TUTE-MANIA!
Tutes! Tute for three of my four subjects started this week, and boy what excitement and merriment they caused.
Long time readers of treading water, or the tread for those streetwise readers, will be aware of my on-again off-again relationship with stats. Well it's finally working out for me and stats, with me actually losing my stats tutorial virginity this week.
I'm glad to say it didn't hurt a bit - I went all the way and it was great.
I showed up with all my work done, took notes, corrected ogives, fabulous.
The tutes are fairly stand and deliver, leaving me little room for witty character analysis of my fellow students, however there are three guys with 'celebrity hair' in the front row who are sure to keep me entertained with their ongoing 'ohmigawd Steve, that's maaad' behaviour. And there is the guy, replete in shredded adidas tracksuit pants, which I sat next to, who wrote out the calculations and answers to all the set questions during the tute.
I guess we'll see how that works out for him, but my tip is for me to continue bagging him on here for the next 14 weeks, if only to enhance my feelings of superiority.
My international ethics tute is taken by the lecturer, who is pretty good. About 10 minutes into the tute, one of the guys with celebrity hair from the Stats tute walked in asking if this was an 'um, accounting tute'. Briefly I was able to relive past Arts student glories, as I joined in the laugh of a combined group of Arts students, desperate for any small victory we could take over those Business students, with their degrees that can actually get them a job, bastards.
I'm actually really enjoying this subject so far; although I am suffering from the flashbacks to a Philosophy course I took way, way back in 2003. Ethics is a classic 'there is no right answer' course, which is almost similar to Philosophy, which is a classic 'there is one right wrong answer' course. Highlights of that course included the tutor saying, 'But what if I say the sky is green?' and me being unable to open my mind beyond the simple point: 'but it isn't."
More on the Ethics tute in another post.
I managed to be late for the political culture tutorial, being unable to find the room and having to talk myself through a small of anxiety at having to walk in late in front of the tute group. I missed the tutor's spiel about what her PhD subject is, but was able to garner from the 45 minutes of tutor led discussion that it related in some massive way to the Aboriginal people of this fine land.
We've scored another exceedingly old mature aged student in this class, who may very well have received the baton from the object of Ruth's ongoing frustrations. She is still pretty sharp though, and got Stuck Into The Howard Government (tm) on a few occasions, which is tantamount to a pass in this class. Notably opinionated was Mr. Brown Boatshoes, who saw fit to dedicate three expanses of classroom discussion to giving us a breakdown on how 'we can never over throw the two major parties, THERE CAN NEVER BE CHANGE!'
On the third time, when he punctuated an extraordinarily valid and highly informative point I made about compulsory voting, I gave him the sort of look-and-non-response that is sure to see him keen to remind me that 'THERE CAN NEVER BE CHANGE!' again and again through the year.
At some point, during a surprisingly animated analysis of compulsory voting, and whether of not it actually constitutes and infringement of a citizen's liberty, the exceedingly old mature aged student looks over her glasses at the young and indie tutor and says:
"Well, in America, some groups have done very well out of being able to mobilise to vote, like the Negroes."
A full seven or eight seconds of silence evaporates before the tutor replies correctively, "you mean, African Americans."
Long time readers of treading water, or the tread for those streetwise readers, will be aware of my on-again off-again relationship with stats. Well it's finally working out for me and stats, with me actually losing my stats tutorial virginity this week.
I'm glad to say it didn't hurt a bit - I went all the way and it was great.
I showed up with all my work done, took notes, corrected ogives, fabulous.
The tutes are fairly stand and deliver, leaving me little room for witty character analysis of my fellow students, however there are three guys with 'celebrity hair' in the front row who are sure to keep me entertained with their ongoing 'ohmigawd Steve, that's maaad' behaviour. And there is the guy, replete in shredded adidas tracksuit pants, which I sat next to, who wrote out the calculations and answers to all the set questions during the tute.
I guess we'll see how that works out for him, but my tip is for me to continue bagging him on here for the next 14 weeks, if only to enhance my feelings of superiority.
My international ethics tute is taken by the lecturer, who is pretty good. About 10 minutes into the tute, one of the guys with celebrity hair from the Stats tute walked in asking if this was an 'um, accounting tute'. Briefly I was able to relive past Arts student glories, as I joined in the laugh of a combined group of Arts students, desperate for any small victory we could take over those Business students, with their degrees that can actually get them a job, bastards.
I'm actually really enjoying this subject so far; although I am suffering from the flashbacks to a Philosophy course I took way, way back in 2003. Ethics is a classic 'there is no right answer' course, which is almost similar to Philosophy, which is a classic 'there is one right wrong answer' course. Highlights of that course included the tutor saying, 'But what if I say the sky is green?' and me being unable to open my mind beyond the simple point: 'but it isn't."
More on the Ethics tute in another post.
I managed to be late for the political culture tutorial, being unable to find the room and having to talk myself through a small of anxiety at having to walk in late in front of the tute group. I missed the tutor's spiel about what her PhD subject is, but was able to garner from the 45 minutes of tutor led discussion that it related in some massive way to the Aboriginal people of this fine land.
We've scored another exceedingly old mature aged student in this class, who may very well have received the baton from the object of Ruth's ongoing frustrations. She is still pretty sharp though, and got Stuck Into The Howard Government (tm) on a few occasions, which is tantamount to a pass in this class. Notably opinionated was Mr. Brown Boatshoes, who saw fit to dedicate three expanses of classroom discussion to giving us a breakdown on how 'we can never over throw the two major parties, THERE CAN NEVER BE CHANGE!'
On the third time, when he punctuated an extraordinarily valid and highly informative point I made about compulsory voting, I gave him the sort of look-and-non-response that is sure to see him keen to remind me that 'THERE CAN NEVER BE CHANGE!' again and again through the year.
At some point, during a surprisingly animated analysis of compulsory voting, and whether of not it actually constitutes and infringement of a citizen's liberty, the exceedingly old mature aged student looks over her glasses at the young and indie tutor and says:
"Well, in America, some groups have done very well out of being able to mobilise to vote, like the Negroes."
A full seven or eight seconds of silence evaporates before the tutor replies correctively, "you mean, African Americans."
posted by The Student at 8:23 PM
3 Comments:
I'm glad I'm not the only one talking myself thru the baby steps at uni...
My first tute, we talked for twenty minutes about Jane Austen, then one of the lads in the back said "um, is this Management?"
I don't remember if he had celebrity hair.
Ha ha, excellent Ms. Tartan. Nice to have you stop by!
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