Apologies

[felis_ultharus]

Sorry I haven't been around much -- especially sorry, foi_nefaste for not making it to coffee. I'm stressed because my professor (the one I've lost respect for) has scheduled a class on Easter Monday, and today's subject is the basis of my essay, so the pressure's on me to show my stuff.

Currently I have no stuff -- I've read most of the material, but haven't had time to think it through.

On top of it, tomorrow we're going to have a guest for my Sir Gawain course -- my old Chaucer teacher, who's retiring soon. In fact, our assigned reading for the week was his 30 page essay.

He's a great guy -- really nice, really friendly, really helpful (or he tries to be) -- but the essay is one of the worst efforts I've ever read, and I've marked undergrad papers. On top of all its other problems of form and content, it had no thesis -- a cardinal sin in essay writing.

Worse, its arguments are unbelievably weak. The repeated alliterations of the letter "L" (the good professor claims) are meant to represent the moral uprightness of the poem, and furthermore the way the "L" is locked to other letters in a certain Gothic font indicates the interconnectedness of society -- a font that the only surviving copy of the poem was not written in. Seriously, it reads like something I'd write in a satire of university life.

My intellectual integrity won't let me fawn all over this paper, and my compassion won't let me rip into him. I don't think I'm going to get away with saying nothing, so I'm going to have to find some way to fashion very diplomatic criticisms in the next 24 hours.

Comments

[helenseidolon.livejournal.com]

What? Class TODAY? Is that even allowed?

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Probably not, but the guy's a really bad professor -- knowledgable, but that's about it.

Matt thinks I should talk to the academic dean about it. I'm a little nervous about that, but we'll see.

[helenseidolon.livejournal.com]

But but but... isn't the school closed? I mean, it's an official no class day.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

He thinks it's open. If we wind up out in the street while it rains, that'll be another thing on the teacher evaluation.

[helenseidolon.livejournal.com]

Hah. Good luck.

[jenjoou.livejournal.com]

I think Matt's right. He's not allowed to have class on a holiday. Doubt that Concordia will even let you into the building. James had to get special permission to go to in the lab today so that his group could finish the project they're presenting on Wednesaday.

What does your course outline say? If it says that today's a holiday he's breached a contract and you have every right to omplain... You should complain anyways. And destroy him in the course evaluations.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Well, we managed to get in, though getting to the 6th floor was some trouble. It was a little less painful than most of that guy's classes -- I'd actually been reading the material.

I'm more miffed about how dishonesty is actually a course requirement with him.

[infinitecomplex.livejournal.com]

Hey - Jen said you were after photographs, so here are the links to the relevant journal entries:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/snowdaemon/80414.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/snowdaemon/83088.html

Hope your class went okay, if the school did turn out to be open...

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Thanks! They're great. :)

(I've added you to my friends' list, btw)