I think one thing that must suck in college for the teachers is that they have to go around carting all of their teacher materials and stuff, and they can’t leave them in the room. This is bad for the teachers because those bags are HEAVY, but it’s also bad for students because they are in a less visually and emotionally rich environment. People learn better where they feel comfortable, and they can leave things behind and pick them up later, but college doesn’t let them do that. Also, I think people learn better when they have a way to remember where they were when they learned something, but I think literally ALL of my college classrooms look the same. The only thing different is the windows in the regular cinderblock classrooms. There are also lecture halls, labs, and portable classrooms, which end up being the most memorable. The rest are ALL THE SAME. It probably doesn’t help that most of my classes are in the same building.

I’ve used my hairdryer a total of probably twice. I might use it more often if mine looked as weird and awesome as this. It’s from Heal's. 

 

College: Moodle is overrated

So, I'm back.  Apparently I got a lot of traffic on leap day; weird.  This is not funny.  Sorry, people.

I am busy.  I am in college.  I would not be so busy if teachers went back to a very seventies way of doing things and posted all of their assignments at once, on one syllabus, gave it to you at the beginning of the class, and said "here, go do this stuff and give it to me.  Then I grade you.  Then you get on with your lives."  I like that better than the current model for two main reasons.

1. You can get a jump on things.  If you happen to go on vacation, you can do all your homework, give it to a friend who did theirs and therefore won't steal yours, have them turn it in for you, and enjoy wherever you go.
2. You don't have weird deadlines.

Seriously.  For those of you who went to college in the seventies, there is now this thing called Moodle.  Teachers post your assignments on Moodle.  You turn your assignments in electronically on Moodle.  The teacher grades them on Moodle.

It saves paper.  We will kill instead the aspirin trees because this is a headache inducing system.  Why?  There are two reasons.

1. Teachers no longer have to think very far ahead.  "They'll do something on To Kill a Mockingbird in week seven."  Put in syllabus in the summer.  Teacher has six months to think of questions.  This is not fair to students or to teachers.  I once had a science teacher who said the very memorable line that "Teachers are as lazy as you are.  If they took the time to write it on the board, it is probably important."  I believe this, too.  However, these teachers are too lazy to write the thing on the damn board.  Still, they expect their students to turn things in on time.  Not fair.
2. Teachers can access students unfairly.  For example, I have an assignment due this Sunday.  Oh wait, tomorrow.  This is terribly unfair.  I have no idea what the assignment is.  And  it's due tommorrow, on a Sunday, a day which college is all but closed.  I'm taking a once-a-week class that would normally meet two days a week, so for all fairness, I'm fine with things being due two days a week, but accessing me on days where there shouldn't be a class?  For assignments posted less than forty-eight hours in advance?  Not cool, Tony, not cool.  (Obscure reference.  If you get it, you get a lolipop.  Not a school reference.)

There's my rant.  Goodnight.

This is SO cool!

I sometimes have problems spelling the word "Museum."  I long have.  I  can spell "musee" (yes, with the accent) perfectly, without even thinking about it because the French make more spelling sense than the English.

Regardless of how it is spelled, you have to go to the
Valentino Museum.  Right now.  You click the link, insert your email address, read the terms and YOU ARE IN VALENTINO'S MUSEUM.  It is SO cool.  There are incredible photographs, pretty dresses on mannequins, and even videotapes of fashion shows.  Unlike in physical museums, you don't even have to wait until the video finishes so you can see the beginning!  (Which would be quite a pain.  The shows are very long -- the primavera (spring) 2005 show was about 37 minutes long.)  It's very cool.  Excuse me while I go oggle haute couture.

I really hate it when people say "Santy Claus."

            I cannot stand it.  The radio knows about fifty songs the rest of the year, all by different people, but when it comes to Christmas, they FORGET that there are more than five songs in the world and that ten people should not sing different versions of a song and call them different songs. 

            Worse even than the fact that people think that five songs can masquerade as a full mix for six weeks (They haven’t the sense to start it, like, today.  They have to start it right after Thanksgiving.), people also think it is okay this time of year to mispronounce “Santa Claus.”  Not even in that pretty Alpine way where they say “Sinta Claus” or “Sinta Clauus,” they say it in the Andy Griffith “Santy Claus” way.  I really hate that.

            Usually Christmas doesn’t annoy me this much.  But this year the music is getting to me.  Best nine-minute music hiatus ever here.