Update for Everyone IV - Hungover

[Antonio the Sixth]

In admittedly less dramatic news, today I taught my third round of sections, and for the first time I can say it went reasonably well. Far from perfect, mind you (I have that one class that where nobody ever participates and that one where they participate too much and kind of anarchically), but decent. I'm starting to be less stressed out about it.

Out of curiosity, which class?

Intro to Comparative Politics.

[Antonio the Sixth]

In admittedly less dramatic news, today I taught my third round of sections, and for the first time I can say it went reasonably well. Far from perfect, mind you (I have that one class that where nobody ever participates and that one where they participate too much and kind of anarchically), but decent. I'm starting to be less stressed out about it.

Out of curiosity, which class?

Intro to Comparative Politics.

Is it with Thies this quarter? I had him last Fall, and found that class really interesting.

Wait, you're an undergrad at UCLA? Awesome! What's your major? If you're planning to take more poli sci courses maybe you'll have me as a TA some day.

Yeah, it's Professor Thies teaching it. He's also my graduate advisor, which is part of why I wanted to start with this class. And I also found that he has a great teaching style.

[Antonio the Sixth]

On the topic of TAing, I'm receiving my first student essays today (about 40 of them). Wish me luck.

Ugh, I'm so not looking forward to that part of the job...

[Antonio the Sixth]

A girl in one of my TA groups appears, in my opinion, to have the hots for me. Granted I'm terrible at gauging this stuff. It's weird 😐

...yikes. Definitely make sure to establish clear boundaries if this goes any further.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, I'm probably a panicky idiot, but with all hurricane s**t...

I hope Virginia's all right with all that's going on in Florida, as she'd been last active over 2 days ago.

Ugh. Hope so too.

[Antonio the Sixth]

OK, I don't want to start another panic, but anyone has heard from Virginia? She hasn't posted in a week, and I think that coincided to when Matthew hit.

[Antonio the Sixth]

OK, I don't want to start another panic, but anyone has heard from Virginia? She hasn't posted in a week, and I think that coincided to when Matthew hit.

I've spoke with Bacon King on this and he checked info her county and there were no fatalities other than some old man, so she's just probably without internet.

Oh, good to know. Hopefully she's not dealing with serious material damage either.

[Antonio the Sixth]

My grad class professor referred to me as a "bearded savant kid" in an email.

That's awfully unprofessional.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, at least this conclusively proves that righties whining about "political correctness gone mad" are a joke.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I think I'm getting so depressed that I'm repressing recent memories.

Sorry to hear that. Please try to get the help you need.

[Antonio the Sixth]

So today I feel I have accomplished my goal since July to convert 15 voters from uni/work to Hillary. I quickly abandoned talking to Trump supporters because it was annoying me, but I got 14 Johnson voters and 1 Stein. I have an 80% confidence level since I talk to them on a regular basis (about other things too!)

Congrats, Virginia! This is wonderful work, you can really be proud of yourself.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Trump is coming to Tally, and I'm looking forward to that. I'm also looking forward to putting the nasty nightmare of last night beyond me. Fooled around with a mind altering substance, got burned. Praise God I didn't get out on the streets, it'd probably end up with me getting arrested screaming naked at a fire hydrant.

You're still supporting him? That's sad (as in genuinely sad, not "sad!").

[Antonio the Sixth]

Currently grading my students' midterms. 56 down, 100 or so to go.

This is hell.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Currently grading my students' midterms. 56 down, 100 or so to go.

This is hell.

141 down. 24 left for tomorrow. Still have all the other stuff to get done this week. Ugh.

[Antonio the Sixth]

These past two days were the first time in at least a year that a forum feud has genuinely gotten at me emotionally. That probably came across in my posts. I'm better now, if anyone cares.

Another thing that happened to me yesterday is that a guy approached me while I was walking on campus, tried to strike conversation in a very rapid and forced way, and then ended up calling over a girl which I'm not clear if he knew before or was another stranger he randomly picked up. Anyway, he said he wanted to hang out and asked us to exchange phone numbers. I was seriously creeped out by the whole thing, but because I'm always too trusting and didn't have the emotional resources to say no to anyone around that time, I went along taking hers and giving her mine. They both left almost immediately.

So, the question is, assuming this is a scam of some kind, what's the worst thing that could happen to me? They only have my phone number, right, so the worst that could happen is that I get spammed with calls, right? They can't steal any information or screw me over in any way, right?

[Antonio the Sixth]

These past two days were the first time in at least a year that a forum feud has genuinely gotten at me emotionally. That probably came across in my posts. I'm better now, if anyone cares.

Another thing that happened to me yesterday is that a guy approached me while I was walking on campus, tried to strike conversation in a very rapid and forced way, and then ended up calling over a girl which I'm not clear if he knew before or was another stranger he randomly picked up. Anyway, he said he wanted to hang out and asked us to exchange phone numbers. I was seriously creeped out by the whole thing, but because I'm always too trusting and didn't have the emotional resources to say no to anyone around that time, I went along taking hers and giving her mine. They both left almost immediately.

So, the question is, assuming this is a scam of some kind, what's the worst thing that could happen to me? They only have my phone number, right, so the worst that could happen is that I get spammed with calls, right? They can't steal any information or screw me over in any way, right?

IMO he was probably a dealer; when someone comes up to you and asks for your phone number they're either doing it to mug you or so that you can get in contact you. I really wouldn't get too worked up about it (although it's always easy to say that when it doesn't affect you!)

That makes sense. I guess I won't die if I start getting a couple of junk calls every day. More than that would start getting on my nerves, but if worse comes to worse I can always change my number.

As long as my privacy is safe, that's fine.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Currently grading my students' midterms. 56 down, 100 or so to go.

This is hell.

141 down. 24 left for tomorrow. Still have all the other stuff to get done this week. Ugh.

Yes, same here. I just graded my load of 40ish midterms. My main takeaway is that the results were absolutely brutal, a bloodbath - over half the students in both classes failed (less than 50%) and the best group's class average was barely a D. To make matters worse, I was rather generous in my grading, seeking to maximize their grade. Just 7 out of like 37 students got over a 10 (/15) grade (I am really not surprised these students did well). They're very lucky that I was overly generous in grading their papers a few weeks ago and that they'll probably get the bulk of their 25% participation mark by just continuing to show up and not saying huevonadas in my groups.

I haven't seen anything this bad since a midterm in a class of dumb Colombian first years last spring, but at least they had the excuse of not speaking English (although given a few of the midterms here, seems like a few of mine don't speak English either).

Not good!*

* The girl who got the best grade (14/15) is some contrarian leftish who plays devil's advocate for TRUMP

The average ended up being 14.9 out of 30 for the question I graded. It's significantly lower than for the other TAs, but that's party because many ran out of time and couldn't finish. Still, I feel bad for giving out grades like that.

And I'm going to have to hold extended office hours to deal with all the complaints. Gonna be fun...

[Antonio the Sixth]

One of the great challenges I had as a professor was balancing the results of as many as 7 TA's for a large class. It was clearly unfair to punish or reward students solely on the basis of which TA they got since they nominally all were subject to my grading scale. After many years I worked out a system that converted raw scores into adjusted scores so that the median student in each TA section got the same grade.

Thankfully that wasn't an issue for me, since each TA graded one of the question for all exams.

Although it DOES mean that students are more likely to come to see me to complain about their grades, rather than the other TAs. My next office hours are Monday, so I'm bracing myself.

[Antonio the Sixth]

A friend of mine killed herself today. We weren't super close but I'm still feel like I could cry. And I'm so worried right now. So many of my friends are depressed, suicidal. And sometimes one suicide triggers more. I want to talk to my best friend about this but he is extremely depressed. I don't want to push him over the edge. So I'm telling y'all instead.

Sorry for your loss.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm at the Trump Rally in Reno. It's interesting.

Why would you ever?!

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, I'm back.

I'm sorry I didn't let anyone know I'd be away for a while. I'm sure most of you haven't missed me much (and I can't blame you, since objectively I'm mostly a spammer at this point) but some people have been wondering where I'd gone and I'm sorry I left them in the dark. I've been all right, just bummed out by the election just like most of you.

Anyway, the rise of T***p and T***pism (yeah, that's how I'm spelling it now, as long as this person and these values will have any sway on US and world politics - which is to say probably for the rest of my time here) has started changing my political perspective a bit, but describing how would be a bit too complicated and off-topic here. I've also heard scare stories about what this place has become (both on its left and right flanks), but I look forward to continue exchanging thoughts and ideas with all the decent, well-meaning people out here.

See you around.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Ugh, I really hope Xahar is all right. I can't begin to imagine how stressful this must be for him. All the best.

Hey LLR.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Out of curiosity, which posters left after November 8 but returned before I did? Also, I've heard Afleitch left but then came back to make a point about disability - has he stuck around since? There were a bunch of philosophical discussions I wanted to challenge him to.

The God has not abandoned us entirely.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, I'm back.

See you around.

Great news. Hope you're doing fine?

Oh, personally (that is, if I don't stop to think about the future of humanity over the next few decades for too long), I'm doing pretty good. I've ended up genuinely enjoying teaching (though definitely not grading!) and hope I'm not too terrible at it.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Thanks Figuiera!

Well, I'm back.

See you around.

Great news. Hope you're doing fine?

Oh, personally (that is, if I don't stop to think about the future of humanity over the next few decades for too long), I'm doing pretty good. I've ended up genuinely enjoying teaching (though definitely not grading!) and hope I'm not too terrible at it.

Most Antonio answer ever! Good to hear you're doing alright personally.

Glad to know my online persona has remained true to itself.


On the subject of teaching, anyone interested in seeing a compilation of the harshest comments I got in my TA evaluations? There are a few really... interesting ones.