hrm.

I, for the last three years, have been wondering what the purpose of finals is. Well, beside stressing us out and asking us to regurgitate what's been told to us for the last ten weeks. Do professors need that sort of assurance? Did my students learn? Are the going to leave my class with my priceless knowledge?

I can pretty much vouch for the fact that no, I won't. I'll just walk away.

And it's because they are asking me to cram in ten weeks worth of stuff, and write it back down again exactly like I did the first time around. They are not asking me to think about the stuff and analyze what it may mean in the grand scheme of things, which I think would help it become more than just another string of words for me to spew out when asked.

I think that's the problem with education lately. I have gone through who knows how many classes, and I can honestly say that I would be hard-pressed to recall anything horribly specific past the date of the last exam.

Shouldn't the goal of educators be for their students to retain information given to them? I feel like a parrot, not a scholar. I will repeat whatever you say as long as you give me a biscuit, I mean, a grade.

There have been a few classes that I have come away with feeling like I learned something. Where the professor stared at us when we gave a practiced answer, and said, "Okay, but what does that mean?" I can still remember the concepts of those classes, and I can apply those concepts to things outside the parameters of an essay or multiple choice question.

And of course, as soon as that is asked, there is the one person who asks if they will get extra credit if they put their own opinion in an answer.

All the cheesy ads for Oregon State say that once you are done, you will have a quality education (and a very large, but now useless unless its halloween, wardrobe consisting of orange and black clothes). But what does that mean? That one was able to repeat enough things enough times in order to get a degree? If you were to ask a new graduate, what could they tell you?

"What did you learn a year ago?"
"Not sure, but I guess I passed, because now I have this nifty degree!"

Great.

Well, I have to get going. I have a final in about an hour.

"I am a nice human..."

This morning I had bad, evil, mean thoughts about the guy who was power washing the sidewalk right outside my bedroom window. I am a light sleeper, and it seemed to me, anyway, that this guy knew exactly when I was falling back asleep so that he could crank his power washing thingy to full blast. So two hours of my morning went like this:

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....

Me: sweet, I can sleep again

rrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

*cue evil thoughts*

In all honesty, I think humans are the only things that have to remind ourselves to be decent.

Every time this dude did this, I had to make an effort to remind myself that this guy probably doesn't want to be waking me up, that this is his job, and he has to eat too, and who knows how heavy that power washer is. I had to remind myself that I was being mean, and that even at a very early time in the morning, I am a nice person.

Despite my reasoning, I still ended up with less than the optimal amount of sleep, and I wondered if any other thing in the animal kingdom every does this.

Does a lion whose sleep has been disturbed by zebras think: Hey, they're probably nice zebras who didn't mean to wake me. They're probably hungry and the grass here is pretty decent...

No, the lion doesn't. The lion goes out and eats them and then resumes the nap on a full stomach, to boot.

I guess I can't really think of cannibalism as a viable option for resolving my annoyance today. I guess I can look at the bright side of things and think that instead of sleeping, I got some homework done, which I probably would have otherwise put off until...well, now.

Anyway, I'm sorry this is such a useless, bitter-sounding post. I am really a nice person.

won't you be my neighbor?

You know, growing up (as if I'm old and wise at the ripe old age of 21) I always watched movies and shows where everybody knew their neighbors. The characters would emerge from their house in the mornings to pick up the paper, and for some reason, there was always a neighbor watering their lawn. They would look up and wave, smiling grandly, and say, "Hey there, main character! How is that project of yours coming along?"

"Oh, *chuckles* you know how those things can go, Fred!" And then the main character would walk back inside with a sense of belonging.

It always seemed too good to be true, and the longer I live at my apartment complex, the more I realize that hollywood is, in fact, full of lies.

I don't know my neighbors personally, and from my initial impression of most of them, I don't want to. You may remember me mentioning one in my valentine's day post, saying that I might try to be nice to him, for holiday's sake. That didn't happen, by the way. He irked me so much the next day that I threw that good idea out the window.

Anyway, here they are:

1. The Shrew
He got this name from the mere fact that he never emerges from his apartment, unless it is to run out really quickly, drop his trash in front of his front door, then literally slam the door shut. He doesn't seem to realize that the trashcan is actually 30 feet away, and instead, his stinky garbage sits in everybody's way, especially ours, since we have to pass by it on the way in or out of the complex. We don't all want to know how many boxes of Tostino's Pizza Rolls you had this week, buddy. When we have run into him, he gives us a look that plainly displays his inferior view of us and quite possibly the whole world. I tried to be nice to him on Valentine's day, but couldn't do it.

2. Bad Parking Girl
This girl's car is obviously so in love with mine that it must park itself 4 inches from my driver's side door everyday. She must indulge her car's love affair with mine, and I'm sure that it brings her great pleasure to watch me wedge myself between the two cars and try to open my door without leaving a sizable dent in hers. Also, we think she has super powers, or at least, bionic hearing, because she used to have these detachable magnet signs on her car, and one day, Evan and I joked about removing them. The next day, they were locked inside of her car, and she glared at us when we went to check the mail. Hmmmm.

3. Cigar Guy
Technically, this guy is my favorite, and sadly, he moved away last year. Anyway, right around dinner time, we'd always see this guy standing at the curb of the complex, peacefully smoking a cigar. To add effect, he did it under the one street lamp, and it gave the whole evening a film noir kind of feel. While I don't mean to condone smoking on any level, it seemed to fit this guy, and his cigars always smelled kind of good. We miss you, Cigar Guy.

4. The Screamers
This is a newlywed couple that lives downstairs, and apparently, the honeymoon stage is over. Over and dead.

5. Abstinence Girl
This is the person who has the space to the right of us, and all we really know about her is that she has a giant bumper sticker on her car that reads "I have lived with abstinence and have no regrets!!!" This is great, and kudos to her. The confusing part, however, is that she wears the most provocative clothes I have ever seen. We're talking super short skirts, and cleavage abounding shirts. Way to send mixed signals.


I can only imagine what our neighbors think of us, and what nicknames we have earned. I know that it probably wasn't the wisest idea to live on the top floor when we are both verifiable klutzes and drop just about everything, the sound of which I know reverberates through the floors of the complex. Also, Evan has a subwoofer that is the size of a small pony, and it can send some booms through the county, much less the complex. And the coup de gras of this whole thing is that we are both complete nightowls and are prone to laughing fits at 2am. Hm.

So, I know we're not the ideal neighbors. Maybe we haven't learned enough about being neighbors to belong in a Pleasantville type place just yet. Maybe freak-filled apartment complexes like this are a training ground or something.

All I know is that we're not moving anytime soon. :)