Save me auntie Em
Loving school. It's a cool thing to stretch your mind in new directions - it's so easy to get stuck in your own viewpoint, your own world, your own insular crap. I am, however, on occasion, forced to remember why it is I like to be on my own most of the time. This may not be a newsflash but people are odd, unpredictable creatures whom I will never, ever understand. And there are times I am happy to be well removed from them.
And what prompted this, you may ask. I recently had the fascinating experience of trying to participate in a debate with 8 other people for one of my classes. It was one weird experience. Now I'm the first to admit I'm an organization freak, that I have little patience for wasting my time but dealing with a bunch of people you don't know, half of whom you've never even seen, to try to do a "group" project together that is ill-formed and chaotic right from the get-go, is a challenging experience at the best of times. These "debates" have absolutely no structure except that there's a topic, two sides and a specific night on which you have to perform. I'm sure you can imagine the hijinks that ensue. The "content" can become mind-numbingly boring as people who have no idea about the issues under discussion are not inconvenienced enough by this fact to actually prevent them from espousing at great length about the "solution" to a problem about which they admit to being ignorant of many of the most basic points.
But before this dyanamite evening of scintillating discussion we 9 first had to have the disjointed, head-butting scrum that passed for planning for this event. Just like the real world we had the power struggles, the backroom maneurevings and the disappearances. Ah, yes, the disappearances. You know the kind - the ones who say, I don't think we should do it like that and then disappear never to be heard from again, till presentation day of course. In the meantime some in the group, who also happen to be on the vague side, never actually producing anything themselves, keep referring to the disappeared's excellent work that sadly, never seems to actually make it to the main event because they've been busy with other stuff. Naturally, none of the rest of us have anything else we have to do.
In the meantime hippie rant girl who has too many ideas to keep track of, some of which actually pertain to the subject at hand, has taken it upon herself to herd the kitties into something resembling an activist posse out to save the world. Me, I just can't wait to get the hell out of it all. I tried to provide structure - that didn't work. I tried to stand back - but couldn't completely manage that either given the directionless chaos towards which it all appeared to be careening wildly.
Then if that wasn't bad enough, the other team, I use the term loosely, apparently never even met before the showdown. They read out some lame-ass vague position that lasted approximately 6 seconds before we began our video clip followed by the cast of thousands presentation, which had to be cut short so as not to completely overwhelm them. Which promptly thrust us into the totally nonsensical and downright useless freeforall that in an actual debate would be called the rebuttal stage, or as one of my teammates charmingly referred to it, the retaliation, but in our chaotic version of reality resembled a stage production of It's a mad, mad world starring the cast of Hollywood Squares.
Please spare me the people who would not recognize critical thinking if it was the only thing standing between them and a luxury cruise liner filled with buff bodies of their own particular persuasion and inclination. And especially spare me those non-critical thinking types who are also of the "I simply can't get enough of listening to myself talk" bent, which almost invariably also includes the extra "and don't expect me to hear a damn thing you have to say" service upgrade package.
Do I sound bitter? Damned straight. Am I grateful to be getting back to my own work, double damned straight. Which is way too much straight talk for this girl.
And what prompted this, you may ask. I recently had the fascinating experience of trying to participate in a debate with 8 other people for one of my classes. It was one weird experience. Now I'm the first to admit I'm an organization freak, that I have little patience for wasting my time but dealing with a bunch of people you don't know, half of whom you've never even seen, to try to do a "group" project together that is ill-formed and chaotic right from the get-go, is a challenging experience at the best of times. These "debates" have absolutely no structure except that there's a topic, two sides and a specific night on which you have to perform. I'm sure you can imagine the hijinks that ensue. The "content" can become mind-numbingly boring as people who have no idea about the issues under discussion are not inconvenienced enough by this fact to actually prevent them from espousing at great length about the "solution" to a problem about which they admit to being ignorant of many of the most basic points.
But before this dyanamite evening of scintillating discussion we 9 first had to have the disjointed, head-butting scrum that passed for planning for this event. Just like the real world we had the power struggles, the backroom maneurevings and the disappearances. Ah, yes, the disappearances. You know the kind - the ones who say, I don't think we should do it like that and then disappear never to be heard from again, till presentation day of course. In the meantime some in the group, who also happen to be on the vague side, never actually producing anything themselves, keep referring to the disappeared's excellent work that sadly, never seems to actually make it to the main event because they've been busy with other stuff. Naturally, none of the rest of us have anything else we have to do.
In the meantime hippie rant girl who has too many ideas to keep track of, some of which actually pertain to the subject at hand, has taken it upon herself to herd the kitties into something resembling an activist posse out to save the world. Me, I just can't wait to get the hell out of it all. I tried to provide structure - that didn't work. I tried to stand back - but couldn't completely manage that either given the directionless chaos towards which it all appeared to be careening wildly.
Then if that wasn't bad enough, the other team, I use the term loosely, apparently never even met before the showdown. They read out some lame-ass vague position that lasted approximately 6 seconds before we began our video clip followed by the cast of thousands presentation, which had to be cut short so as not to completely overwhelm them. Which promptly thrust us into the totally nonsensical and downright useless freeforall that in an actual debate would be called the rebuttal stage, or as one of my teammates charmingly referred to it, the retaliation, but in our chaotic version of reality resembled a stage production of It's a mad, mad world starring the cast of Hollywood Squares.
Please spare me the people who would not recognize critical thinking if it was the only thing standing between them and a luxury cruise liner filled with buff bodies of their own particular persuasion and inclination. And especially spare me those non-critical thinking types who are also of the "I simply can't get enough of listening to myself talk" bent, which almost invariably also includes the extra "and don't expect me to hear a damn thing you have to say" service upgrade package.
Do I sound bitter? Damned straight. Am I grateful to be getting back to my own work, double damned straight. Which is way too much straight talk for this girl.
posted by Bubbles at 7:03 PM
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