Way Number EIGHT to FAIL as a Professor

Being over here in Germany without an Abi is a sure-fire way to make sure your options for getting an undergraduate education are pretty limited. As it stands, I have the options of UMUC, AMU, or University of Phoenix. (Does anyone actually even go there??) I am more than well aware that I was accepted to a much better university in Canada before I decided to move over here. So UMUC it is, knowing that it's only a stepping stone to my graduate education. I'll take what I can get. But still. The university says it's trying to better its reputation. But all I see is ways they're making things worse. Be it ridiculous tuition fee increases that beat out schools that are actually well-respected, or the hiring of douche-bag professors (although every college has 'em), UMUC really isn't doing much controlling to make sure their professors are any good.

Last semester, it was the douche of "Way number seven to FAIL as a professor" who introduced me to the fact many teachers are really lazy. They steal their quizzes from the textbook web-sites complete with the same answers... in the same order. They don't even change the numbers to alter the calculations. Because that would be too HARD and TIME CONSUMING. I wonder if students actually realise this. I'm thinking not, seeing as my last douche Economics professor and this new douche keep berating half the class for their failing grades. Do people not Google the quiz questions to see if they can find any help outside the textbook?

Lucky for me in this class, I've already done most of the work in high school. I didn't have a problem with the quizzes thus far. In fact, this quiz still wasn't really much trouble, except for one question. So I went Google-hunting. And what did I find?

Companion web-site.

I'll be honest. I'm one of those people that is so non-cheating that I'll actually do my quiz without consulting the companion site first because I don't want to be screwed up the butt on the midterm and final exams when I find out I never actually learned the material. But I would be an idiot not to check my answers on the quiz to make sure they're right.

I can't believe it took me half the semester to realise that this professor was being a lazy-ass douche, just like my Economics professor. And notice how I'm not yet revealing what class this is? I'll do it after I get my grades... But seriously.

Here it is.

Way Number EIGHT to FAIL as a Professor:

Being a lazy-ass bastard does not equate to being a good professor. I could care less if you've got a PhD. You're lazy, and obviously just teaching the class for the easy money. Copy and paste from the companion site? Sure. After all, since you've already got that lovely doctorate, who cares? You did that whole part of being original in your thesis. Why be original for a bunch of arts students who are working on their lowly degrees? After all, they're all caught up in the realm of "thought" and don't have anything relevant to offer the world, anyway.

But that doesn't mean we're stupid. You're lazy. And copy/pasting does NOT equal teaching. Get off your ass and actually give us something other than the text and your stupid companion site. I don't care if you make a crappy wage. Do the work you're paid to do. If you don't like it, go somewhere else.

Oilers/Age Rant

So, I admit it. I'm out of touch with the whole hockey world. I mean, let's face it. I've never known much about hockey in the first place. I never played as a kid, seeing as I can't skate, and I don't know much about the sport as a whole. Trust me, reading the stats every day in the Calgary Herald or Edmonton Journal doesn't provide all that much knowledge aside from trades. Combine that with the fact I've been out of Hockey Country Canada for the last three seasons. I'm seriously out of date.

But I love my Oilers.

And I like to pretend I know what I'm talking about when I rant and rave about hockey. So just amuse me for a second.

Why, why, WHY, did the Oilers sign Mike Comrie again? My dad sent me a forward the other day making fun of him, as usual. Only this time, Comrie was in the Oilers' dressing room. And for some reason, the forward didn't strike me as being one from 2005. So I check the web-site, and my worst nightmare is confirmed.

Mike Comrie is back in Edmonton. What a douche.

Well, shoot. So much for me wanting to go to a bunch of Oil games when I'm back home. Unless they still boo the bastard. Then I'm in 100%.

Which got me looking at the roster a little bit closer. For some reason, I've discovered, about half of the players on the Oilers this season are either my age or younger. A small handful were born in the 70s. Now, I'd like to know when this happened. This year, all of a sudden it seems, I feel old. Taylor Lautner is in New Moon, and he is seventeen and wonderfully hot and buff. Did I mention he's seventeen? The Oilers have signed a Finnish player to the team who was born in 1991. Yes, 1991. I have a cousin who was born in 1992. I remember holding her when she was a BABY and bottle-feeding her. And now her peers could be playing in the NHL within the next couple years. Why not? People I hung out with in junior high school would already be part of the "old" people group on the team.

What gives? When did this happen? When did everyone become younger than me?

I haven't even hit my mid-twenties yet, but I feel like I'm having some sort of middle-aged crisis. Since when is 23 old? It's not, you're probably thinking. And that's what I thought, too. Until everyone started either having babies or playing professional hockey.

I'm distraught.

Google is Taking Over the Planet

So, as I was thinking it was about time I posted something, even though I have nothing to say, I realised how frustrated I am. In a recent act of conformity, I decided to open a Gmail account. Well, it's not exactly a Gmail account. It's actually Googlemail, because apparently that's the best you get when you live in Deutschland. Whatever. Basically, I was sick of the crap Yahoo! was giving me, and I liked the pretty templates. (Yeah, I'm such a girl for liking pretty templates. So what?) I even managed to get my Yahoo! mail forwarded to my new address, which I think was pretty spiffy.

But here's my problem that is completely able to be fixed by not being as lazy as I am. I like to stay signed-in to my e-mail. It makes things easier when I check the mail 5000 times per day. But then when I want to blog? Oh, no! It will only let me use my Google account, which is definitely not the one I signed up for my blog with.

Sure, Google may find their partnership with Blogger to be productive, but I find it annoying. I don't want to jump through hoops to write lame things that most people don't bother to read anyway. So, take that Google. I hate you. (Not really... I think you're omniscient.)

So, there's my rant for today. And since I'm feeling extra-grumpy because it's extra-rainy and extra-cold for September, please feel free to not drop me a line of consolation. I know who you are, regular readers, and I know you obviously find my posts too boring to comment on. So, keep it up. It gives me things to be sad about. :)

OH AND BTW. I love Gossip Girl. The new episode was just fab.

New Herd!!

Okay, I know it's silly to post twice in one day, but I can't help it! I'm super excited!

We got a new oven! What? You think that's not worthy of excitement??

So, when we moved in, our place wasn't finished yet. Our landlord had told us they were updating and modernising everything. I thought that was a pretty cool deal, and I also like the idea that H. and I are the only ones to have ever used the bathtub. It makes me feel oddly sanitary. But whilst trying to update our place, our landlord was also peculiarly cheap. For instance, why replace the old cupboards and counters when you can just slap new (and not matching) cupboard doors on them? Why replace an oven that is so loud, it sounds like it's about to take off in flight?

Well, we finally got the oven thing sorted. That only took over a year. In our landlord's defence, we didn't complain about it. Really, it was annoying, but the thing still worked. But one day, H. pressed a button (which turned out to be a child's safety lock?) and the oven and stove wouldn't work. So, we got a specialist in here to tell us we were idiots. And also that the fan in our oven is broken. And that replacing the fan, since our oven is older than my grandfather, would cost more than a brand-spanking new one. Now, we play the waiting game with the landlord, like always, and get a new oven two months later.

I have no complaints yet, other than the gross smell it's emitting, which is apparently normal and why I have to have the oven on for the next hour or two. But you know what's amazing about the whole thing? I can barely hear it!!! I could call my mom right now, and be in the same room (and not on a different level on the other side of the house), and she wouldn't ask me what I was baking! Excellent! Maxie also no longer stares at the oven in disbelief, wondering why we don't scold the oven for being so loud, but scold him for barking.

I wish I took a before picture. My friend, C., always puts before and after pictures on her blog when she does something new. Unfortunately, when I thought of it, they had already wheeled the old one out. So, the you'll just have to drool over the picture of the new one, wishing you had an oven this amazing. Poor H., though. This one doesn't have Fahrenheit. Poor guy. He's going to be so lost when he comes home.

Oh, the things that excite a housewife...

Zürich

Well, as I hinted in my last post, H. and I took the pup and headed to Zurich on Monday. Before I get started, I have some advice for you, should you wish to wander over there. Save yourself the trouble and buy the stupid toll pass for the Autobahn. Trying to save yourself 40 Swiss Francs will only lead to crying in the long run. I promise.

Still don't believe me?

Before we left, I went onto Google maps and looked up the directions from our place to Zurich. Then, as I glanced down the directions, I saw the ominous "TOLL." Gross. No thanks. I'm way too cheap to pay for the privilege of using a road when there are other, more free, routes I can take. Plus, this "back" way only was supposed to take an extra fifteen minutes. Thirty minutes extra of our time, round-trip for free? You can count me in! So the trip down the A81 to Singen went as smoothly as we thought it would. Then it was time to navigate through about 459884722 round-a-bouts. We may have taken the wrong turn a couple of times, but it was all good. I remember, though, having a sinking feeling in my stomach whilst taking Route 4 into Zurich. It was pretty... curvy. But, we made it there all right. So, of course we could get back out all right? Right?

Wrong.

We couldn't get out of the darn city, and we probably spent an hour looking for that stupid Route 4 to take us away. We even got so close. And by close, I mean one block on a one-way street close. But alas. We failed. H. decided that having a grumpy wife in a confined space was probably not the best way to go about things, so we took some Route 17 out. We followed the whole philosophy of going straight will eventually lead you out of town. This has worked in Munich, Cologne, and other places. I can now say that it works in Zurich, too. The problem with this plan, though, is wondering what to do once you get out of town. Luckily, our trusty ADAC map gave us some general highway advice. Do realise, though, that advice doesn't extend to advice on where to turn in all those little cities along the way. Are you exhausted by reading this? Because I want to cry just thinking about it.

Anyway, Zurich is okay. It wasn't worth the trouble. To tell you the truth, I'm kind of sick of German-ish cities. Sure, the architecture was nice. Sure, that lake was nice. Sure, the sidewalk chalk downtown warning us that September 11 was a lie and that the US government is housing Bin Laden in a CIA hospital was amusing. But was it worth seven hours of driving? No. Was it worth four hours of driving plus a toll sticker? Also no.

Maybe my mom was right - I AM too spoiled. But frankly, Europe, like everything else in life, gets boring after awhile. Maybe I'll be more excited when I come back after my trip back home to Canada. Probably. But for now, I'm bored.

Straßburg

Well, it's sure been a long time since I've posted! Classes started up again on the 31st, and that day was our first anniversary, as well. So things have been busy! First things first, here's the scoop on Strasbourg!

We decided that a one-day trip for our anniversary would probably be best. After all, we're still mostly broke from my trip to France. Plus, one-day trips save on hotel rooms, and save the bother of trying to find a hotel where Maxie is welcome. And really, it doesn't take that long to get to Strasbourg. Really. So H., Maxie and I went to Strasbourg for the day. It was really lovely. A. and her hubby had gone there for their first anniversary and had nothing but good things to say about the town. So, we went. And I spoke French. It was lovely. In fact, at the tourism office, whilst buying a map, I had an entire conversation in French with the lady there. I told her I needed a map, and she asked if I wanted it in German or English. We discussed the town a bit. In French. Yet I needed a map in a foreign language. Strange people. The rest of our anniversary was low-key. It was nice.

And, the fall semester has begun! This semester, I've got a couple of history classes, chemistry and math requirements, and Latin. Fun, no? I also realised that I screwed up my schedule, and if I wish to graduate on time, I need to take two one-credit seminars per semester to meet my upper-level credit requirement. Crap. All because of those darn CLEPs. Speaking of which, H., Maxie and I went to Mannheim for the day on Wednesday, where I sat an exam to receive up to twelve credits for French. You can imagine my distaste when they used Québequois and not French on the exam. I almost started crying, swearing to myself I'm not cut out for languages, that I'd be lucky to get six credits (you either get six or twelve), and that there was no way I'd be able to study French in grad school if I couldn't even pass an exam.

I got twelve credits (thank goodness).

So other than that, H. is still on vacation. We may travel to der Schweiz on Monday. Also with the Maxie. And then it's back to the grind, only it's like a super-grind. Or something...