Monday, September 11, 2006

Major discovery

My schedule is pretty depressing. This first week is the worst. I have to go through all the seminar topics with each seminar group, and there is eight of them. Imagine saying the same things eight times. Today I did it three times. It's hard to not feel like a fake.

In order to keep our workload at the max (that would be 9 contact hours per term), one of the TA assigned to help me is only allowed to take up one of these seminars per week. ONE! And what else does he have to do? He is taking another one seminar for this thesis supervisor. ONE! So he has to take up 2 seminar per week. And that's it! They are supposed to do six contact hours per week.

Where is the logic in that? Apparently, if our workload goes down under nine, the university will not grant us more resources to hire more full-time staff. So, there is a logic afterall. And why do we need more staff? I can only think of two words: Empire Building. Slapping our own cheeks to look fatter. Or healthier. It is all very logical, actually.

Enough of my stupid inane complaints. On a positive note - temperature dropped to 23 degrees celsius today! It's very exciting. I ran around the park at 4:30 pm today. 4:30! And it was actually pleasant. It is very nice to run without having sweat pouring down your face. It is very nice to run without feeling as if you are in an oven.

My insight of the day (be warned it is a bit spooky - I am a bit spooked out by it when it occured to me):

Stop looking at people for long enough, and you'll think they are all looking at you.

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