Howdy, howdy! What’s everyone up to on this lovely day? Not much going on here. I’ve been hermitting hard. I’m not really avoiding people, but I’m not initiating contact much. Sorry! But anyway… tomorrow is Jenae’s birthday, so I have to take a minute to squee! Happy early birthday, Sis! Love yous! And now back to our regularly scheduled program: the ask me about stuff. I’ve done 13, 31, and 41. Today is 54. Next week is 7. Feel free to pick a number or two to add to the list. The prompts are in the post for 13. Today, apparently we’re going all the way back to school with… “Ask me about what I hate most about school.”
School was a long time ago. Like 8.5 years ago. That’s weird to think about. But I suppose what I hated the most were group projects. I’m very much the kind of person who sits back and let’s the group decide on the hierarchy, then I volunteer for the key elements (mostly putting together the slideshows on top of whatever section I’m assigned), so that I have a reason to relentlessly prod people to finish their part in a timely manner and get it to me. And if the leader was useless, I’d gently usurp the role because no one else actually cared. I wasn’t about to get a bad grade because other people sucked. The only group project I didn’t mind was for a research methods class. We had to work together on the experiment, but were only graded on our individual papers. That was a nice assignment.
I also despised prissy professors. The ones who acted like they were superior to everyone and if they didn’t like something, it was drivel. Those people in general annoy me, but teachers like that were the worst. Like the first year creative writing professor I had at SMU who told me I was a great writer, but that genre fiction was an unworthy pursuit. Like… my dude. All those authors of old that you worship were the pop fiction writers of their time. Chill. My classmates seemed to enjoy my stories, weirdness and all, so it was like fifteen people vs. one. I think I did okay with pleasing my audience.
And teachers who don’t clearly tell you their needs/expectations then blame you when they screw up. Like the statistics teacher who “didn’t know” that I would need to take my tests in the disability center despite the email I sent before the semester even started, the letter I hand delivered the first day of class outlining my accommodations, and the first test that I took in the disability office with no issues whatsoever. She just forgot and got mad at me for “not telling” her. If she needed reminders, she should’ve admitted it. None of my other teachers ever needed them, so I didn’t think about it. Needless to say, I inundated her with reminders for every test afterwards to the point where I knew I was being annoying and asked every teacher after that semester up front if they would like me to remind them about tests. Don’t yell at your students because you forgot something. Ugh.
I got lucky. There wasn’t too much to hate about school in general. I like learning. Most of my issues had to do with accessibility on the campuses, which varied from school to school. What did you hate about school? As always, feel free to share your responses and whatnot here or on my social media pages!
Shawna's Blog of Doom 