Update for Everyone III - The Whinge Binge

[muon2]

I won second place in Sister Cities International's worldwide essay contest. Now I apparently have to read my essay to the Boynton Beach City Council. I'm trying to get out of that part.

Lol. Good luck!

I already emailed the lady and told her that I might be out of town. That should give me an enough time to find a way to attend the meeting without having to read it.

Oh you should read it. At these type of council events the expectations are low, so you can only do well. BTW my wife is the head of our local Sister Cities group and is currently in Germany at our Sister City. I'm home alone with the cat.

[muon2]

I found out just last week that my text book went out of print this year and was replaced by a new edition. The bookstore can't automatically replace my request, and I was out of town for the road trip. Now I have to rearrange the course to avoid using the text during the first couple of weeks until it comes in.

[muon2]

I had to drop my first class of the semester because today I got an email making vague but ominous allusions to hundreds of pages' worth of reading that I'm expected to already have done that nobody told me about. I decided that playing catch-up was impossible.

Couldn't you have just explained your situation to the Professor? Or are teachers at your university unusually intransigent/uncaring?

I could have--I've heard he's a great guy--but I decided against it because the class:

1. Was seven hours a day for seven days, which I chickened out of committing to, and:
2. Also involved a field trip to  ing Andover. Andover is in the Merrimack Valley, up near the New Hampshire border, and I have a long commute already--Porter Square to Boston University is about an hour each way. It just wasn't worth it.

Besides, the class I added to replace this one, Buddhism in America, is a lot more in my wheelhouse anyway.

I'm surprised that it's an hour from Porter Square to BU. Years ago I covered that regularly by bike in about 20 minutes or less. Is this not at the main campus?

BTW my daughter lives near Powder House Square.

[muon2]

But then on other weeks you'd presumably have other classes?

Having 49 hours in a single week taken up by schoolwork is just wrong. Even in France that would never fly, and France usually has busier school weeks (35-40 hours in High School, around 20 in common universities, and up to 40-45 in specialized schools). In the US, College is 13 hours a week on average, right?

The typical course load in US universities is 12 to 20 hours in class, with the higher number for schedules with laboratories. There is also an expectation of 2 hours of work outside of class (reading, writing, problems) for every hour in class. Under the semester system a typical class (without labs) has 150 minutes scheduled per week, so the expectation is 450 minutes = 7.5 hours total work per week. Five such classes is a normal schedule, so at 37.5 hours a week the student should have the same amount of work as a typical employee.

[muon2]

I didn't think about the transfer at Park. I lived in Newton (West Newton) when I first started grad school. I invested in a bicycle from the start and found it invaluable getting around Boston and the inner suburbs: Waltham to Cambridge and points in between.

[muon2]

For the record, the class I got today was Statistical Methods I, and it looks like it's mostly going to be a Math class on probabilities. Can't say I'm enthusiastic at the prospect, but it might be helpful in the long run.

I don't know what all they will cover in your course, but statistical methods have continued to gain in importance in all fields with the prevalence of cheap computing and data storage. I suspect that you are correct in surmising that it will be helpful in the long run.

[muon2]

On the opposite end of the spectrum from those just getting into college, I enjoyed my retirement party last night after 28 years on the faculty. A wall clock and department mug were my parting gifts.

[muon2]

Well, my political career in Hudson (have you all heard of Hudson?) has formally commenced. I have been appointed to the Zoning Board of Appeals. I emailed the new Mayor's aide expressing my interest, and 30 minutes later got a call from the Mayor appointing me. That was quick!

My appointment to the plan commission in 1991 was about that quick. Look what happened to me. Congrats.