Not a whole lot has happened since my last post, but I've got some time. I started orientation on Friday, and had my second day today. Friday wasn't too bad, I got my laptop from the University. It's a tablet, which is fun to play with, though really I think it'll kill more time than it would ever save.
On Saturday we went to the second Tech scrimmage and then went downtown for the evening. Cory met us there, along with a bunch of the brothers, and they stayed for a little bit. It was a pretty fun time but nothing too notable other than the fact that Sharkey's needs to clean their beer lines; the tap Blue Moon tasted terrible and very yeasty...
Moving on, Sunday I did just about nothing all day. It was rather relaxing. And then I went to bed at the ungodly early hour of 10:00pm.
Today was my second day of orientation, and we got lectured a good bit on different strategies and whatnot. Overall it wasn't all that eye-opening, but it wasn't bad and I did get a few ideas of things to do for my classes. It also helped that we were proceeding ahead of schedule and, at one point, 45 minutes ahead. Then, in the last three sessions, things bogged down horribly. The faculty members in attendance, who had been contributing to irrelevant discussion all day, ramped up the efforts to be the bane of my existence and turned three sessions that should have taken a grand total of 30 minutes, tops, into an hour and 15 minute affair.
First, there was the policies regarding students' confidentiality. All this part required was a quick review of the little paper it was on, for us to sign, saying we agreed to follow it, and that was it. Instead, faculty became concerned with the minutiae of which forms were necessary for a dependent student versus an independent one, and so forth, the answer to all of which was: it's not your concern, you ask the relevant department if so-and-so's parents have permission to their academic records and wait on their reply.
Then there was the nice lady from the on campus writing center. She finished her spiel in under five minutes. Then faculty started asking her inane questions like: Could your tutors help foreign students? What about partially deaf students? What about fully deaf students? And so on for an extra fifteen minutes.
And then there was the be-all-end-all of time wasters: the question and answer period. We the grad students amassed a grand total of one question we wanted answered. They hemmed and hawed over it a bit, but it still took under five minutes (if you couldn't tell by now, at this point I was watching each minute pass in painful agony). Apparently, we didn't ask enough questions, and hadn't dithered away enough time, because the faculty had to bring up a couple random things that they thought were genius enough to share. And then one guy in particular brought the house down: He first said he had a question he wanted addressed, and then gave back story to his question for ten full minutes, inserting occasional questions into the back story, and then continued to frame his question for another five minutes.
And then the guy in charge of the Q&A had the unenviable task of trying to filter out all the inane bullshit and actually answer the question, which I'll be damned if I even know what it was anymore.
Beau, on his worst day, was never as much of a dead-horse beater as this guy is. I am looking forward, so much, to sitting in on staff meetings where this will go on for far too long. About half way through the day, I realized that most of what was going on was the faculty telling each other stories, with little to no relevance to us. It was a colossal business meeting, that is to say, a hugantic, ginormic, waste of everyone's time.
Now, if I hear someone bitch about an hour long chapter I will smack them... hard...
Ok, my whining is over. I'm done, I'm spent, I'm going to go get some cheese to balance all of this out.
All the best to you and yours, may all your meetings be brief and efficient.
-TES
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