Rants and babbles
Jul. 9th, 2003 08:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirAd Mundo Exteriore,
Driver's education is such a waste of my parents' money. We're sitting in lecture at 8:00 in the morning just to hear a wretched teacher read out of the textbook and tell horrifying stories about how we can all get into accidents. Oh, and watch Nova films about car safety. The film is good, of course, but not worth all this money. (I could buy the tape instead, much more cheaply.)
Tutoring is going to exhaust me. Completely. I don't know if I'm pushing them too hard or not, but if their parents want them to learn the magic formula for success in school, I only know one method. It consists of: (1) enjoying learning strange and curious facts, (2) reading voraciously, (3) augmenting a small innate talent for mathematics with humongous amounts of practice and (4) spending all your energy on school projects, papers, essays, etc. Now, most of my students fail at one step or another in this tried and proven recipe, most notably (4). I don't know about you, but when I write an essay, I do put in a minimal amount of work in it. I do not try to fool my teacher (in this case, tutor) with silly tactics like large margins, large font and extra long headings. I also do look over the essay at least once to see if I've made any glaring spelling errors. Is that too much to expect? And if I say three pages, I don't mean write two pages and five lines! I mean, fill up three pages or more. Preferably more. If they want to be normal, average students, I wouldn't even object. But their parents want me to turn them into top-of-the-class model students (i.e. the mini copies of a heavily idealized me). Argh. I admit that the world's not fair, and it's easier if you have natural talent. When you have less talent, you make up for it with extra work.
All these people say that the really smart people don't study at all. Well, I do admit that I don't need to study for a chemistry test quite as much as other people, but that's because I do all the homework and actually make an effort to remember the material past the exam. I worked hard for academic success, and it exasperates me when kids think that not putting in effort means they're being smart. Well, maybe I'm not smart but at least I didn't bomb out during high school expecting innate intelligence to carry me all the way through.
I badly needed to rant about that. Sorry.
I'm writing Lyd-chan a letter of epic proportions in my head. I hope I'll actually remember to write it down. >_> I finished Lost in a Good Book today, which was very whimsical and satisfying. The ending sputtered out a little, though, and it was so obvious that Fforde is planning to make it into a series. I finished the second volume of Shaman King too, learning the Korean word for fury or rage in the process. -_- I'm also up to the playlist on the Sai skin, though the equalizer buttons are giving me trouble (and where are you, oniichan, to give me advice on how to fix them?) and it's an unusually conventional skin. (For my style, I mean.) I sent in the Eriol battle graphic to oniichan, who will hopefully actually work on the thing instead of making yet another wallpaper. -_- And yes, I started a skin of Gaara, from Naruto. It has freaky colors.
I was going to write about something important, but I forgot.
...Tari
Driver's education is such a waste of my parents' money. We're sitting in lecture at 8:00 in the morning just to hear a wretched teacher read out of the textbook and tell horrifying stories about how we can all get into accidents. Oh, and watch Nova films about car safety. The film is good, of course, but not worth all this money. (I could buy the tape instead, much more cheaply.)
Tutoring is going to exhaust me. Completely. I don't know if I'm pushing them too hard or not, but if their parents want them to learn the magic formula for success in school, I only know one method. It consists of: (1) enjoying learning strange and curious facts, (2) reading voraciously, (3) augmenting a small innate talent for mathematics with humongous amounts of practice and (4) spending all your energy on school projects, papers, essays, etc. Now, most of my students fail at one step or another in this tried and proven recipe, most notably (4). I don't know about you, but when I write an essay, I do put in a minimal amount of work in it. I do not try to fool my teacher (in this case, tutor) with silly tactics like large margins, large font and extra long headings. I also do look over the essay at least once to see if I've made any glaring spelling errors. Is that too much to expect? And if I say three pages, I don't mean write two pages and five lines! I mean, fill up three pages or more. Preferably more. If they want to be normal, average students, I wouldn't even object. But their parents want me to turn them into top-of-the-class model students (i.e. the mini copies of a heavily idealized me). Argh. I admit that the world's not fair, and it's easier if you have natural talent. When you have less talent, you make up for it with extra work.
All these people say that the really smart people don't study at all. Well, I do admit that I don't need to study for a chemistry test quite as much as other people, but that's because I do all the homework and actually make an effort to remember the material past the exam. I worked hard for academic success, and it exasperates me when kids think that not putting in effort means they're being smart. Well, maybe I'm not smart but at least I didn't bomb out during high school expecting innate intelligence to carry me all the way through.
I badly needed to rant about that. Sorry.
I'm writing Lyd-chan a letter of epic proportions in my head. I hope I'll actually remember to write it down. >_> I finished Lost in a Good Book today, which was very whimsical and satisfying. The ending sputtered out a little, though, and it was so obvious that Fforde is planning to make it into a series. I finished the second volume of Shaman King too, learning the Korean word for fury or rage in the process. -_- I'm also up to the playlist on the Sai skin, though the equalizer buttons are giving me trouble (and where are you, oniichan, to give me advice on how to fix them?) and it's an unusually conventional skin. (For my style, I mean.) I sent in the Eriol battle graphic to oniichan, who will hopefully actually work on the thing instead of making yet another wallpaper. -_- And yes, I started a skin of Gaara, from Naruto. It has freaky colors.
I was going to write about something important, but I forgot.
...Tari
