Teamwork DOES Suck: Part 2

September 5th, 2018

I have proof that teamwork is a faux title for an individual process.

And that it sucks!

So, two weeks ago, we had a group project in class and an individual project at the same time. Both powerpoint.

The group powerpoint instructed us to build a rough draft of our eventual final powerpoint. Each unit is seven days and, as a group, we looked stupid because we didn’t know how to proceed. Classes start Wednesday, and it was Sunday when I decided to say “Fuck it, this is what the rough draft is going to look like and I created a ten page slide-document with inserted pictures, and a whole lot of filler that literally said “blah, blah, blah” for areas we had nothing written in yet.

So, I submitted it to the group and my expectations were for everyone to fill in more things to make or fix the draft. I stopped looking at it and was expecting the five others to pass it around and adjust it.

Then I went ahead and did my individual project that same day. Another 8-9 slide powerpoint with audio as instructed.

I got an “A” for the Individual Project.

The Team got an “A” for the uploaded rough draft. That was the last I looked at the draft and we had a week break for Labor Day.

Two days ago, I get a call from a chick in my team (since we passed around phone numbers) and she’s like “I don’t know what we’re doing. What do you need me to do to help the group, etc, etc”. Now, in my head, I’m thinking the team contributed to the rough draft I provided. I told her to be calm. This was just a rough draft. We should start filling in the stuff “everyone else” contributed. Just continue from there.

I thought it was odd that she would call me in the first place, but figured since I was the most vocal about bullshit, it may be made sense.

I was wrong.

She called me because I’m doing all the fucking work.

Turns out, when I opened the group powerpoint that was submitted for the grade, the entire fucking powerpoint is all me. Nothing was added or changed. Even all the “Blah” filler was left right where it was. Embarrassing! I even put in a self-deprivation joke that made it clear I was the one who did the slides.

All that was supposed to be replaced or changed by the others.

Nope. As is — submitted and we all got the “A”.

So yeah, guess who they’re looking to get the job done. That’s why I got the phone call.

Most times, I feel I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing in these classes. Yeah, I still get “A” so that last statement doesn’t make sense. I know that. It’s a self-confidence thing that I can’t fix. It’s times when I think I know something, I often fail or get it wrong.

It’s the craziest thing. The moment I say “I know this! I can do this!”, I fail. The more times I say I’m not sure or I don’t know, it just works out and I pass.

Never fails.

So, I spend more of my time being surprised things work out.

That Math Algebra class is coming around again.

It’s all about cheating, though. I tried to study the lowest form of pre-algebra I could and it’s impossible. My mind won’t connect with it.

I’m hiring someone off of craigslist to do the weekly assignments and I’m not giving a fuck.

What Does a Racist Feel?

July 14th, 2018

Here I am: another weekend cooped up in front of this computer trying to learn Algebra from the ground up. I’m using the Khan Academy website for a lot of help. Regardless, I can’t stand being around math for longer than a few minutes.

Every video I listen to and quiz I take feels like rubbing stroking a cat’s fur backward; against the grain, sort of speak. My flesh is crawling. My head hurts from the attempt to soak in ridiculous equations that I don’t care to retain — or has anything to do with me. I don’t HAVE to know it. I don’t WANT to know about it. It’s not a matter of ‘fear’, but the adaptation of associating with higher math is against everything that is within me. All I hear, as hard as I try, is a jumble of numbers that will never connect with me. in comparison to things that DO connect easily with me — words, sentences, and paragraphs — math is the polar opposite.

With those feelings exposed, as I do, I looked at how those feelings relate to others. That above paragraph likely, without a doubt, details what someone who is deemed a ‘racist’ feels about other races. We like to throw it around that fear and anger is what breeds that kind of person, but consider the possibility of genuinely born having opposing rejection.

It’s not too hard of a stretch to imagine. As humans, we master our DNA for generations passing down traits, physical and mental so why not a molded preference to auto-hate something. Why are a lot of creative people born into one family with the occasional one born without a creative bone in their body? Why can one person swim in an ocean of math like a fish and the same person crash and burn in other subjects? I wrote about the roles life dishes out to us. This is just one consideration and, considering how many people out there ‘hate’ based on color, it kind of reasons with the numbers.

We can take a full family of generational racists and think their next child will come out one to because of the way the family teaches him or her. Come to find out, no matter how much they are exposed to it, they still reject it. It happens but that story is seldom told. No matter how long and hard I reject math, my daughters are good with it. My son isn’t. So on and so forth.

Hammering into it every day and it’s just. not. sticking. It repulses me.

I reject it like racists reject others.

Both of us are losing out in growth.

Algebra Again.

July 8th, 2018

My instructor is a prick. He’s someone who knows and loves this stuff … and has an air about him that suggests “fuck you if you don’t know what I know.” If you saw his pictures, he looks like that social outcast that mastered his ‘thing’ and suffers no one because no one suffered him.

If I get a C out of this class, I’ll be happy. Shooting for an “A”, but the trouble is like all trouble I have with instructors: they prefer to cast an opinion rather than a rubric-based grade.

I’m going to try not to complain much more about algebra. It takes away from my actual study of this crap. Thus far, I passed along my homework to a few people who ‘should’ have known this stuff and they all haven’t a clue and admit they haven’t used algebra since high school.

So it’s confirmed: Algebra is like breathing. We do it every day— but should we have to remember to actually think about breathing, we wouldn’t like it. It’s not natural and we will end up being uncomfortable. Algebra is best kept a hidden language that no one thinks to use unless he is in NASA. All other jobs and places, it’s worthlessly thought about.

Which makes people like this dweeb instructor so happy. We’re forced to take his class. For the next five weeks, he’s the master.

I’m still cheating. Fuck him. The MOST I’m learning from Algebra is the proper method to stick into a calculator and provide the answer needed. Anything else is bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

Algebra Sucks

July 4th, 2018

I’m in this really advanced Algebra class that doesn’t start off with any remedial basics; just throws us into fucking equations that are just CRAZY. Way beyond anything I ever needed before, and will never use in the future.

I’ve stripped the internet of every ounce of algebra assistance and calculators I can get my hands on and it’s like my mind just can’t process this shit. Mostly because I’m feeling it’s shit I will never use. The fuck am I going to need to find the fucking slope intercept for? They argue that we use algebra every day, but I guaran-fucking-tee to you that we don’t break down what we do into fucking algebra expressions for shit.

So, I have a talent for writing, I have original storytelling abilities, and I can’t make a living writing but I have to force feed this math shit I will never use in order to be accepted into society with passing grades?

I’m going to finish this course and never need to use this shit again. For Christ’s sake, I never had to use it since fucking high school.

So, I’m cheating. Calculators, anyone who knows this shit, I don’t care. I’m getting an A out of this class one way or another.

Positive Slow Vibes

January 28th, 2018

Grades continue to soar. But coming up next week: biology and bio-lab. How lab is done online, remains to be seen.

And Math. If my degree program switch is to really happen as planned (I’m hearing March 2018), I’ll be getting College Algebra and Survey Calculus. I suck at math and this should be interesting.

Meanwhile, I still have nothing to report except that the job search is the usual: no responses or the occasional “Sorry, but we decided to etc, etc, etc.” Not giving up. Just trying to stay positive.

Keep in mind, my wife is still working so let the record show this is how I’m still surviving. It’s only been thirty-days since the last job. I’m anticipating a new job come February. Check back with me on that one in a couple of weeks.

While at home, I’m into school work and the project. Calling it ‘the project’ is unnecessarily mysterious and annoying but better to just leave it hanging and anonymous than early posting details that may or may not come to fruition. Bare with me for a few months longer — I’m actually on a set timeline I made to accomplish key steps of it.

I’m proud to say I’m on time. I set realistic goals and considering the algebra will come in handy (yep! Found a real world need for it’s use and you have to be an engineer to want to use it! After all, I am building something mechanical) — it seems what I’m doing is preordained or pleasantly coincidental.

So, in regards to the project, today I actually saw it coming together. Like, off-paper and the framework there. I’m actually doing it and I’m happy about it.

This weekend I’ve realized how much I stay in. With no friends and no desire to socialize, yesterday I felt trapped in my own apartment. The weather is okay. I could have gone to the library. I watched all the “Family Guy” I could possibly download. School work is all caught up and all I do is focus on mechanical engineering.

I admit, I could use a muse — a slim bodied, sexy chick — but I’ve learned my lesson over the years. Pussy is a distraction and nothing gets done. Good pussy stops all progress cold.

Get the money/fame/progress FIRST.