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2-19-00 (6:57 a.m.) I did something I rarely do, and re-read my last journal entry. I would like to make a clarifying statement....all night in the AURICS room was Sunday night. I actually spent monday night in my own bed, a feat not performed again until last night. I've had all sorts of stuff due...English Papers (another A-), Assembler Program (It worked) and people wanting help on their programs. I wonder if Joe and Colin completed theirs. I've felt really stressed out recently, with everyone wanting to know why they had their grade, and a few people I've had to change the grade, and I need to talk to Carol Miller about some of the others. There's a department-wide policy: Code that doesn't compile gets a zero. A little harsh? Perhaps. Consider however, that when a program comiles, that only means that they didn't break any of the rules of c++, it doesn't have to do anything to compile. The english statement "Icecream is the smartest vegetable" doesn't mean anything, but it follows the rules of english: Subject, Verb. C++ rules, are about that simple, until you start building in weird environments. I believe, the department uses g++ to comiple the programs, it might be using code warrior *gag* that's something I need to ask about. In some comilers, Grading hassles aside, I'm enjoying my TA stuff...and the students seem to really like me. I realize that's a dumb sounding statement, but I'll explain. I gather, from talking to students that I'm helping, that most of the TAs do cookbook help. They tell the students: All you need to do is divide that, then mod that, then repeat that until you're done. Something useless like that. I try to let them figure it out (which is what we're "supposed" to do). People who come in on Tuesdays and Thursdays, are usually people who know a lot, but not quite everything they need to know. One problem for the program that was due This morning at 7, was an algorithm where they need to determine how much RAM to give a customer. The user inputs a number (357 maybe) but RAM only comes in powers of 2, and for this problem we were restricted to 128, 64, 32, and 8 meg chips. There were 2 ways to determine how much RAM they needed one was to give them the least memory, adding another 8 chip if they needed it. The hard one asked them to round up to the next higher chip, resulting in more memory, but fewer chips, and it was usually a cheaper option. This one gave people trouble, because they were trying to code it, and think about it at the same time. You can't tell a computer to "round up to the next chip". You can just barely tell it to the nearest integer. I would tell them to stop looking at the computer, and try to explain to me the reason to choose a 64 chip, when they had 40 megs still not accounted for. I could usually get the answer I was looking for: It's bigger than 32. When I did, they felt like they had accomplished something, and knew what was going on, and I felt good 'cause they'd found the answer they needed. There's always a sense of accomplishment when a program you're helping with works, whether you wrote any of the code or not. Some students were trying to pass everything by reference, a bad idea in so many ways. I told them to fix that first, then try to debug their code. Most of their problems were solved that way, and the rest were easier to find. I was not the first TA they'd talked to, I was the first who had really helped them. There's not a lot fo formal training for this position, so I was kind of unsure of myself when I started, but I seem to be doing better than a lot of people, so I'm not too worried anymore. This week I worked almost 8-11 on thursday (when I'm only scheduled till 10) and 2-4 on friday (scheduled till 3) helping people with last-minute problems. One guy, whom I spent most of my time friday helping asked: "Do you give any tutorial sessions, like for money." I told him I didn't, but he could come on Tuesdays and Thursdays for free. Consider that all the students have to go to Lab every week, where they sit and do simple little programs, and tutorials, and that's overseen by a TA, then consider taht all the TAs are required to set up an hour each week, where they sit in the computer labs and help students (these hours are posted). You can get help from a TA at just about any time during just about any day...and this guy wants to pay me. That makes me feel good. Thursday night, around midnight...I'm starting my physics and a couple other things, when I learn that Joe and Colin (and later I learn Angela) are going to SubWay, so I join them. We're sitting there, and Colin's telling his story about how he almost set fire to a forest, so Angela cuts in and starts telling her story about burning some number of acres with a brushfire. I've heard both these stories before, but I wanted to listen to Colin's, so I quietly explained that I was hoping to hear Colin's story before Angela interrupted. If you haven't seen "Fight Club" do so. There's a great quote that goes something like this: "When people think you're going to die, they actually listen to you instead of just waiting for their turn to talk." Listen to a dinner conversation sometimes, often you'll find that each of them is being politely quiet, then jumping back in with the same unrelated stuff they were talking about, before you started talking. This isn't universally true, but it happens a lot. Nobody finishes their story, but we end up discussing people interrupting other people as the only way to get to say anything. Later on, Angela's saying something (I don't remember what) and someone interrupts her, so she yells something loud (again, I don't remember) as an attempt to call attention back to herself, so she can finish. I tell her, I don't like her yelling, then the rest of us go back to interrupting eachother. Angela leaves. When I leave, I expect people to leave me alone. When Angela leaves, she expects at least Joe to follow her and try to make her feel better. He doesn't. I don't blame him. Angela has a tendency to be kind of self-centered, and only notice when things don't go her way, as opposed to when things aren't going our way. It's times like this when she threatens to find new friends. If she doesn't enjoy hanging around us, I think she should do that. I like Angela, and enjoy her company when she's not being moody and self-centered, but if she doesn't like spending time with us, she shouldn't feel that she has to. I once had to bug her for about 2 weeks before she'd tell me what it was she had been trying to say, before she got interrupted. I think she chooses to forget those times when we do listen, in favor if the times we interrupt. Colin and I assured Joe that it was Angela having a lack of perspective, not something he had done. She has a tendency to dump on him, and expect him to just cater to her every whim. You don't always get to say what you wanted to say. I can't remember all the times I tried to say something, got interrupted, and didn't get to tell my story, or share my thought. There are also a lot of times where I say: hey I was talking, or I can see nobody's listening, or mind if I finish, or does anyone want to hear what I was going to say? Sometimes they listen, sometimes they don't. But I'm fairly certain I got better responses then, than when I yelled out across the table for attention. Yelling is a tactic used by people around 5 years of age. It's usually met by something like: "Sweety, Daddy's talking to Mr. Moore. You'll need to wait a minute." I know of no instances where someone in the UN has just yelled into his microphone to get people to listen to him. People don't respond positively to yelling. In an argument, when you get to yelling, the listening part is over. If you're yelling, you're not listening. If you're being yelled at, you're probably not listening either. When Angela yelled out across the table, my gut instincts told me that whatever she was trying to say wasn't important. Later, I felt kind of bad for not standing up for her, and listening, having stood up for Colin when she interrupted. I care about what people have to say, but not when they yell. Kate e-mailed me with plans for prom. The plan is as follows: Dinner with their small group of friends, this is kind of like last year, only I don't think they've had any "I'm not going if so and so goes" situations. The point at which things get interesting, is afterprom (and not that way you sickos). Joe, having graduated and moved on to bigger, and bigger things. Isn't throwing a party this year. Afterprom is planned at Cameron's house. *pauses* Yeah, pretty much. I think under better conditions we could've been good friends. He's a nice guy, and interested in Star Wars and Star Trek, and computers, and other such nerdy things I get into. Unfortunately, last year we found ourselves with conflicting interests. He and I were 2 of the many guys who had hopes of going out with Kate. I think he's the only one who took it personally. The issue is compounded slightly, by the fact that he asked her to prom and she accepted....then we started going out, and plans sort of changed. He kind of gave me the Joe/Adriane treatment. We'd pass in the hall...I'd try to be politely friendly, and he'd find himself staring at the opposite wall. I feel like I'm violating his personal space by going to his house. He knows Kate's coming, so he knows I'm coming. I wonder how he feels about that. I'm sure he'll be polite, and well behaved and all, but I suspect he wishes I wasn't. Whenever I'm in his presence, I can't help but think he's sitting there resenting me. Maybe he's over it by now, we can hope. I still don't have my CDs back, but I have a decent library of mp3s now, so it's not quite so bad as it was. My brother gave them to my mother to mail, but I don't know if she's mailed them yet. I'm going to go check for package slips in the mailbox, and then start my weekend of work. I'll keep you posted ; ) |