Best posts made by Aria

Yay, not-cancer!

@Ifrit said in Good or New Movies Review:

@Roz said in Good or New Movies Review:

Animorphs movie?!?!?!?!

@GreenFlashlight said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Don't let your kids read the Bible.

I raised with a Bible that is widely considered to be badly mistranslated for the ease and convenience of the reader, which in the case of the religious schools I was forced to attend, included a whole lot of hypocritical evangelicals.

Unfortunately for them, I actually did read it. The whole thing. More than once. And now can quote it back to them at unpleasant times. It's great fun!

Third day in a row now that I've woken up with less than six hours of sleep, for absolutely no reason, and in most cases several hours before I need to be up. I don't know what I did to upset my body so much, but apparently we're having a fight right now. Like it's come down to this:

"Hey. Good morning, Aria. And by good morning, I mean GO FUCK YOURSELF. Have a horrible day! <3"

Like, why? Just why?

@HorrorHound said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

You mean every Keanu Reeves movie - ever?

Dear Neighbor Whose Car Alarm Will Not Stop Going Off While I'm Trying to Study for My First Grad School Final --

I don't know which one of my many neighbors you are, but I do know that I fucking hate you. Come deal with your shitty car.

Regards,
Aria

@Tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@Aria said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

super hippie Presbyterian church

... how in the fuck does that happen?

Of all the things I mentioned, that's the one that confuses you? Really??

@tek said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Applying to two programs for PhD. The more prestigious one doesn't want a GRE. The other one does. Fuck the GRE.

I had this experience with the GMAT applying to business school this spring. Three out of the four programs I had applied to had accepted me when the fourth one was like "Nah, girl, not sorry!" on denying my GMAT waiver.

They still contact me asking if I'm interested in finishing my application, despite telling them to withdraw my candidacy because I was starting a program elsewhere.

I just do everything possible to avoid human contact. Not only because of the pandemic, but because, well, human beings are garbage.

Mask-wearing minimized. Problem solved.

The first of what I assume is going to be several music venues in Philadelphia just announced their permanent closure because of the pandemic.

Goddammit.

ETA: I know times are rough and I know there's about eight million different causes to donate to right now, but. If you have a few bucks to spare, consider making a donation or buying some merch from NIVA and their emergency fund initiative.

https://www.saveourstages.com/

@SuperiorHuron said in RL things I love:

Today, for the first time since May, my husband is flying home from Canada. It may be only for a few months, but he's coming home.

Now if only I could find a way to see my step kids, life would be super!

This is awesome and I am super excited for you!

@saosmash said in The Work Thread:

@Derp I'm literally preventing myself from getting paid by not doing this contract invoice and yet.

Why meticulously organize the SharePoint library of training documents, templates, and standard work that I get paid to manage.....

When I can meticulously organize the org charts, source material, and land holdings of imaginary houses for an online game I play for free?!

PROCRASTINATION PROJECTS.

@TNP said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@Aria said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

My mom says 'libary'. I cringe every time.

So axe her to stop.

runs and hides

You are the devil incarnate.

We currently don't have water. We haven't had water for about four hours now. And because the city didn't follow their own policies and procedures for emergency shutoffs, we have no idea when it may come back on.

But worse than that, most of our neighborhood has been freaking out on our community app, ignoring the responses posted from those of us who have actually spoken to the utility company. Several of them are already going to the local stores to buy up all the water before we have a shortage like we did with toilet paper and no one can find any!!1!11!omg!!!!

I give it a day before we descend into Mad Max territory.

@Ganymede They sell perfume and hair/body care products.

I placed an order with them in October during their Halloween sale, which just came in the mail this afternoon. Between when I placed my order and when I received it, they made an announcement on their Facebook page that they'd had an issue with the lids for some of their 5ml perfume oil bottles. Some customers had said they'd leaked during shipping and they would be happy to make it right for anyone who experienced a problem.

Unfortunately, my package was one of the ones that had some leaky bottles, so I emailed them to let them know. That said, they had only partially leaked and this is a small business operating during the pandemic, so I asked if I could get dram replacements (the next size down) for the three leaky ones. Specifically, I asked if they could include them whenever I make my next order so they wouldn't have to eat the cost of shipping out such a small package.

They literally emailed me back seven minutes later offering full size replacements or a store credit for the cost of all of them. Again, small business and I didn't want them to absorb that expense because their supplier messed up, so I asked if I could get a store credit just for the dram sizes, which cost less. They emailed me back in less than four minutes with a gift code that I can now use to top up the perfume that I have or for anything else in the store.

Additional Note: If you go to their "indie marketplace", they also carry products from other small businesses that aren't as well-known. Right now that includes incense, candles, jewelry, shampoo bars, cosmetics (mostly loose powders for eyeshadow/blush and lip balms), tea, skin care, and fragrances from other independent perfumers they're friendly with.

@silverfox said in RL things I love:

@Aria
When I was a TA my professor gave me strict rules for grading and I followed them. He would then instruct them to come to him if they wanted to discuss their grades. 7/10 times he would raise their grade and the other 3/10 be all, "yeah, my TA got that right, your answer is way off."

I worked for a religion professor and I think he just enjoyed talking about his content matter.

Yeah, see, if this was just a question of answers being legitimately wrong, that's fair! I know I'm smart, but I'm not amazing. But this is like.....

On my last assignment, I got an 80.01% in a class where my lowest grade until then had been a 92%. I looked at the answer sheet after they released it and it turned out that the answer sheet the TA had put together was not only wrong, but wrong in such a way that their calculated answers for multiple questions make no sense and violate a basic principle of what we're studying. They ended up having to correct grades for the entire class by about 10-12%.

On my current assignment, I got a 77.75%, which is a 'C', but in grad school a 'C' is failing. The reason? There was a question about what the order winners (the thing that ultimately drives a customer to make a purchase) are where I said it was their low cost. The "correct" answer was their extreme manufacturing efficiency, because..... it allowed them to have the lowest cost. There was a three part question about priorities in each phase of this company's life cycle, with five potential priorities listed. I answered with the top priority for each phase. I get my grade back and it's all marked wrong for not identifying every possible priority among the five in each phase. That would be irritating but fine, except the professor said in his open office hours to choose the top priority. Those two question alone meant a 20% reduction for the entire assignment.

I'm not the only student in the class that's irritated right now. There's multiple people saying that not only are these grades the lowest grades that they've ever gotten on anything in the entire program, but that they're blindsided by the grades we get back every week. When something seems clear and easy to understand they bomb and when they think they don't understand something at all, their grade is fine. That seems like there's something fundamentally wrong, because it's one thing for a group of students to say they're having trouble understanding the material. It's another thing for a group of students to say they can't even gauge whether they understand the material week after week.

At this point, I'm starting to suspect that this course is considered one of the most difficult in my program not because the material is particularly complex or difficult to understand, but because expectations aren't clear. Either the professor and the TA aren't communicating, the TA isn't communicating to the grading team, or the TA doesn't understand the material well enough to create a reasonable grading rubric for the other team members to use.

I do not love any of that, but I do love the fact that enough students suspect there's something seriously wrong that we've started asking for them to release the average grade on every assignment. And since the TA has refused, we've all started talking to each other more and agreed to submit a lot of regrade requests so this reaches the professor's desk.

If we're all legitimately doing poorly, cool. School can be super hard. Believe me, I earned that B- in my computer programming courses. But if we're all doing poorly because one arrogant but mediocre dude has overestimated his ability, doesn't like being questioned about it, and is dicking around? Yeah. I'm glad I kicked off the "nah, bro, we're gonna fix this" riot.

@Ganymede said in RL things I love:

Are you taking an MBA?

This sounds like the sort of stupidity MBAs are taught.

Yes.

@Macha said in The Work Thread:

My boss really is a pretty great guy, and I know that he's got people over him.

But when you talk to me to address something about 10 or 30 day cases on Weds, and we're off for Thanksgiving, I do not need to be browbeat with it on Friday by you coming into my excel sheets and highlighting shit in red.

Priority means #1 thing on the to-do list. You can't have 2 different things both be number 1 for me to do.

I remember the time that I walked in to have a chat with my former boss during my last days as an executive assistant....

"So between you, your direct reports, your project managers, and that marketing manager you've been working with on <special thing> this last month, here is a list of things I've been told are your number one priority over the next week that everything else needs to be moved to accommodate. You have twelve 'number one priorities' and that's literally not how numbers work, soooooooooooo we need to take a look at this."

Fortunately, he had a sense of humor and laughed.

@Auspice said in The Work Thread:

@Aria

It is sadly in a storage box in my office complex somewhere, but I actually have a framed print specifically for work that just says "Make Leslie Knope Proud of You."

I will be super bummed if the people who packed up my desk broke or lost it.

So far, I have turned in six weeks' worth of assignments in my current course.

So far, I have had to contest four weeks' worth of grades.

And I don't mean in the whiny undergraduate way of "I don't like my grade! Give me an A!", but instances where the TA has released the answer sheet and their calculations has been objectively, mathematically wrong. Or where I've received short written essays back with comments that I had ten percentage points docked for not even mentioning something..... I addressed at two different points, including the causal analysis of how one came to be.

This TA probably hates me, but that's okay. I hate them, too.