I finally thought of something to write about (if you don't understand that, please refer to my previous post entitled "I don't know what to write about")!!! Well actually, I didn't really think of it. My roommate suggested the topic to me (shout out to Elisse).
So once I was in a french class and our professor gave us a story to read. Basically the story was about this teacher who had a bucket and she put these big rocks in the bucket till they reached the top and asked the class if the bucket were full, to which the class responded "yes". And the teacher was all "No it's not" and so she put some small pebbles in the bucket that filled up the gaps between all the big rocks. And once again informed that class that it wasn't full and this goes on and on with gravel and then sand and then finally she put water in the bucket and finally bucket was "truly" full.
Okay so this story was a metaphor for student's procrastination. You know we students fill up our bucket of time with big rocks like school, sports, other extracurriculars, etc. Then we feel like we have "no time". And then we add on top of these big rocks some pebbles that take up more of our time with things like seeing friends, partying, etc. Okay so you get the point. And so we have these rocks and these pebbles and we think that our time is all taken up and really we have all these empty gaps. We fill them with facebook and tv shows and other "unproductive" behavior.
Basically, I get the point of the story and I get what my french professor was trying to tell us by having us read this story, but I mean its impossible to completely fill your bucket with water! Your going to knock over your bucket and lose all your marbles (or rocks, pebbles, gravel, sand and water that is). I agree that maybe people leave a little too much space in their bucket for fb and other mindless stuff, but you can't always be productive 100% of the time. It's too much. So yeah...I'm gonna end this now before I start coming up with alternative interpretations of the story.
Monday, 31 October 2011
I don't know what to write about
I've been thinking for a very long while about what I should write about and can't think of really anything. One of my roommates suggested that I write about all the things that I cook....but seeing as I've been swamped with exams I haven't been cooking...and when I do it's a grilled cheese...or pasta...not really very exciting. My other roommate suggested that I be like her and write about the topic of her essay for her Human Sexuality and its Problems class....needless to say, I think everyone is grateful that I politely declined this suggestion.
I finally decided to go through my stream of thoughts when deciding what to write about. Generally the first thing that comes to mind is something I want to rant about. Anything that's bothering me that day. Then I quickly realize that if I actually write about those things and the people involved happen to stumble across my blog, I'd be really screwed. So ixnay (I just googled that to verify the spelling of that word and I'm pretty sure that's it...besides the point) on my rants. Plus, I'm sure the TAs for Information Systems don't want to have to read a million blog posts all complaining about this, that, and the next thing. I hate complainers.
Anyways, then once I've decided that I don't want to write about something that's bugging me, I'm generally at a loss for what to write about. Occasionally I have this brilliant idea of using my blog pastes as a way to study for my exams and to just sum up a chapter or a theory in a blog post, but that's kind of boring. And usually I lose the motivation.
Then in between all these unimpressive ideas for blog posts, I start to fret over the fact that I'm really self conscious about my writing and the fear that people will read this. I suppose I should get over this fear.
I'll let you know when I finally decide on what to write about!
I finally decided to go through my stream of thoughts when deciding what to write about. Generally the first thing that comes to mind is something I want to rant about. Anything that's bothering me that day. Then I quickly realize that if I actually write about those things and the people involved happen to stumble across my blog, I'd be really screwed. So ixnay (I just googled that to verify the spelling of that word and I'm pretty sure that's it...besides the point) on my rants. Plus, I'm sure the TAs for Information Systems don't want to have to read a million blog posts all complaining about this, that, and the next thing. I hate complainers.
Anyways, then once I've decided that I don't want to write about something that's bugging me, I'm generally at a loss for what to write about. Occasionally I have this brilliant idea of using my blog pastes as a way to study for my exams and to just sum up a chapter or a theory in a blog post, but that's kind of boring. And usually I lose the motivation.
Then in between all these unimpressive ideas for blog posts, I start to fret over the fact that I'm really self conscious about my writing and the fear that people will read this. I suppose I should get over this fear.
I'll let you know when I finally decide on what to write about!
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Management Core Exams
Before I start my little rant, I would like to point out that I am writing this post before the Information System's midterm (this Friday for those of you who are oblivious). And so I'm not actually talking about the Information Systems midterm, but rather the countless other exams for core management courses I've taken in my past 3 years of studying at McGill (yes, i am a fourth year taking IS...I know).
In addition to Information Systems, I am taking Operations Management this semester. The midterm exam is next Friday. The professor has already warned us that they do not give us enough time to finish the exam so that we shouldn't waste time writing out and explaining our work. Just write down the correct answer (diligently making sure to not have made any calculation errors) and get moving to the next one.
I'm sorry but how on earth is this a good method to test our knowledge!? First of all, it puts all native English speakers at an advantage (and this is coming from a native English speaker!); who necessarily will be able to read and understand questions quicker than non-native speakers. This may not be a huge problem at most schools but McGill has tons of students who's first language isn't english.
And second of all, a student may know exactly how to answer a problem but makes a little mistake while punching numbers into their calculator and POOF! they lose ALL marks.
Absolutely ridiculous....
In addition to Information Systems, I am taking Operations Management this semester. The midterm exam is next Friday. The professor has already warned us that they do not give us enough time to finish the exam so that we shouldn't waste time writing out and explaining our work. Just write down the correct answer (diligently making sure to not have made any calculation errors) and get moving to the next one.
I'm sorry but how on earth is this a good method to test our knowledge!? First of all, it puts all native English speakers at an advantage (and this is coming from a native English speaker!); who necessarily will be able to read and understand questions quicker than non-native speakers. This may not be a huge problem at most schools but McGill has tons of students who's first language isn't english.
And second of all, a student may know exactly how to answer a problem but makes a little mistake while punching numbers into their calculator and POOF! they lose ALL marks.
Absolutely ridiculous....
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Thanksgiving
As an American, I adore Thanksgiving. Basically, it's my favorite holiday of the year. BUT, ever since I started my studies at McGill, I've had to miss out on Thanksgiving, for the pas FOUR YEARS! That's just cruel. But anyways, that's not the point. The point is, I love Thanksgiving and so each year when Canada has its pathetic excuse for a Thanksgiving (sorry, no offense to you canadians, it's just you guys really don't take it quite as seriously as us americans) I always gladly partake in the festivities.
This semester, my roommates and I are living with a french-italian girl who had gone to high school with Marina (one of my roommates...there are a lot). So basically it was her first thanksgiving EVER and since I was the only person not drowning in midterms (or at least not yet unfortunately) I decided to make the traditional thanksgiving meal for her. Okay so semi-traditional. No one really likes the turkey so we just skipped that part all together.So obviously I had to call my mother about a million times to ask her to send me her recipes for everything. So Monday morning (who has Thanksgiving on a Monday!?) I got up all early to start my little adventure. I first decided to make the pumpkin pies (practically the most important part of the meal) and quickly realized that these thanksgiving meal recipes are absolute crap! They just assume that your mother is right there next to you helping you make the meal and thus completely skip out on vital instructions (i.e. how to transfer the rolled out pie dough into the pie pan). And as my mother is an extremely difficult person to get in touch with, this a very inconvenient assumption!
So there I am with rolled out pit dough trying to figure out how to transfer it to the pan without having it break into a million pieces. My brilliant idea was to flip over the parchment paper I had rolled the dough out on really quickly and sort of flop the dough right on in. Basically what I got was a floury mess, but mission accomplished in the end! Et voilà!
(after I covered the kitchen in a beautiful layer of flour, my roommate taught me the trick of folding the dough into quarters and transferring it that way...)
This semester, my roommates and I are living with a french-italian girl who had gone to high school with Marina (one of my roommates...there are a lot). So basically it was her first thanksgiving EVER and since I was the only person not drowning in midterms (or at least not yet unfortunately) I decided to make the traditional thanksgiving meal for her. Okay so semi-traditional. No one really likes the turkey so we just skipped that part all together.So obviously I had to call my mother about a million times to ask her to send me her recipes for everything. So Monday morning (who has Thanksgiving on a Monday!?) I got up all early to start my little adventure. I first decided to make the pumpkin pies (practically the most important part of the meal) and quickly realized that these thanksgiving meal recipes are absolute crap! They just assume that your mother is right there next to you helping you make the meal and thus completely skip out on vital instructions (i.e. how to transfer the rolled out pie dough into the pie pan). And as my mother is an extremely difficult person to get in touch with, this a very inconvenient assumption!
So there I am with rolled out pit dough trying to figure out how to transfer it to the pan without having it break into a million pieces. My brilliant idea was to flip over the parchment paper I had rolled the dough out on really quickly and sort of flop the dough right on in. Basically what I got was a floury mess, but mission accomplished in the end! Et voilà!
 |
| My beautiful pumpkin pies! :) |
(after I covered the kitchen in a beautiful layer of flour, my roommate taught me the trick of folding the dough into quarters and transferring it that way...)
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