What's the View Like From My New Place?

[Evo]

Are you kidding me. I got my A's in high school by doing the minimal amount of work. My high school was HORRIBLE. Boy, college sure did slap me in the face hard first semester. What do you mean I have to do WORK?

Cyrus, I think you're phenomenal, and hopefully your teachers didn't start taking your schoolbooks away from you when you were in 3rd grade.

Yep, the decision was made to take my schoolbooks away when they discovered that I had completed the 3rd grade on my own in 3 weeks. From then on, I was only allowed to have my books when I needed to do an assignment.

My 9th grade Algebra teacher refused to pass me, I had missed 102 days of school and only showed up for tests and had a 110 average (with bonus questions). She told me that it made her look like she wasn't teaching me anything (she wasn't). She tried to get other teachers to mark me as "incomplete", a grade of "I", although I had straight A's. No other teachers agreed.

 

[Cyrus]

You should have been in one of those universities in paris that has the smart little children. I knew a guy who came from africa. Him and his friend were the top two students at his school. There they learned french, english, calclus I,II,III, diff equations, linear algebra, etc. All, with basic scientific calculators. Really smart guy. He said his friend was number one, and got into a good school in Paris. When he got there, his friend told him some of the classes had 12 year olds doing math at a higher level than he was.

Another friend of mine in Tunisia also said his school (also french based) was as hard as college in America.

American public schools are a sad joke. I graduted from high school learning next to nothing, and I was bitter about it. I wanted to leave and start college at 16 because I knew I was wasting my time by staying in school.

In hind sight, I wasnt ready for college, I just had to be in a better school. With actual teachers and students that cared.

Right now, Id put myself way low on the list of smart people. I just work hard, but I am not smart. I've seen smart people, I am not one of them.

 

[belliott4488]

Actually, I don't post on facebook or My Space because it is for teens and young 20's mainly. I can see professors posting on facebook to try to keep in touch with students. My Space, I feel, is just for teenagers. I don't think even my kids post there, but maybe so. Yes, I know older people post there, which IMO, is creepy. It's a kid thing, old geezers need to back off. Get a life, you're not 16 anymore, mkay?

I agree, but I have nieces who are teenaged and early twenties, and they all insist on my getting ids on these sites. I feel very out of place most of the time, especially on Facebook, which I usually try to avoid - it's like visiting them in their dorm rooms.
I find more adults on MySpace, but I have to admit I'm kind of slumming there, since I mainly tend to go to the Physics forum to try and chase away the kooks.

 

[Evo]

Naw, being self-taught I did not feel I deserved any of that. Although my friends at NASA wanted me to participate in courses at Rice (to which I had won a scholorship).

I want people to learn from what happened to me. I lived in a backwards community (scholastically). It wasn't until I was 11 that special interest was taken in me and the school told my parents that they had nothing to offer me, so they should put me in a private school for children with a minimum 140 IQ. A boarding school hundreds of miles away. I refused.

 

[binzing]

First round of first grade for me, I was in a reading program. The second time, I was put in gifted.

 

[Evo]

First round of first grade for me, I was in a reading program. The second time, I was put in gifted.

That's good.

I was told to stop getting ahead. Then my books were taken away.

 

[binzing]

As soon as I'm a junior I plan to kick it into high gear with all AP classes (AP classes are only provided to upperclassmen here). My senior year I plan on taking like AP Chem and as an elective to retake it, AP Biology.

 

[Ouabache]

...It wasn't until I was 11 that special interest was taken in me and the school told my parents that they had nothing to offer me, so they should put me in a private school for children with a minimum 140 IQ.

Do you think your long-term visual memory affected your rate of learning?
Btw, great view through your house windows .. Sure wish i'd seen that notagoshawk!

 

[Evo]

...It wasn't until I was 11 that special interest was taken in me and the school told my parents that they had nothing to offer me, so they should put me in a private school for children with a minimum 140 IQ.

Do you think your long-term visual memory affected your rate of learning?

I think my memory played a significant role.

Btw, great view through your house windows .. Sure wish i'd seen that notagoshawk!

I hope he shows up here again.

 

[binzing]

I think I have semi-photographic memory, because when I compete in Geography bees/ knowledge bowls/ etc. often things will come to me as a picture in my memory, especially with geography

 

[Evo]

I think I have semi-photographic memory, because when I compete in Geography bees/ knowledge bowls/ etc. often things will come to me as a picture in my memory, especially with geography

Yes, that's how it works for me, anything that required memorization I aced. Anything that required creative thinking, not so hot. I guess my dad ws right when he made me take business in college.

 

[binzing]

I hate how they do class ranking. It goes back to 7th grade (I failed algebra the first semester then, and went back to prealgebra, then then next year I barely squeaked by in algebra) so I currently have a rank of 189 out of 390.

 

[SticksandStones]

Naw, being self-taught I did not feel I deserved any of that. Although my friends at NASA wanted me to participate in courses at Rice (to which I had won a scholorship).

I want people to learn from what happened to me. I lived in a backwards community (scholastically). It wasn't until I was 11 that special interest was taken in me and the school told my parents that they had nothing to offer me, so they should put me in a private school for children with a minimum 140 IQ. A boarding school hundreds of miles away. I refused.

I remember in 2nd grade being asked if a certain set of spelling words were hard. Reading at a high school level at that point, I answered truthfully that they were not hard. I was given detention...

I always thought that teachers would want to encourage bright students. Apparently not. My senior year in High School I had three homework assignments the entire year. All from the same class. I passed calculus with 116% average and missed one point the entire year (on the last quiz at that, talk about lame).

It seems like High School exists to be a day care and nothing more. It's really sad :(

 

[turbo]

When I was 10, my parents bought a house across the road from where they had rented for years. The owner was a widower with an adult daughter, and he gave my folks a killer deal. He also (Thank you! Thank you, Welman!) left a large library of books, mostly from a subscription service that sent you a classic novel or collection of stories/poems every month. The books were plain-bound and printed on lousy paper, but they were a treasure to me. At 10, I was reading Dickens, Twain, Hawthorn, Verne, and on and on every single night and my parents had to tell me to shut off the light and go to sleep.

I'd pick a book and plow through it from front to back. Later, when I entered college in Engineering, my mentor in the Honors program (Cecil Rhodes - a professor emeritus) noticed my interest in literature and (gently) steered me into a major in English Lit, which I supplemented with a double-major in Philosophy. I gravitated toward poetry of the English Romantic period - though I knew ahead of time that I'd love it due to my childhood exposures to Keats, Byron, Shelly, Coleridge, and Burns.

 

[binzing]

Yeah, as I said before I was in a reading program my first time in 1st grade. By second grade I was reading at a level of 12.9 (twelth grade, ninth month).

 

[Evo]

We moved into our new (hopefully temporary) offices today. I have a huge pillar right in the middle of my desk, they had to cut my desk up to fit around the pillar. Our printers aren't set up, no fax machines, no one knows how the phones work. I just paid $2 for two hard boiled eggs that could double as golf balls, but they were the only thing in the cafeteria that wasn't deep fried, and I forgot to bring lunch today.

Here's my pillar, you'd think they'd have painted the scrapes.

 

[Kurdt]

Thats lovely Evo. At least they gave you a complimentary toast rack.

 

[Math Is Hard]

Here's my pillar, you'd think they'd have painted the scrapes.

That pillar is just screaming for a mural!

 

[Evo]

Thats lovely Evo. At least they gave you a complimentary toast rack.

ahahaha! Yes, the toast rack is a nice touch.

I'll take a picture of someone else's office when I get a chance so you can see what my office should look like.

 

[Evo]

Also, you can't tell, but my desk goes behind that pillar and the overhead cabinet is behind it.

 

[turbo]

If I decide to invest in a telecom company, I'm going to PM you and ask who you work for so I can avoid them. Looks like some serious lack of planning on your managers' part.

 

[Evo]

I have two phones on my desk, they have the same numbers on both and when I pick up a line on one the other picks up and they both ring at the same time.

 

[Andre]

Looks like the second law of [/URL] type of desk. That law goes something like: the viability of a company is inverse proportional to the fanciness of their offices.

Rationale: if the offices are fancy the staff has no priority for important business.

 

[Astronuc]

We moved into our new (hopefully temporary) offices today. I have a huge pillar right in the middle of my desk, they had to cut my desk up to fit around the pillar. Our printers aren't set up, no fax machines, no one knows how the phones work. I just paid $2 for two hard boiled eggs that could double as golf balls, but they were the only thing in the cafeteria that wasn't deep fried, and I forgot to bring lunch today.

Here's my pillar, you'd think they'd have painted the scrapes.

That's insane!

It looks like they notched the desk to fit it aournd the pillar. And they actually paid some idiot for this plan? Or is there a plan?


So where to Dilbert and Wally work?

 

[Evo]

That's insane!

It looks like they notched the desk to fit it aournd the pillar. And they actually paid some idiot for this plan? Or is there a plan?

The desk is supposed to be one continuous semi-circle around my office, instead, they cut the desk up and the pillar cuts into my desk in one corner and then there is a small desk to the left of the pillar. Plus, part of my desk is unusable due to it being behind the pillar.

 

[Astronuc]

The desk is supposed to be one continuous semi-circle around my office, instead, they cut the desk up and the pillar cuts into my desk in one corner and then there is a small desk to the left of the pillar. Plus, part of my desk is unusable due to it being behind the pillar.

I can tell that the desk behind the pillar is unusable. The moron that did that layout should have figured it out and the partition should have been centered on the pillar.

I hope it is temporary.

 

[Evo]

I stuck some old folders back there, I can't even get into the overhead cabinet at the end.

Everyone is stopping by my office and going wow, that sucks.

 

[Astronuc]

Send those pictures to your boss and ask him "What is wrong with this picture?".

Or you ask if the broom/utility closest is available. It's layout makes more sense.

Or decorate the 'cave' with moss and some bats.


Hang in there. This too shall pass - hopefully not for long.

 

[Kurdt]

that is rather terrible Evo. Its hardly the ideal workspace.

 

[Evo]

I love the moss and bats idea. I'm probably stuck here until we move, they're aren't going to want to go through the trouble of moving me since this is supposedly "temporary".

 

[Moonbear]

Wow, Evo, who did you piss off to earn that space? I can't believe they actually went to all the trouble of cutting up your desk to cram it in there instead of just moving over some partitions, or turning around the orientation of your office so the desk was on the other side (that nook next to the pillar would have been a great place for a file cabinet or coat rack, not half your desk).

 

[Evo]

Wow, Evo, who did you piss off to earn that space?

My boss swears that he had no idea when he assigned cubes.

I can't believe they actually went to all the trouble of cutting up your desk to cram it in there instead of just moving over some partitions, or turning around the orientation of your office so the desk was on the other side (that nook next to the pillar would have been a great place for a file cabinet or coat rack, not half your desk).

It would have been too easy to move the cubicle wall past the pillar.

 

[GeorginaS]

I guess an upside is that, if/when you next move out of that space, Evo, they'll have to buy a new desk for you because that one is entirely toast.

 

[lisab]

Evo's new (but temporary) office...

 

[Evo]

Evo's new (but temporary) office...

View attachment 12814

Thanks lisab! That made my day.