while dancing is considered a threat to one's masculinity. There is much less full body contact between grown men in dancing - and fewer occasions where a man can expect to find another man's groin in his face.
But, there you go.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
And now I will never know
I've come to the conclusion that I only ask questions of a certain unit coordinator if I never want to receive a clear answer or a useful reply of any description.
I base this on the fact that I have never yet asked her a question in which she didn't take great pains to fully explain something that did not, in fact, answer my question at all.
I don't know why this is. I sometimes suspect she isn't actually reading my question, but only scanning it for keywords - or that she is, in fact, willfully misunderstanding me.
It's either that, or she is on such a completely different wavelength to me that she cannot understand why I would want an answer the the question I have asked, and therefore tries to answer a different question instead.
It's the kind of situation where, if I asked, "do I need a carrot for this salad?" she would respond: "salads are known to have both fruits and vegetables in them."
Now, this could be a subtle way to say "I can't advise you on this, because deciding whether or not to include a carrot is part of the activity", but surely you don't need to say that subtly - you can come right out and say "you must chose for yourself if carrots are needed," can't you?
Or, even better, you could say "carrots are advisable" or "carrots are inadvisable" or "carrots make no difference one way or another".
Any of these things would be better than not talking about carrots at all.
Yet, that is how she answers the vast majority of questions: by not answering them at all.
I have this wonderful communicator again this semester (part two of The Most Frustrating Subject I Have Ever Undertaken) and I have been trying to ask her questions about the practicum for months, now. We were finally given access to the prac booklet and told to decide where we wanted to go within a week ("I must not fly all the way to Armidale just to shake a lecturer. I must not fly all the way to Armidale just to shake a lecturer...")
"Oh joy and bliss!" I think to myself, "There's an actual practicums experience office! I can ask practical practicum related questions of people who aren't frustratingly vague!"
So I fire them an email asking a couple of basic questions... and they write back saying my email has been forwarded to the unit coordinator.
A couple of hours later the unit coordinator sends out a generic email to everyone that doesn't really answer either of my questions. Is this because she simply hasn't gotten around to answering me yet, or is this the best I'm ever going to get from her?
Will I ever know?
I base this on the fact that I have never yet asked her a question in which she didn't take great pains to fully explain something that did not, in fact, answer my question at all.
I don't know why this is. I sometimes suspect she isn't actually reading my question, but only scanning it for keywords - or that she is, in fact, willfully misunderstanding me.
It's either that, or she is on such a completely different wavelength to me that she cannot understand why I would want an answer the the question I have asked, and therefore tries to answer a different question instead.
It's the kind of situation where, if I asked, "do I need a carrot for this salad?" she would respond: "salads are known to have both fruits and vegetables in them."
Now, this could be a subtle way to say "I can't advise you on this, because deciding whether or not to include a carrot is part of the activity", but surely you don't need to say that subtly - you can come right out and say "you must chose for yourself if carrots are needed," can't you?
Or, even better, you could say "carrots are advisable" or "carrots are inadvisable" or "carrots make no difference one way or another".
Any of these things would be better than not talking about carrots at all.
Yet, that is how she answers the vast majority of questions: by not answering them at all.
I have this wonderful communicator again this semester (part two of The Most Frustrating Subject I Have Ever Undertaken) and I have been trying to ask her questions about the practicum for months, now. We were finally given access to the prac booklet and told to decide where we wanted to go within a week ("I must not fly all the way to Armidale just to shake a lecturer. I must not fly all the way to Armidale just to shake a lecturer...")
"Oh joy and bliss!" I think to myself, "There's an actual practicums experience office! I can ask practical practicum related questions of people who aren't frustratingly vague!"
So I fire them an email asking a couple of basic questions... and they write back saying my email has been forwarded to the unit coordinator.
A couple of hours later the unit coordinator sends out a generic email to everyone that doesn't really answer either of my questions. Is this because she simply hasn't gotten around to answering me yet, or is this the best I'm ever going to get from her?
Will I ever know?
Headspace
I keep thinking of blog posts I could write when I'm no where near a computer. Then, when I'm finally sitting in front of one, with only a few minutes to bang something out...
Nothin'.
It's the same with emails I think of writing when I'm in the car or the shower, or things I think of saying to people when I'm not likely to see them for the next three days.
It's like my brain only works when I can't possibly put it to any use.
So, if you're wondering why I haven't been writing much these days - it's because I can't quite get my headspace and my physical space in the same space at the moment.
Nothin'.
It's the same with emails I think of writing when I'm in the car or the shower, or things I think of saying to people when I'm not likely to see them for the next three days.
It's like my brain only works when I can't possibly put it to any use.
So, if you're wondering why I haven't been writing much these days - it's because I can't quite get my headspace and my physical space in the same space at the moment.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Word of the day: propaedeutic
And the word of the day is:
Propaedeutic
"Propaedeutic" is an adverb meaning "serving or needed as preparation for learning or further study"1 or "relating to or of the nature of preliminary instruction"2. Or a noun for something that one could describe using those adjectives.
In other words, something propaedeutic is something you learn before you learn something else.
So, the claim that learning an auxiliary language like Esperanto or Interlingua makes it easier to learn a subsequent language is stating that auxiliary languages have propaedeutic qualities.
See if you can use it in a sentence and make it sound normal!
It's pronounced pro(as in 'professional') pae(as in 'paediatric') deu(as in 'deuce') tic(as in 'tick').
1. propaedeutic. (2007). In The Penguin English Dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.credoreference.com.elibrary.jcu.edu.au/entry/penguineng/propaedeutic
2. propaedeutic. (2005). In The Macquarie Dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.credoreference.com.elibrary.jcu.edu.au/entry/macqdict/propaedeutic
Propaedeutic
"Propaedeutic" is an adverb meaning "serving or needed as preparation for learning or further study"1 or "relating to or of the nature of preliminary instruction"2. Or a noun for something that one could describe using those adjectives.
In other words, something propaedeutic is something you learn before you learn something else.
So, the claim that learning an auxiliary language like Esperanto or Interlingua makes it easier to learn a subsequent language is stating that auxiliary languages have propaedeutic qualities.
See if you can use it in a sentence and make it sound normal!
It's pronounced pro(as in 'professional') pae(as in 'paediatric') deu(as in 'deuce') tic(as in 'tick').
1. propaedeutic. (2007). In The Penguin English Dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.credoreference.com.elibrary.jcu.edu.au/entry/penguineng/propaedeutic
2. propaedeutic. (2005). In The Macquarie Dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.credoreference.com.elibrary.jcu.edu.au/entry/macqdict/propaedeutic
Friday, June 14, 2013
Doing it wrong: Food.
I usually avoid paying any attention to the news on television. I often feel I'm better off being completely uninformed than being largely misinformed, and I know too much about how network television works to be able to take anything they say seriously.
But, I live in a house where the television is on at news time, and sometimes I hear things even if I'm not listening.
Some days ago someone on the news was talking about something (a budget? A rate change?) that was going to make life harder for the people "doing it tough". Someone said something about people having to chose between paying the bills or putting food on the table. Someone else in the same story talked about people having to skip meals because they couldn't afford it...
This is incredibly callous of me, I know, but I couldn't help thinking "Well, they're clearly doing it wrong."
Yes, I know poverty is poverty, and it can be a real struggle to eat well... but we live in Australia, people - as long as you aren't actually homeless, you should be able to eat something. You can buy a kilo of rice for less than $3 and a kilo of mixed vegetables for less than $2. Curry powder, water and a tablespoon of flour makes it taste like something edible and you could feed four people with that. It's not great, but it's food - and that wasn't even the best example.
As hundreds of generations of Asian peasant farmers will tell you, if you have rice, you have a meal. I come from Northern European peasant farmer stock, and hundreds of generations of those will tell you that if you have a cabbage and a loaf of bread, you have a meal.
If you buy staples (especially if you buy them in bulk) when you have a bit of money, and you budget your food like you [should] budget your money, then you really shouldn't have to go a day without eating something.
Now, I say that as someone who has never had to raise six kids on a single income at minimum wage in rented accommodation, so I'm willing to admit that I could be very, very wrong.
And I'm also willing to admit that I'm prejudiced in this matter. I abhor the kinds of people who spend their money on beer and cigarettes and giant TV sets and then complain about not having enough money for food.
There are people out there who are genuinely doing their best and still not making ends meet, and I wish the Giant-TV-Buying jerks weren't encouraging me to assume that everyone who can't afford food is going without basic necessities because they are morons.
However, I still have difficulty wrapping my head around the idea that people who are budgeting well can't afford a packet of rice.
Apart from making me wonder about their ability to budget, it makes me wonder if they are going without food because they don't know how to "approach" a packet of rice.
Jamie Oliver (so annoying, yet rather informative) drew my attention to the fact that "poor" people often eat badly because they don't know how to cook or can't see a meal as anything other than a hamburger or a pizza.
Do we have families going "without food on the table" because they don't know how to "eat poor"? Have we forgotten how to eat like peasants? Should we be teaching that in Home Economics in school? Rather than teaching kids how to make quiche, should we be teaching them how to stretch a single chicken into four meals? How to make a "decent" meal for a family out of 500g of mince, dried beans and rice? How to use things like chili and curry to make the simplest meals tasty?
So much stuff is out there on austerity/ausperity at the moment, but who is it aimed at? People who are genuinely poor and need to know this stuff, or middle-class hippies who have taken a pay cut and want to turn it into a project?
Mind you, I feel like I should put my money where my mouth is on this one. I live like a laird - and, oddly enough, I always have. In spite of the fact that I spent the first 15 years of my life living below the poverty line, I was raised by a genius who managed to give our family a Good Life even though we were living off a pension.
Apart from one year when I was living on a low-to-no income budget (and I've always wanted to take a second crack at that year, because I think I could have done it better), I've never had to be responsible for putting food on the table when money was particularly tight.
I feel like I should try living poor for a little while before I start waving my hands around saying "oh, but of course you can put food on the table for a pittance". I think that would make me one of those middle class hippies treating "being poor" like a project, though, and that may also make me even more of a jerk than I already am.
Still, it probably is about time I started thinking about how much I waste on food (and how much food I waste) and whether I could be doing better with less. I think I can safely say that, regardless of my budget, when it comes to food I'm still "doing it wrong".
But, I live in a house where the television is on at news time, and sometimes I hear things even if I'm not listening.
Some days ago someone on the news was talking about something (a budget? A rate change?) that was going to make life harder for the people "doing it tough". Someone said something about people having to chose between paying the bills or putting food on the table. Someone else in the same story talked about people having to skip meals because they couldn't afford it...
This is incredibly callous of me, I know, but I couldn't help thinking "Well, they're clearly doing it wrong."
Yes, I know poverty is poverty, and it can be a real struggle to eat well... but we live in Australia, people - as long as you aren't actually homeless, you should be able to eat something. You can buy a kilo of rice for less than $3 and a kilo of mixed vegetables for less than $2. Curry powder, water and a tablespoon of flour makes it taste like something edible and you could feed four people with that. It's not great, but it's food - and that wasn't even the best example.
As hundreds of generations of Asian peasant farmers will tell you, if you have rice, you have a meal. I come from Northern European peasant farmer stock, and hundreds of generations of those will tell you that if you have a cabbage and a loaf of bread, you have a meal.
If you buy staples (especially if you buy them in bulk) when you have a bit of money, and you budget your food like you [should] budget your money, then you really shouldn't have to go a day without eating something.
Now, I say that as someone who has never had to raise six kids on a single income at minimum wage in rented accommodation, so I'm willing to admit that I could be very, very wrong.
And I'm also willing to admit that I'm prejudiced in this matter. I abhor the kinds of people who spend their money on beer and cigarettes and giant TV sets and then complain about not having enough money for food.
There are people out there who are genuinely doing their best and still not making ends meet, and I wish the Giant-TV-Buying jerks weren't encouraging me to assume that everyone who can't afford food is going without basic necessities because they are morons.
However, I still have difficulty wrapping my head around the idea that people who are budgeting well can't afford a packet of rice.
Apart from making me wonder about their ability to budget, it makes me wonder if they are going without food because they don't know how to "approach" a packet of rice.
Jamie Oliver (so annoying, yet rather informative) drew my attention to the fact that "poor" people often eat badly because they don't know how to cook or can't see a meal as anything other than a hamburger or a pizza.
Do we have families going "without food on the table" because they don't know how to "eat poor"? Have we forgotten how to eat like peasants? Should we be teaching that in Home Economics in school? Rather than teaching kids how to make quiche, should we be teaching them how to stretch a single chicken into four meals? How to make a "decent" meal for a family out of 500g of mince, dried beans and rice? How to use things like chili and curry to make the simplest meals tasty?
So much stuff is out there on austerity/ausperity at the moment, but who is it aimed at? People who are genuinely poor and need to know this stuff, or middle-class hippies who have taken a pay cut and want to turn it into a project?
Mind you, I feel like I should put my money where my mouth is on this one. I live like a laird - and, oddly enough, I always have. In spite of the fact that I spent the first 15 years of my life living below the poverty line, I was raised by a genius who managed to give our family a Good Life even though we were living off a pension.
Apart from one year when I was living on a low-to-no income budget (and I've always wanted to take a second crack at that year, because I think I could have done it better), I've never had to be responsible for putting food on the table when money was particularly tight.
I feel like I should try living poor for a little while before I start waving my hands around saying "oh, but of course you can put food on the table for a pittance". I think that would make me one of those middle class hippies treating "being poor" like a project, though, and that may also make me even more of a jerk than I already am.
Still, it probably is about time I started thinking about how much I waste on food (and how much food I waste) and whether I could be doing better with less. I think I can safely say that, regardless of my budget, when it comes to food I'm still "doing it wrong".
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