The most fun I had today

Ever had one of those days where the most fun you've had was watching all the red bars on your de fragmenting hard drive turn blue?

I'm having one of those days right now. I've been endlessly working on my theses, correct here, edit there, cut out here, paste there, type here, delete that, find references for this... AAARGH!!! It's so monotonous that I look forward to any break or possible escape from the hellish cycle. I found some relief staring at my defrag for around 5 minutes before realising how desperate I was and watching half an episode of Top Gear to regain some sort of sanity.

Writing up is far from easy, even if you have everything you need in front of you and all you need to do is assemble bits and pieces into one sensible paragraph. If I could just work my way around these mental blockades I could probably finish off the rest of my thesis in two days! Instead I have budgeted two weeks to complete the work.

Wish me luck fellow strugglers/stragglers

Students these days...Honestly!?

At UKZN we have a mentor program. It is designed to help students that are struggling to understand course work. Mentors are only assigned to classes after being requested for by the students. Fair enough...

So I get requested to mentor a 3rd year class on community ecology. That's understandable, this is probably one of the most advanced undergraduate courses offered here. I decide to sit in on one of their lectures to see how students are responding to and interacting with staff. I also intend to speak to the class and agree on a meeting time and place that suits everyone.

So there I am in the the lecture theater trying to be inconspicuous when I notice one of the guys drawing pictures of boobs in the margins next to his lecture notes. BOOBS! What the hell!!!

It really annoys me when students complain about not understanding the course work. 'It's too difficult' they say 'the lecturer is rubbish' they whine. I know the real reason they don't understand anything is due the fact that they are busy drawing cartoon pornography when they need to be concentrating on what the lecturer has to say.

Sure I'm guilty of not paying attention in class once upon a time. Who can blame me though, it was a statistics course that I was forced to do...