04 May 2010
Today at my job, while hard at work in my cube, a announcement came over the intercom saying to evacuate the building. “This is not a drill,” this disembodied voice said. So I got up, began walking out, and was soon swept up in a sea of people.
Along with some of my co-workers from my department, I headed towards the rendezvous point in the parking lot. There were five of us from my department and, after standing around for five minutes, we began to wonder where the other members of our department were. Turns out, they were still in the lab, as the intercom system is a little too quiet to be heard in there. Let’s hope that gets corrected. One of my co-workers phoned into the lab and told everyone to get out, but about five minutes later, they called another co-worker to see if the first co-worker was serious. So…um, definitely some room for communication improvement.
Turns out, there was a bomb threat. While security and some bomb-sniffing canines cased the building, we stood up on a hill beyond the parking lot. I gotta say, whoever made the threat pretty much picked the most perfect day ever. It wasn’t too hot or too cold (a serious concern when people are rushing out without grabbing their coats), it wasn’t raining, and the wind was minimal. Had the threat been phoned in yesterday or tomorrow, it would’ve interfered with some time-sensitive sampling I’m doing. Which, of course, doesn’t matter to me in the moment, but would’ve meant a lot more paperwork.
All told, we were out of the building for over three hours, though one of those hours was just our lunch break. Not quite as exciting as the time I showed up for work at Lenscrafters, discovered no one could even get into the store due to a cut power cable, then was sent home for the day with full pay. But a close second.
05 May 2010
I have often contended that my performance in any given class is weakest on the second assignment. Here’s why:
When the first assignment is due, I have little idea what the instructor wants. I mean, I know what he/she instructed us to do, but it’s tough to know what their particular ‘style’ is. The further removed from pure logic (=math) the class subject is, the more it is crucial to know what sort of ‘style’ the instructor wants. But at least the first assignment is the easiest. So, I just sort of fly blind and do the best I can at the first and easiest assignment.
But then it comes assignment #2. If the instructor has returned paper #1 to me, then I now have a partial picture of what they expect (though my sample set is only 1). But if they didn’t, then I’m still lost. Also, assignment #2 is a lot harder; class is in full swing now and there’s no more pussyfooting around.
I could give lots of boring examples of how assignment #1 was spoon-fed to the class, and how assignments #3 – #10 (or whatever) were just exercises in giving the teacher what he/she wants. But I’ll save you the boredom.
So, as you can see, assignment #2 is the trickiest one. And, again, I could give many examples of how my second task in a class represented my worst performance. But I won’t.
As you can imagine, then, in my current class it has been very difficult for me to turn in papers #3, #4, #5 and #6 without having received back paper #2. I mean, I had paper #1 back for over a month, but she really held our hand through that one. Today, finally – more than three months after class began! – I received back paper #2. I eagerly turned to the last page to see my grade.
It’s funny, a couple of weeks ago, while in a small group, one of my classmates asked me what grade I was getting in class. I laughed. “Well,” I said, “I got an A- on the first paper, but that’s all I know so far.” She laughed, too, realizing we didn’t have much to base our performance on, even though we’d completed three months of the semester. I mean, I had somewhat of an idea; part of our grade is based on attendance (mine’s been perfect) and another part of the grade is based on participation, and I feel I’m one of the three or four most vocal students in class. Just wish that guy in front of me would stop commenting so much. He’s really making it difficult to shine. I’m supposed to be the class Hermione – not him! Oh well.
Anyway, A.