Slambang, you're back in school? Phd?

:D

he copied part of my entry instead of quoting it! that's why it is in italics

Ok, gotcha.

Just to be clear, NOBODY GET A PHD WITHOUT TELLING ME!

It's a thing with me. ;)

i'm never going back to school unless it's to teach but a dissertation is expensive to write, the pay is shit after all the effort, and american college brats are lazy and spoiled. so most likely it won't happen

like the student who asks what do they have to do to get an A in the course. i say read the syllabus, do all the assignments, learn the material, write something good. the student then pouts and looks disoriented. like his mammy abandoned him in the park.

wastes of my time. fuck'em.

in all honesty though in a class of 20-25 i'd always find 4 or 5 who were a joy to teach but the administrative trends to cater to the lowest common denominator ("the customer wants an A") are a massive turnoff so fuck noe.

i am doing a computer course at the moment which you pay close to 300 for.

every single week except the 1st there has been at least one person missing. last week there were 6 people missing. this is a course filled up with adults that chose to pay to do it. so many have been missing the course was nearly cancelled.

these people PAID to do the course and can't even be bothered to show up half the time. they can enjoy failing and staying in their service sector jobs until the robots take them. idiots.

great information, a great teacher, a good friendly atmosphere yet some of them can't even be bothered to get their moneys worth.

i get that for the noobs it's maybe a bit steep but the info is very clear and it's not hard to at least memorize enough of it to pass, yet i know some of these dolts are gonna fail.

im sorry noone is going to hold your hand and tell you you're special because you can't be bothered to try and learn.

we also have one guy who must be autistic or aspergers who keeps interrupting with random comments that add nothing and break the flow and are initially delivered in too quiet a voice for anyone to hear then repeated. ok - i get that his brain is wired different and i get that he needs every chance he can get to get some bankable skills and i'm not going to bully the guy - but he's now missing lesson after lesson. peoples patience is being tested by him but he is being helped and his stupid questions are being answered. yet he cant be bothered to show up anymore. i'm not gonna bet on his chances of being employed in IT in the future.

the conclusions i'm drawing from this:

on the first week we all met and each said a few words about why we were doing the course, a large number of people said it was because they were stuck in low wage service sector jobs. we were also told that if enough of us were absent the course would be cancelled.

everyone knew this yet half of them have been off at least once. therefore:

a) they do not give a fuck about the fact others probably poorer than them paid and could lose a year or not get to do the course at all because of their laziness.

b) some of them are prepared to throw money around for the initial good feeling of doing something sensible yet can't actually be bothered to follow through.

c) some of them think so little of the classes they assume they don't need them and can just glide through half assedly and that playing xbox is more worthwhile

d) they don't respect the rest of us or the teacher enough to at least show up and try to listen

fuck 'em. glad the school got their money

Today at the World Stamp Show I got to hear Lawrence Block speak for about 60 minutes on his Keller books. The Keller character is the kind of likeable hitman who collects stamps. The room was mostly full. He had a merch table in back!

If anyone is in NYC this week the World Stamp Show is free at the Javitts through Saturday. I'm not a stamp collector now, I was when I was a kid but I do collect old postcards - but there is a football field of exhibits. I'm going back yet again later this week to walk through them. the show only happens each 10 years. You really don't have to spend a lot if you don't want. There are like 40 world post offices there with new stamps and most have some kind of Star Trek collectible - I bought a Canadian Star Trek holographic card where Kirk and Spock appear and vanish as they jump through the portal of time and also the transporter as you wiggle the card. Lots of cool stuff geared to kids. Stuff like this doesn't happen much anymore, tis a rare experience.

See, I though art people were crazy, but collectible people are way more nuts than creative people. The stuff that people collect is crazy. Today I went to a presentation that described the holdings of the Postmark Museum in OH they want an example of each post mark ever made by a specific post office in the US. Some early postmarks are very cool. The coolest thing I saw so far which just knocks me out is
http://www.columbianstamp.com/?portf...sed-on-wrapper

i really like his matt scudder novels.

-

delillos new one zerk k is BRILLIANT. all yall neighbours need to get on that one

^^ thanks for the delillo rec. haven't read him in ages.

Oh yeah. I heard about it, then forgot. A few summers ago in very similar weather I went through a bunch of DD, capping it off with Underworld. Haven't read him since, but I'll give it a go, even if his last two weren't so good.

Read IT CANT HAPPEN HERE by Sinclair Lewis. Funny, frightening stuff.

meh, i wanted to buy delillo last week but MONEY :(

Go look at your nearest American consulate/ cultural institute/ something/ and see if they have a library.

The day reading becomes solely the province of money and acquisitiveness is the day I kill myself (not really, just exaggerating to make a point).

Lydon it's a real energy

My teaching experience is limited to TA work, manning small 100 level psych classes and instructing senior stats labs (oh, and junior high and HS subbing), so I never had the pleasure of having a student ask me anything like this. But if confronted with a question like that, I'd probably be really nice and explain how assignments and tests are weighted, how attendance and participation factor in, etc. Because the "customer" really does want an A, and unless you're a tenured prof., or working at a private school, you probably want/need them to get an A even more. Their scores will essentially determine your value to the institution. Less so in college than in k-12 perhaps, but it's still going to factor in somewhere.

It basically turns teaching into a commission job in the long run. An organized, big-picture sales gig. Man, that's a depressing thought.

Apparently, on his book tour, he was asked several times about the Blowjob Viv Albertine described giving him in her book. Funny

I was a TA technically but they called me professor because I handled everything from designing the course to consoling girls after their abortions and all that goes in between, like prepping lectures and writing/grading exams.

And I know what you're saying about answering those questions, but-- that's all in the syllabus! So whoever asks hasn't bothered reading it. And I'd even walk them through it on day 1! But on the whole I did enjoy the experience. It's the... being part of a system, with institutional goals, and being pushed towards them like the police department in "the wire", that I didn't like; if that makes sense.

Started on this dense baby today

I enjoyed this book very much. http://rxttbooks.blogspot.com/2016/0...-tells-it.html

excellent stuff!

léelo en español, boricua!



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started reading don delillo's POINT OMEGA last night.

it's hilarious that a work of fiction that begins with what seems a fantastic setting actually uses an almoust journalistic account of attending an installation of Douglas Gordon's "24 Hour Psycho"

i fell asleep soon after but look forward to the next pages

WELL DONE, YOU TRICKSTER!