Monday's Assignment
this week i decided to talk in class. usually i am an observer, listening to and then putting-down the other students's comments in my head, but this week i was a participator. and when i wasn't talking, i scrunched up my eyes and looked up at the ceiling to make it look like i was deep in thought. really i was thinking, "ohmigod, when is break, i'm about to pee. in. my. pants." word to the wise, if you have a chatty teacher don't drink coffee before class and then a liter of water in the first hour of class. you're not going to get a break in time. class started at six and it was 8:30 when she leisurely suggested a ten minute break. with my schedule at work, where a break comes every, oh, fifteen minutes going two and a half hours is akin to torture. plus, with my new self-diagnosis of ADD i have no excuse to focus for that long.
last week, we had a lot of reading to do and i was skimming with all my might trying to pick up on interesting tid-bits to write my paper on. for weeks leading up to the class and then for the first few weeks when people would ask me about my class i would tell them the general stuff, seminar, lots of reading, and a paper every week. "it's a lot of writing, but i'm looking forward to it." overachieving ellen would say, looking down from her high-horse. then i realized that no paper had been mentioned in class, it hadn't been mentioned on blackboard, and there were no guiding questions to write by. hmmm. i e mailed the professor, "am i making assignments up or is there not a paper due this week?" turns out it was all wishful thinking on my part and over-achieving ellen quickly turned into lazy-procrastinator ellen (she's so much more famliar). an hour before class i managed to skim my way through the last third (maybe more) of the reading, which i now regret doing because it seemed interesting. i usually tell myself that i'll go back to class material that i've skimmed, revisiting the old textbooks and photocopies to absorb the material, thinking about it and weaving it all together with other things i've learned. now, in my wisdom, i'm not even telling myself i'll revisit it, reading thoroughly what i hastily covered. there is never enough boredom in this town that would make me go back and reread an assignment. i guess i'm trying honesty on for size.
last week, we had a lot of reading to do and i was skimming with all my might trying to pick up on interesting tid-bits to write my paper on. for weeks leading up to the class and then for the first few weeks when people would ask me about my class i would tell them the general stuff, seminar, lots of reading, and a paper every week. "it's a lot of writing, but i'm looking forward to it." overachieving ellen would say, looking down from her high-horse. then i realized that no paper had been mentioned in class, it hadn't been mentioned on blackboard, and there were no guiding questions to write by. hmmm. i e mailed the professor, "am i making assignments up or is there not a paper due this week?" turns out it was all wishful thinking on my part and over-achieving ellen quickly turned into lazy-procrastinator ellen (she's so much more famliar). an hour before class i managed to skim my way through the last third (maybe more) of the reading, which i now regret doing because it seemed interesting. i usually tell myself that i'll go back to class material that i've skimmed, revisiting the old textbooks and photocopies to absorb the material, thinking about it and weaving it all together with other things i've learned. now, in my wisdom, i'm not even telling myself i'll revisit it, reading thoroughly what i hastily covered. there is never enough boredom in this town that would make me go back and reread an assignment. i guess i'm trying honesty on for size.
posted by Ellen at 8:31 PM
3 Comments:
welcome to grad school. this is the story of almost everyone who has ever attended a graduate seminar in any humanities-related topic. the idea is to skim as quickly as possible, while retaining only as much as necessary to make everyone think that you're smart.
sweet! except that i'm only taking one class, you'd think that i'd be able to handle the work...
I had seminar tonight. My professor wants us to submit questions on each of the readings, so I usually just write down the questions that I have actually written in the margins as I was actually reading each article.
I actually read and I still don't sound smart.
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