The college professor had just finished explaining an important research project to his class. He emphasized that this paper was an absolute requirement for passing his class and that there would be only two acceptable excuses for being late. Those were either a medically certifiable illness or a death in the student’s immediate family.
A smart ass student in the back of the classroom waved his hand and spoke up. “But what about extreme sexual exhaustion, professor?”
As you would expect, the class exploded in laughter. When the students had finally settled down, the professor froze the young man with a glaring look.
“Well,” he responded, “I guess you’ll just have to learn to write with your other hand.”
Tag Archives: university
What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 3
In my first post about earlier jobs (What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 1), I talked about my teenage jobs delivering papers, trying dishwashing, and even telemarketing, before talking about my first “real” job as a library assistant through my undergrad years. In the end, I said I would cover my law school years next, but in my second post (What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 2), I realized that I hadn’t covered two other computer-related jobs I did while I was working at the library too, so I covered them.
But I did actually leave Peterborough for the bright lights of the big, err, medium city of Victoria. Bigger than Peterborough, obviously, but not like a giant metropolis of Toronto or Vancouver. It still felt “right-size” for me, as did the university.
Many people disagree about what law school is really like, ranging from a Paper Chase model of the Socratic method to an apprentice-style world of civil procedure and internships to a Law Review / moot court world of John Grisham-like-protagonist-wannabes. » Read the rest
What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 2
In my previous post (What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 1), I covered my first four jobs up until I headed off to law school. In doing so, I did go chronologically, but I skipped over two small jobs in there as they overlapped my job at the library, and I was focused on telling that part of the story. However, others are worth mentioning.
E. Assistant to the Treasurer — My girlfriend at the time had ties to the local Anglican church, and the wife of the Canon was the Treasurer to the Canadian Gerontological Nursing Association. Nice lady, but not particularly computer savvy beyond Word Processing, etc., and I had my own computer plus the know-how and software to run spreadsheets and print mailing labels, etc. I had struggled to get a job out of high school, including the library one, and I was looking for more experience to round out my work history. » Read the rest
What I learned from my previous jobs – Part 1
I mentioned in my previous post (Starting the Official Job Search of 2017), that I’m looking for a new job this year. And since I want this to be a “good search” that reflects my true interests and desires, I have been reflecting on ALL of my previous jobs to see what they tell me about myself and what I might be looking for in 2017.
A. Paper delivery boy — Yep, I delivered the Shoppers’ Market and the Peterborough Examiner when I was a teenager. I took over the Shoppers’ Market (think Kijiji on paper) route from my brother and it was pretty sweet. It literally covered my immediate neighbourhood — one block south, one block west, one block east and two blocks north. There wasn’t a perfect route that didn’t involve either some crisscrossing or doubling-back, but it was once a week, and they did direct deposit into a bank account. » Read the rest
Loyalty and duty…
I like reading the Higher Education Strategy Associates (HESA) blog even though most of it is about education administration. Their recent post is about “Carleton’s Loyalty Oath” and basically outlines how Carleton University’s Board of Governors is struggling to address the behaviour of one professor on its board. To the blog’s eye, they’re behaving like “goons” and thugs. The issue surrounds Root Gorelick as the university faculty’s representative to the Board of Governors (BoG). He represents the faculty and feels he should blog to the community about the discussions, his positions, and even his objections to Board decisions.
Yet part of being part of ANY board (co-op, school council, parliament, NGO, business, etc.) is joint responsibility. You individually contribute to joint discussions, you exercise your personal voting powers, but you make collective decisions. And once a group makes a decision, the members of that group collectively made that decision. » Read the rest