standards of excellence

so yesterday i was freaking out about my summer class. our prof sent out an email last week with the syllabus and slides for the first class. she assigned homework to be done by the first class

WTF who does that?! clearly, she's hardcore and will eat me alive before i can say "present"

wrong! she's an adorable little korean woman with a heavy accent and a psych nerd sense of humor. i love her already. not just cause i want to put her in my pocket. she has incredibly high standards, which i appreciate immensely. my last few grad classes have seemed like child's play. presentations are mediocre (who doesn't dress for a presentation?), papers are slapped together and everything might as well be marked with smiley stickers in the margins. i'm always amazed at the caliber of work churned out by some of these people. we're GRAD students; get your shit together. even some of our professors haven't been all there. i had two notable women while i was at loyofuckyourselfla who had no clue what was going on most of the time. don't ask questions because they won't get answered. don't study for the exam because material you need to know for your job will not be on the test. don't worry about being late cause drunky will probably still arrive 10 minutes after you... all sorts of bs that shouldn't have happened to any student at any age. it was ridiculous, and i'm glad (now) i got out

dr. Y is the first professor who has laid out in ridiculous detail what she expects of us. she also emphasized what she considers academic dishonesty, even though it's not considered plagiarism. quoting a million things does not show your understanding of the work and is definitely misrepresenting yourself :p it's also poor writing. if you can't integrate the ideas in your head, you probably aren't integrating all those quotes either. sitting in class last night reminded me of being at juniata. no one ever told us explicitly the quality of work that was expected of us, but you knew that you had to perform to the best of your abilities. i have not been doing my best because i haven't been expected to be my best since i graduated in 2006 (holy fuck, i suddenly feel old)

this is the first class where i already feel challenged. the accelerated schedule is one thing, but being forced to really think about what i'm learning/doing is a happy change from the last year-ish of mindless tasks. i'm finally back where i feel comfortable: making sense out of psychology instead of reciting back what we all already know. here's to real learning again :D

happy national grammar day

yea, it's a real day :p don't believe me? check it out :) so in honor of one of my favorite aspects of grade school english, here are links to my favorite grammatical things from the internets [please note that my love does not extend to all punctuation, and i don't necessarily use super awesome grammar when blogging... but you probably noticed that already]

Stuff White People Like - Grammar: "it is impossible for a white person to turn down the opportunity to proofread" (lol that's me)

William Strunk's The Elements of Style: "aims to lighten the task of instructor and student by concentrating attention ... on a few essentials"

and everyone's favorite... the oatmeal! motherfuckin' semicolon; apostrophe and misspelled words with a test

there's lots of fun to be had over at the national grammar day site, but i will fight you on some of this list: Top Ten Grammar Myths
#8 i'm disappointed in Merriam-Webster for allowing this crap to be added to the dictionary. people, i will red ink this when i proofread your papers (because of course you would ask me to proofread; reference item one above)
#2 is still extremely awkward to me. however (yea, #9!), i've noticed that i'm splitting more when i write, and i HATE it. that's a red ink
#1 red ink! the point of a paper is to sound pretentious. pretentious snoots don't end sentences with prepositions :p
i realize the list is referring to regular conversations, but some fools like to apply the above to academic work. please don't do it; you just look ridiculous

this ends your grammar lesson of the day. i hope you had as much fun as i did. now, i'm off to hunt down a grammartini :)