I HAVE BEEN IN SCHOOL FOR AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER
that's a scary thought.
But before I talk about my day I have to tell you about my boss's adorable daughter.
Said child just started Kindergarten and she's very excited to be in 'real big kid school' now, so I ask about her teacher and friends and what she did at recess. She goes through her rather rough life of playing on the swings and learning her ABC's. I then tell her that I too, start school. This is the conversation that occurred.
Little girl: "You go to school too!? What grade are you in?"
Me: "Guess."
LG: "Ummm I don't knooowwww...Just tell ME!" (she's a yeller.)
Me: "I have my first day of 17th grade tomorrow." (this was yesterday as her dad brought her to our last day of staff training.)
The look on her face said that I might as well of just told her that I killed Santa Claus and that she was never going to have christmas again.
Sorry to ruin your life, kid. That's what you got to look forward to.
Back to me.
Yeah, first day of grad school, 17th grade. Oh boy.
So grad school is a little different then college. Most classes are held once a week as the students are generally older and have jobs, families, lives that need to be attended to. So my schedule is a little odd, I have 1 class every day of the week except for Tuesdays (means I can have rager Mondays. woo.) and the classes are from 2-3 hours long.
GAG.
My first class is like any other first day. You pick a spot in the back, scope out the other students, judge them on appearance and seat placement i.e. he's obvi the kiss-up as he's the one wearing a business suit and in the front row. probably going to ask a lot of questions too. def gonna hate that guy. (before you get all judgy-wudgy on me, you ALL have done it. after 17 years I'm just better at it than you.)
Professor walks in 3min late. Sweet, a 3-5minute grace period. He's a particularly portly man and he hands out the syllabus, which is unfortunately rather thick. Perfect. He starts with explaining who he is, how important he is, how long he's been teaching blah blah blah etc, etc.
He then goes over the rules for the class. 1. Don't be late (ha, you screwed that one up yourself, bud) 2. Do all the reading. 3. If you are late you'll be called upon for that period to answer questions about the reading. Wait. What? Seriously? Harsh. 4. Don't miss class. Unless you're sick. Or dying. Or know someone who is dying. Or... Ok we get it move on...
We move on to the syllabus.
**Quick back story- In graduate school you are allotted one C letter grade throughout your program. The 2nd C is grounds for getting kicked out and anything less is definitely going to get you kicked to the curb. Just to make this clear... I CANNOT get more than 1 C in the entirety of my 2 years of graduate studies. Only one. Uno. Solo. ONE.
Holy mackerel you've got to be kidding me.
We start on the syllabus and it's the basics, participation, exams, etc. but then there's this section worth quite a lot of our grade. It's called Case Studies. We will examine case files of actual businesses and determine what is wrong with their business, be it financial, marketing, accounting, production, operation whatever, find the problem, find a solution that would best fit, explain how to implement the solution and then PRESENT IT TO THE CLASS with powerpoint.
um.what.
If you're totally off basis with the rest of the class (some will turn in written reports, while some present, it's a guessing game as to which you'll be doing) you get a 0. ZERO. dafuq?? during said presentations it'll be and I am not even slightly joking, he actually said this, "It'll be a shark feeding frenzy. You'll have to defend your solution from your peers and if you are not presenting and do not ask questions you'll lose points as well. The World of Business is full of sharks and only the big ones don't get eaten. I'm training you to be a big shark."
Dude. Whoa. Slow your roll. A shark feeding frenzy? I get it, it's tough in the real world but you WANT us to be assholes???
Oh and he doesn't give you the readings. That'd be a violation of copyrights and so we have to find them in the library system. Ok that's great for keeping costs low but I have this thing called a life, a job and oh other classes! We have over 40 pages to read by Wednesday (this is my only 2x/week class. dammit) and that's just the lowest amount I'll read all semester.
He pauses and goes around the room asking where people are from, what our experiences are, etc. He gets to me, I say California and he says "oh so do you know what 'pop' is?"
Excuse me? Pop? Like the noise? Feeling kinda on the spot and like a deer in the headlights I stutter and manage an 'um..no."
He then asks the kiss-up from earlier and Kiss-up says haughtily "It's soda, soda-pop, a carbonated beverage, often consumed with fast food." Like he's talking right out of Webster's dictionary. (tell me now that I'm too judgmental and shouldn't hate the guy hmm??)
So now I'm that DUMB blonde from California. Awesome.
He then finishes class saying how this class is where students get the most C's and below. Shocker.
I get out of there as soon as he lets us. I bolt, no, basically sprint to the exit. Gee, that was fun.
But I shook it off and headed to work determined to just forget about it. And I did. Today's are days why I love my new job.
We're still in start mode but things are quickly coming together. I was able to set up a work schedule for my staff, get some marketing for IM's done and finish creating the online registration system. Yay for being productive! But during all that I got to visit and get to know the office staff more AND be there for when a shipment came in. A shipment of new IM equipment. Why is that so exciting??
Because the GA's and anyone who is around gets to try out the new toys.
This was a new game called fast golf. It's basically like wiffle ball but golf instead so a plastic club (a 5-iron) and a plastic, hollow golf ball that's the size of a baseball. The hole, is like a tent looking contraption that you try to get said golf ball into. Pretty easy right? WRONG! Those little plastic things have no capability of going the way you want it to. Oh and did I mention we were playing in the conference room?? Oh ya. We're swinging away hitting chairs, walls, trash bins,and tables having extreme giggle fits in the middle of the Rec Center. Only 1 person made it, and go figure, it was the girl who never swung a golf club in her life. But it didn't matter because I got to forget about shark feeding frenzies and C grades and the fact that I've been in school for entirely too damn long and just be a silly goofball playing wiffle golf inside an office.
And that's why I love my job.
To be continued!
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