Blind

I personally think that most professors are blind. A few professors, the truely great ones, are the ones who can actually see and empathise. I'm taking this class, my professor is reviewing for the first exam of the quarter, and all he keeps saying is how fundamental and elementary this all is. How its stuff we all should sorta know already and have no trouble figuring out. Now this is a grad course, so if that premise were true then why would I take this course? School should never be about telling you things you already know, it should be about expanding things. Next, honestly, these things are fundamental to a materials specialist. I don't even think Mechanical engineers or stress engineers go into this level of detail or know this much about all the different subjects. The crystaline structures of the materials? The complex costing structures based on economics and variable costs. The different names for the different stages of a material as it goes through a heating and cooling process... some of this is simple, some of this is not. But for an introductory class that is a survey of processes that is open to grad students from all different backgrounds (as the prof said during the introduction to the course) this is way to detailed.

And you know what? I'm okay with it being difficult, that doesn't bother me nearly as much as a class that is taught as simply throwing up some slides to cover things I've never seen before and then before the final to be berrated by the fact that this is easy. It's like saying that figuring out your taxes are easy, you just have to pay a percentage of your income, no worries. (oh but I expect you to know all the fine print that says there are changes to be made if you have children, or are married, have solar panels, were blind and born after 1985, live in an area with more than 12 traffic lights and so forth, but don't worry its something I expect you can do easily)

This prof is the king of being both condescending and heart pounding at the same time. He told us to pay attention to todays lecture, and in an email it say "TIME WILL BE CRITICAL FOR COMPLETION OF THIS EXAM", followed by a review which was nothing but "don't read to much, this is all simple, I just expect you to know what you should already know"

Tomorrow at lunch will be me taking all of the slides and stuff and making a study sheet (because there are tons of definitions and equations to remember, closed book and all) followed by an evening of reading through them, maybe talking them out loud, who knows, but I still have no idea what this test will be like and I still think this is a boring and outrageous class. At least the last one was challenging, hard, and had a purpose to my career and further education. This information I'm dumping as soon as I no longer need it for this course.

*sigh*

It's a funny thing, life is

There have always been a few things I've really wanted in life, which I find ironic. I absolutely love technology, from computers to Ipods, and kitchen gadgets and whatever I love it. But I also like doing things the old fashioned way, the hard way, or whatever. I love making my own bread, dying my own yarn, planting crops (though without a yard that's kinda challenging in itself) and doing things like that. Sure I like just ordering Pizza, but I also like baking my own.

For one example, last weekend I got to make cider. Over 7 gallons of it. I was helping out some friends, I chopped apples (removing any rotten bits) I milled apples both in a meat grinder as well as a food processor, and even helped with the pressing. It was a ton of work and a great time and I know a lot of people wouldn't have even considered it. But even though the cider in my fridge might not taste any better compared to the store for people who weren't involved, but to me it tastes even better!