Today’s Totals - Mar 5th, 2009
Comments(2) So, I’m having a petty / bitchy day. I feel like I have to say out loud (to more than one person) - ‘it is not MY job to get you through college’. My problem is that I do tend to be too helpful, and people take advantage of it.
One of the women, who is my lab partner in electricity, is struggling greatly. I’ve probably talked/whined about her here before. I feel badly that she failed her electricity test before the break. I do wonder if she really understands what we do in the lab, but I write up the reports. I do this because we get the same grade, and I’m not willing to do poorly to give her more practice. So, I scan and email the lab sheets before the lab, and suggested she does what I do. I read them over, answer any of the questions I can before the lab, etc.
She doesn’t do this.
Now, for this class (since it’s completely new for me) I also go through the chapters on my own from the textbook. I do all the review questions for each section of the chapter, and I do the sample quiz for each chapter. I also do the homework questions that are assigned.
I don’t think she’s doing this either. Mainly because if she’s at least doing this, there’s no way she could get 40% on a relatively easy test. So tell me, why do I feel badly that she failed the test? Then I heard myself offering to review the lab on Fridays with her, since there isn’t time on Monday before the actual lab. The problem is that she’s also struggling in AutoCad/Solidworks and the Problem Solving course. I think she’s barely passing the Math / Stats classes as well, but I believe she’s using the math learning center for help here.
I was a little short with her today when we were supposed to be working on something in Problem Solving and she didn’t want help, she just wanted to copy mine. This is something that will be ~25% of the midterm exam. If she can’t do it on her own, how will she do it on the test? She got a lot of help last semester (in my opinion) in that she passed all her courses. This in itself bothers me. The staff have promotion meetings and will bump people to a pass for various reasons. I know for two different classes, she didn’t have the grades to pass unless she wrote 100%+ exams. She was counting on them to make up the difference if she was close.
Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m actually a little pissy because I looked at the forecast for tomorrow and see that it’s supposed to be 57F in the afternoon. I need to go to Costco, and I was thinking that I’d blow off Statistics and leave the college at 10am. Then I remembered that I’d offered to help her. So, I will give her an hour of my time and then take off.
As well today I took my electricity book with me, to finish up about 10 questions I wanted to do. So I got 2 or 3 done before Math, 2 done between Math and Problem Solving - while answering math questions for one guy. Then with 90 mins to kill in the afternoon I barely got the other 5 done because another of the guys decided today that he would start his… and he didn’t have a clue. Sheesh, am I not allowed to work on my own stuff? This has happened to me before, and it’s really starting to bug me. What it means is that I’ll start hiding from people during longer breaks, which I don’t really want to do.
I’m finding it very hard to draw the line between being helpful and letting them suck the life out of me. I also don’t want to be a bitch about it, as one or two of them might be helpful in future courses (maybe). 
I also truly like some of them, but I’m really glad that tomorrow is Friday. Although I know that there’s some skill and aptitude involved… I put a lot of work into school. Others that don’t, and then expect everyone to help them, bother me.
Nothing much else to add for the day. I think the morning workouts take a lot out of me, which makes me kind of draggy by the late afternoon at school. This is why I originally went to a Friday afternoon workout, but I wanted to leave that time open for other things (especially as the weather gets nicer).
Food for the day:
Total: 2203 (24% fat, 41% carbs, 35% protein)
Pre-WO: protein shake (210)
Breakfast: breakfast bake, 1/2 sandwich thin, orange (389)
AM Snack: none (0)
Lunch: multi-grain tortilla, eye of round, mustard, lettuce, celery, apple (449)
PM Snack: zucchini spice cake (114)
Dinner: chili with cheese, multi-grain tostidos, salad w/dressing (811)
Late Snack: protein shake, fruit salad (230)
