Back from the Conference

Which was a spectacular combination of lame and wonderful (about which, more soon)... For now I'm in a cafe having a cup of coffee before going off to meet the OAF who is finally well enough to go outside..

At the moment though, Americano and cruising through the Conference Document. It’s a snappy little deal of some 923 pages. ISBN number978-89-922250-054 - you should pick it up when it comes to a bookstore near you; sometime right after Hell thaws, I think

Anyway, right after the riveting (at least as I read it I wanted some rivets pounded into my head) “Individualized Cookery on How to Improve Farmhouse Cuisine” (now what does that have to do with tourism), comes “Different Factors Affecting the Selection of Anaphoric Forms.” This is on page 301, if you happen to have this volume handy. It features the following abstract:

The selection of anaphoric forms is not random in context, but a complex multi-dimensional phenomenon affected by different factors. It is not only affected by the discourse structure but also affected by the context, relevant principle and conversational principle. This paper discusses several different factors affecting the selection of anaphoric forms, aiming at a further understanding of the contextual consistence and playing a significant role in anaphoric form selection.

Now isn’t THAT a pretty impressive, brimming, frothy cup of delicious WTF? Or, as a poet whose skills far surpass mine once put it, “What you talkin’ bout Willis?”

Thank god the actual article is in Chinese, because I think reading anything more along the lines of the abstract would have produced something syncopial in my head.

I've also finished the line editing for GREY DREAMS OF A TIN GOD, and that means I can move wholly to the BKF's work. Sweet.. there may be some more time for reading soon. ;-)

at Ye Olde "Nearly a Bizness Skool"

That spooky thing over there is one of the corridors of power at the "Nearly a Bizness Skool" here at BPU.

Where I may work next year.

We had the meeting with admin and it sounds like we might get a chance to semi-change status and also create the English program here.

Right now we have students coming in from about 14 countries, and about .25 are not sufficiently Englished-up to go directly into business classes. So some of them need to take a year of English (100 and 300) and even some of those who are in the BBa and MBa programs need to take classes.

So this is 20 hours a week at the 100 level, 16 hours a week at the 300 level, and three hours of (now) optional lab at the higher levels.

But because the problem is larger than NBS expected, and they need instructors with Master's degrees, and because this program was thrown together ad hoc style (a bunch of shit flung at a wall to see what would stick), they know the need something done.

Add to this the fact that teaching at NBS is far more time-intensive than at BPU (where we essentially work out of workbooks, and the syllabi and content is provided us) and you had some stirrings around here.

So it looks like, maybe, if all goes right, we will be given "projects" instead of classes, during the intersession, and this project will be building an entire English program from the ground up - decide on the curriculum and standards, pick the materials, create the syllabi, etc. This has several important aspects, the first of which is the experience, since not many people get this kind of foundation-up exerience; the second of which is the resume filler; the third of which is that I will get about as much pay as anywhere else, and; finally, I will get to keep my killer apartment on the top floor.

With all that said, today I sent out job applications for places in Seoul, and I'll be interviewing at Buddhist College on Monday... ;-)

Learning Korean: Now it Begins?

Today should be the start of a leap in my Korean speaking ability as I have put together a nifty little schedule of instruction.

On Tuesday I have the beginner class offered by BPU to foreign staff. About an hour and a quarter of really basic stuff.

On Wednesday I have a two hour class with some instructors here, one native and one not. This will probably end up being two hours a day.

On Thursday I will meet with my tutor whenever I can. One and a half hours here.

Friday I go to the restaurant and take an informal lesson from the bosses' wife. This will probably end up being 45 minutes or so.

If I keep this up (unlikely?) I should improve my Korean at least a little bit. Which would be a good thing as it is currently shit.

One class down and three to go for this week..

Today I will Save the World!

It goes to the top of my list, because I just got a link to structured procrastination, which suggests that if I try to save the world I actually will get around to..

1) Writing that Conference paper
2) Updating my CV
3) Blogging some pics of Seoul.

Tip of the hat to: MAF

Suwheeet!

The long missing Peace Education Conference just contacted me, and I am presenting on September 27th, in the afternoon.

Book me that ticket to Seoul!

And, or course, BKF is co-writer on the paper, so it's a win all around....

now.. I must party... they will find me just like they found Heath Ledger...

well, except he was fit and handsome.. but you know what I mean. ;-)

Updates...

Some Notes about the Academic Silliness

1> Somewhere in the WayBack Machine I'm sure I mentioned that I've found new stories by my lovely author. But I've also found a book called 미주문학 (America's Literature) that has a 56 page article on my main man. The thing is in Korean, which has already caused me to spend about a half an hour struggling with Korean names, words, the way they list things, and all of the "markers" Korean uses to denote role in sentences and... and.... I translated one sentence.. kind of. ;-)

I spent some time with my tutor working on this and I hope it will eventually go faster.

2>The lovely tutor has also tracked down what is supposed to be a 60 page collection of The Author's notes on his own writing. 60 pages each of the English and Korean version. Man, I'm salivating about getting my hands on that baby...

Then, I just sent off to the BKF my second iteration of edits on the Camel Pouch story he is turning in to the Korean Language Translastion Institute for their annual competition. It is due August 31 and I just feel that this one has a better chance than last year's. Lots of slogging ahead, but time and will to do it.

3> Last weekend's trip up to Itaewon did result in my grabbing two key books for my MCTA presentation. I really should blog the pictures of that trip since the OAF and I had some pleasant surprises all around.

Anyway, it all seems like progress, albeit in small ways. ;-)

Tonicing the Troop!

This should be the first of three re-focusing posts that will probably bore my rare readers senseless. Really, it’s a lot like I am there with you! First one is about instruction, second one will be about schedule and the third one about quarterly re-focus.

Having been once through the highly prescriptive “communicative” textbooks, and with three very different classes, I have learned a great deal. Mainly that when I got here I was a pretty sucky instructor. ;-) This was partly due to being tossed into three classrooms with three different books all of which had different approaches and resources. But it is also safe to say that I took the path of least resistance. Now, having spent more time thinking about things I have about 5 changes in teaching style.

1) THE BLACKBOARD - As mentioned before, I’m going back to the blackboard. I started my blackboard work based on a staff-development presentation in the first week. This included a bare-bones outline of the daily class and three sentences:

“In English that means _____________”
“In Korean that means _____________”
“Go Out!”

This didn’t work that well for me, so I gave up on the blackboard a bit and tried to do everything “scampering monkey style.” Which I’m ok at, but it left a lot of things unsaid and working directly from the book can be a pain – it’s easy to lose your place, among other things. So next semester I am going to outline everything (minus vocabulary) in the days’ lesson plan. Even if we don’t cover it all we will know what we should have covered and what might end up on the test.

2) THE BOOKS - I now have a far better idea of the kinds of things that are in the books. This will help me when I get the new set. I should be able to take them home (that would be this weekend for the summer classes) and assess what they have to offer. I will spend a bit more time figuring out which exercises (all the books essentially rotate the same 10-12 exercises, but with different content, from week to week) work and concentrate on them. I’ll also check out the websites and the handouts/tests/homework. Which leads me to –

3) THE HOMEWORK – I’m going to assign a bit more of it this semester and I’m going to grade it rather than use the money system. This will give me more backup if there are problems with grades (in case someone challenges them) and it will give the students just a bit more work in their 2nd (sometimes 3rd) language. The money system is too imprecise a homework payment system for me, since it is easy to apply unevenly and doesn’t have much scalability. Also, I want to separate academic issues (other than speaking English) from behavioral issues. This leads me to…

4) THE MONEY – I will still use the money for in-class English speaking, emails, office visits, and supportive behavior. I can’t think of a better way to do that on the fly. But that will be the limit of it.

5) THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT – I have also been able to find a few things that all the classes loved. These are the clown car things: I act something out; I draw; we have games pitting the men versus the women; even spelling, for money or competition, seems to get the class going. The movie I showed in one class was worth its weight in gold. So I will formally schedule these events into my class and into my lesson plans, so I do not forget to do them.

I think that these five changes will make the classroom experience a lot better for me and for my students. If I’m going to hop up to Seoul next year, I’ll need to have my game a bit tighter than it has been here. The good news (segueing to the schedule post) is that I have some college and university classes on the intersession.

Terminal Degrees Kill. Ph. D.s kill Absolutely

This comes from a PHUD I work with:

Name Redacted:

I am in the midst of gathering information critical to our institutional “Focused Midterm Report” for the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, due on October 15^th. In that regard, the following information would be very helpful in fashioning a comprehensive, compelling report.

Specifically, and given your role in our various marketing efforts, could you provide some manner of summary update—a kind of “state of the nation” status report--regarding our various efforts and endeavors toward improving internal and external communication (and especially marketing) so that commentary specific to such matters can be included/incorporated in the report?

Your help, most certainly, is much appreciated.

All of that ads up to, "Please tell me about marketing. If you could, please make it relevant to the Accreditation Report."

Amazing...

Hmmmology.. the study of uh.. uh...

My lovely discussant had promised to return comments on my conference paper by "this weekend" and as the weekend is almost over and I have heard nothing back, I think I shan't. Since she's out there in an expired time zone, I am even more certain of this conclusion.

There are several interpretations...

1) My paper is so excremental it can't be helped by comment
2) My paper is so brilliant she is slumped in her bathroom, under the sink, wondering why she payed all that money for her PhD when she just could have dated me
3) She's busy

Doesn't really matter...

I have another conference in my sights in January and will be sending off an abstract this week.

If the swine in Korea (who rather owe me, but who knows how that works with a Waygook?) won't find me a job I'll just keep plugging away here. Nothing else to do, really. Work for some big vacation time and try to do my research on vacations. I don't believe they'll let me down, but I have yet to see anything since Mr. Pak had something lined up for me last March.

The conference will happen, the reviews will publish, and I will continue to gnaw away at this thing....

Like the tailless rodent I am.

Screwy in St. Louis...

Well...

it's fixed now. I have lodgings at the lovely Chesire Lodge and my flight is cleverly planned so that I need not wake up early on either departure date.

The lovely discussant promises her feedback on my paper by Saturday. The BAG fulminates darkly about how Koreans always "love to hold me up." Hey, sometimes I stagger baby, sometimes I stagger! And I think a six day turn-around on a conference paper, for a post-doc who is reading several others, is just fine. As far as I'm concerned it means I don't have to do any more work on the thing this week...

Work itself is oddly under control... all these events are unfurling as planned and I seem to be marginally better at planning them. One community event and one Major Conference Entertainment to go, but with luck these will be the last for a very long time.

On a more (less?) amusing note, one of the previous wives of the "Just Married Uncle" has had a stroke pursuant to surgery. The surgery had been scheduled on the same day as the JMU's wedding, which led to some speculation that it was a sort of dramatic "fuck you" to the whole day.

As I noted to my BS, if this were true, the ex-wife clearly hadn't thought her brilliant plan all the way through. A death the day before would have had some swing, now it becomes a very sad footnote. I wonder how the JMU feels? If this has any impact any longer...

Oh well... as I sit at the bar waiting for

1) My laundry to dry
2) The BAG to get here
3) Total Consciousness..

I don't wonder all that much.

Because I'm selfish.

And all I really need is a good reason. ;-)

The Actual Thingie...

now.. NOW the checks can come pouring in!

I received a rather bulky parcel in the mail today and it turned out to be my Diploma!

Now I am the Master of My Own Domain, or something very much like it..

Turns out I got my thesis ok'd in time to graduate as of "the fifteenth day of July, 2007."

I suppressed a momentary urge to go out and get a beer, and watched a Simpson's episode instead. The BAG was going to come over tonight, but her suicidal move into the ghetto was not quite complete, so she switched to tomorrow night. Alas, it would have been a bit more of a celebration had she been around.

I suppose this really means that I could head to Korea at any time I want, now. Conversation at work revolves around the 'threat' that the chancellor is going to come and sweep us all out of our positions (well, not me, as I'm classified - and leaving anyway). This would be perverse in the way that all CC decisions are perverse. After all, for over a year (since the new management team landed) we have grown beyond all expectations, including dwarfing the growth of our sister college who, by all rights, should be swamping us.

but the paranoid logic goes something like this:

No good deed goes unpunished, and as our chancellor intends to make his statewide career off of his work at Swamp Valley College District, he needs to make the district "his." We are in one of those states exploding with young Hispanics, and the issue of the next few decades is going to be how to give access to this population. The chancellor, therefore, will need to make SVC a Hispanic Serving Institution and then claim an expertise that can move up to the statewide scale. This is certainly believable because the chancellor, while very effective, is also remarkably self-serving (at this level all adminstrators are). So far so good, but I am just naive enough to wonder why this would necessitate a wholescale elimination of management.

Our deans, certainly, have been indolent to the point of coma. Much of the growth we have accomplished has been with me cast in the role of Cassandra (at first) waving sheaths of paper in the air and yelling "I can predict what sections we can fill, if we would only open them!" But even the somnolent deans (well, most) have seen the reality of this and now when I look at local demos and past rosters they grudgingly listen and open (albeit at a fearfully conservative pace) new sections. Which fill. So we should grow. That I am doing the research and suggestion is reason enough to fire all the deans.

On the student-services side, all is not perfect, but all is way better than it was two years ago, and although there is deadwood it needs pruning not uprooting. The paranoids point to the fact that we have already had two new administrators come in who are Hispanic. Pointing out that they replaced two Hispanic departees is for naught.

Then there is the issue of academic inertia - it is hard to get rid of employees, even contract ones (primarily deans and administrators). Here at SVC everyone, with the exception of the anglos, has an ethnic identification that brings with it automatic local support. We have learned, in years past, that you let an employee go, and these ethnic identifications immediately conjure up support - and loud public support that the board really doesn't like to see. So the only way to force a contract employee out is to make their life so miserable that they want to leave. This is a fine line, however, as the threat of the "workplace atmosphere" suit always lingers in the air. And, indeed, SVCD has a longstanding and solid tradition of ex-employees winning lawsuits - sometimes retirement quality versions.

Instructors, of course, are protected by tenure and ultimately unimportant to chancellorial designs - not only that, they turnover at a glacial rate and only new-hires represent a way to change things. Classified are protected by union, and it is difficult to lay them off - certainly not in numbers that would constitute a re-organization. So one way or another it will come down to the contract admins, if change is to come.

I'll be interested in watching this play out. If I go and one other key person on the marketing team goes, the growth will certainly ratchet back a bit - the deans just haven't been pounded enough yet to be sensible. At that point, who knows? The re-org might come, heads might roll, and from very far away... say Korea.. I will point and laugh.

ME AND ONLINE COLLEGE

Let's just say that I had a working relationship with an online college.

Further, let's say that I couldn't, for obvious reasons, say what college that might be.

So, for the sake of pseudonymity (if that's a word) let us just say that this Online College is called Embellish College and it is the online organ of the Not Quite Institute of Technology. And while my relationship with Embellish U. i ended, it was an affair to remember.

And why?

Because the students were so.... so ......it's hard to find the right phrase..... but perhaps... SO EFFING DUMB!

And given their advanced dumbnosity, they were not well served by Embellish U. Maybe this is even worse. Stupidity is an inherited condition, but a stupid student has about no chance to learn anything new at E.U. The classes are optimized for speed and instructors rarely step in to correct anything. In a post to come I might thrash out why I feel E.U. fails its students, but for a while I'm just going to focus on the student failures.

Because I like to play the blame game. That's why!

Let us consider a science course to remain nameless.

I should have known, in week one, that it was going to be a trip back to a pre-Copernican universe when a student answered the following reflection:

some scientists argue that Global Warming is an immediate problem while others argue it is not

thus:

This statement makes since. You really give me something to think about. Making a decision in haste can be damaging but waiting to long can also. When is the right time? Is there are a right time? IT maybe that what ever is done maybe damaging to our survival.

Ack Ptooie! I can only hope this student has yet been through the Embellish U. writing courses, because that level of writing wouldn't get past a basic-level ESL course in the worst Community College in the deepest ghetto of the most underfunded state in the Union (BTW - I'm pretty certain that would have to be in California somewhere).

There is also the fact that the statement means nothing. That and it has nothing to do with science.

But there it was....

other students veered off into incoherent critiques (if that is the word) of capitalism:

The horrible thing is that big corporation will use the inconsistencies to their advantage. They will use this information to fill us with fear and we will purchase the item they tell us will help save our planet as well as line their pockets.

or equally incoherent critiques of the media

I agree with you (Name Redacted). The media really needs to stay out of most things. They send out conflicting messages to everyone so no one knows what to believe. But like I said in my response to #2, "Until there is a new science that is found to always be accurate, then there will always be debates about the facts." And the media can report whatever they want.

Note that not one whit of these responses has anything to do with science. Everyone goes to their own little stalking horse and rides around in circles.

Having some experience with beginning writers, I call this the "I kept my baby" argument. The "I kept my baby" argument is the personal one and I first noticed it many years ago in a writing class that tried to keep its topics current. And whenever an assignment related to abortion was given you could be morally certain that at least one single-mother would completely ignore the assignment and write a long, illiterate tear about how abortion was a crime because the writer had kept her own child when her Baby-Daddy had headed for some less pregnant bint. It is the inability to look beyond personal experience to general arguments and it was at Embellish U. in spades.

So, here we had a student body in dire need of education. And here we had an educational body. How would they interact? Would they interact? Would we all keep our babies?

The babies, I'm afraid, all died.

The good news?

I got my degree. And so did most of the other ijdits

The Rubber Stamp is In

The Division Chair chimes in and I am done...

I join with Professor (Name Redacted) in approving your thesis. It was well written and interesting. I will be submitting a change of grade form in about a week (I am away from the office currently) and you are ready for graduation. Please contact the graduation department for further information. Attached is information about binding your thesis. Congratulations, you have done a great job.

His failure to use the word "genius", "inspired" or phrase "for the ages" irks me. But I will take my sheepskin and skulk away.

The Rage of The Modern Post

It is annoying to go into a Borders and find only three books of Korean history (and none on literature) in the whole place. I mean.. with all the Koreans in Santa Clara and San Jose? I know I sound like any grumpy old dude (GOD) going into a bookstore and not finding the books that they want, but really? And three rows on American Indians and their nobility and loss? I thought that, as old Winston said, “History is written by the victors.”

Hey.. they lost… we know the history there.

Well, really, we don’t know the history there, because before the White Man landed they didn’t have a freaking history. They had a series of vague stories, most of which focused on how they had been outwitted by coyotes.

Then the White Man came along to demonstrate what a real outwitting (featuring killer technology, literally) looks like. On the plus side, we gave them yellow fever, government cheese, and written language. So they could write all of those histories.

I'm willing to call it a wash and move on...

But 300 years (give or take) of history of failure and they rate about 50 times the bookstore space of a country with a 5,000 year history? All of this rage is only because I know have a paper to present in October and have no idea what this kind of paper looks like or should include. So, instead of Korean History I bought a book on post-modernism. My theory is I will only have about 30 minutes of presentation time at MCAA and therefore if I can loot about 30 “clever’ critical phrases to lard (an appropriate word) into my speech I will come across as au courant, or some other kind of nut.

Imagine my increased rage when I open POSTMODERNISM: OR THE CULTURAL LOGIC OF LATE CAPITALISM (obsessive all-caps theirs) and this is the first sentence:

“It is safest to grasp the concept of the postmodern as an attempt to think the present historically in an age that has forgotten how to think historically in the first place.”

Now that sentence, simple for postmodernism, sucks. It either needs an “of” before “the present” or some explanation of HTF you can think of the present age “historically?” Perhaps my modernism is not ‘post’ enough?

On the other hand I’m still in the introduction and I already have 6 excellent terms to throw into my paper and talk. Some of these are old friends and one is completely new to me:

DOXA (I had to look this one up)

CONSTITUTVE

MIMESIS

UTOPIAN

NON-SPATIALIZED CULTURE

BINARY OPPOSITION

So that’s a start, anyway….

Accepted to MCAA...

Congratulations! Your paper has been accepted for inclusion in the 56th
Annual Midwest Conference of Asian Affairs held at Washington University
in St. Louis. The conference will meet from noon on Friday, October 19th
to noon on Sunday, October 21st.

is what they tell me.

Cool!

Wheee...

CV for Korea done and will go out this weekend after looks at it..

relentless tinkering on the thesis but now it is surely done and I will send it off tomorrow goddamit! Up to 18,500 words which is just excessive!

all that's left is the abstract for MACCA...

BAG graduated last weekend and I should get pictures of that soon.

Mr. Korea became Mr. USA and I will see him this weekend to celebrate...

Become a buddhist or chop down trees?

Really, I must be insane and need a nice rest (somehow land-buddhism or repetitive destruction of inanimate objects seem like rest to me)...

This was the longest 4-day work week ever, but replete with garlands and accomplishments. Board loves me, we made some public events work (that really should have failed), some brilliant PR just about to hit, numbers look good. Now everyone is safely tucked in to the 4-day weekend that the killer contract gives us.

And I'm on my work email hitting refresh like a rat hooked on crack-cocaine in a behavioral study -- and a rat that doesn't realize the bad news. Experiment over little rat. Detox your bad-self because with the results about to be published the man in the white coat isn't the pusherman anymore...

But I needs me the crazy thrill of the next email with an insane demand from an administrator; or cancellation from some required vendor; or a new program that needs a prospectus by 30 minutes before the email demanding it was sent; or.. . more stress, STRESS, STRESS!

Seriously, can you get addicted to that shit?

Good news is that a delicious sushi dinner helped me figure out the final structure for my thesis.. I think all the little bits I've been having difficulty reconciling can now be dovetailed.

So that's good..

4 days of writing now.

Master's Update

I forgot I had done 10 pages of work on the original paper... which means I actually have

2,239 new words
3,304 old words

5,543 total words which puts me at about .33 of where I need to be by the end of the month. No intarwebs connection at home last night so I pounded above 2k on the new words.

Also found the text I need to give the analysis of multicultural literature which will provide my measuring rubric. I plan to put this into "definitions" and work bits of it into the body of the thing. Still feeling my way towards my abstract, but I think a week more will bring this clear. Also, ordered the last existing piece of (known) printed lit for the man.....

I might even get this done... ;-)

Thesis Watch - Prelude

So here I am.... author in hand (Kim Yong Ik) and more or less of a topic (Vision/Divison Perception/Reception and how that works for Kim as a multicultural writer). Now it is to write the thing.

And I have a plan, oh, do I have a plan.

I have approximately 1,000 words written out of a proposed 13,000. 13,000 would be 50 good pages of text not counting all the other stuff involved in the thesis. That should be a good start.

Class begins on the 8th of January and ends on the 3rd of March.

So, I'd like to have my rough draft in place by the end of January which would give me a month for revisions. This means, if I write nothing else before the first, in January I will need to write 400 words a day.

Of course this will never happen in a million years, but what must it be like to have an entire month for nothing but revision? ;-)

The Best 24 Years of My Undergrad Degree

were spent at the University of California at Berkeley. And if it weren't for the Bear's Lair I might well have graduated from Cal. As it turned out the Bear's Lair and a bit of a lie from the director of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program (or misunderstanding between that critter and the Lord of Letters and Sciences) meant that I, alas, could not cap my undergrad academic career with a Cal degree. NYIT is good, but not the same.

OTOH only a real asshole would take 24 years to get their undergrad degree.

With all that noted...

Da Bears Rule!

45-10 over the Texas Aggies ("no students killed in silly bonfire accidents since 1999!") who played pretty well. Both coaches emptied their benches at the end of the game and that was also nice to see...

But... to be totally honest?

We effed em up!

Almost Over

I just sent my last classroom assignment to my "Just Barely Accredited Master's Program." It was on Melville's "Bartleby The Scrivener" which is a story I love and have loved since I first read it a few years ago. The crazy artisto-deluxe at Swamp Valley College recommended it to me back then and I really liked it.

I liked it even more within the context of "American" (meaning "US") Romanticism, but when it came to writing the paper I was completely flat. It's done and will be an A (I think) but I don't want to have to write anything academic anything again until I do my thesis.

If I do?

It will be deconstructionist slogans.

Written with a machine gun.

On the chest of innocent passers by.

From a fucking tower.

I'd ask what kind of moron gets an MA in English.. but I have a mirror.

Paper due at midnight... yet I am so lame..

and so uninterested in writing the thing (and only a 2500 word paper) that I am actually watching a Matlock movie.

A Matlock movie

In my defense it is set in London.

Oh, there is no defense.

I'm watching Matlock...

I'm lame.

Compressed Courses and Laggardly Instructors

So, at "Just Barely Accredited Online Master's Program" the cram our courses into gnarly little indigestible 4-week modules. As I've noted elsewhere, this leaves very little room for learning moments and many instructors don't even try. If I hadn't been a voracious reader and had my experience writing a couple of MAs for money I would be totally lost. But I understand what I have to do and understand the compressed schedule.. it is 16-18 weeks (depending on semester length) crammed into 4.

Which brings me to my complaint about the professors.. if they don't get me back my grades within a week isn't that like a 4-week wait after a 'normal' class? I work at a CC in California and if grades aren't turned in within one week of the end of the semester it's a cause for major trauma. This would work out to be about 1.75 days in the compressed semester (that might be wrong, there's a reason my degree won't be in maths!). Went I went to Big Important State University, they had assignments back within two weeks.

Shouldn't the evil profs have to live to some kind of standard?

Whaaaaaah! I want my "A!"

/whine

Education is Evil and the Maths Support It

Knowledge = Power¹

Power = Corruption²

ergo

Study Hard and Become Evil!
(Hey, it works for lawyers)

-------------------------------------------------------

¹ "Knowledge is Power"
Sir Francis Bacon

² "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"
Lord Acton