First semester ends

Posted by Krystyna Hunt in

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Unbelievably I finished the first semester.

Final exams were as mickey mouse as the mid-terms. The major workload on which the marks will depend will be the big assignments, like the PowerPoint presentations, the 2-man groupwork, the 4-man groupwork. Our job is to present visible results that look like we can put what we have been taught into action and concrete results, and that we can work with others. Somehow I have managed to work with others, although this is still the greatest challenge I will have to overcome next semester and next year.

I think I passed everything although we won't get our marks until Jan 6. Now we have 3 blessed weeks of rest with classes starting again on Jan. 11.

I discovered that working with my fellow students is not so much just the difference in years (I am older than the President of the college) it's a difference in life experience, hormonal direction and life purpose.

The young, normal-aged students are not just here to learn a profession. Unbeknownst to them they are also seeking out life partners, both lovers and friends, who will be the basis for their future social lives. They are required to choose people to work with in groups, but their first priority is not accomplishing the assignment, it is being in fun company who is totally on their wavelength. Somehow with fun company they will accomplish the assignments.

There is nowhere on earth that I have a hope of being chosen as fun company. I think my last chance with them was around the age of 5. That's the time when kids with that many years between us think people my age are fun company. In spite of the fact that I have shown I am "cool", and pretty much on board with their culture and interests, I am exactly the kind of person they now want to avoid.

They don't want an adult hanging around them, they want to be free, naughty and bad. They want to break rules. They want to be responsible on their terms and to their rhythm. They want to be horny to their heart's content. No matter how "cool" I am, no matter that baby boomers invented adolescent rebellion, there is no way they can be that with anyone who reminds them of their teachers, parents or grandparents. Nor do I want to deal with their issues with these people, I have my own issues with these people too.

I had hoped to join one of the 35 social clubs the Students' Union has going but what with the part-time and our extreme 6 course semesters there just isn't time.

Next term I realize that we will have 3 classes starting at 8:00 AM. Oh, the horror.

Prof Gerard's idea for solving the groupwork problem was picking the brightest and best to partner with. Yeah, but everyone now, for the reasons above, has their permanent groups. Their pals, their lovers, or their wanna-be lovers. I can't depend just on Joanne for the next year and a half. I have no idea if Carol will be there. So more challenges ahead.

Oh yeah, did I mention that the college association and faculty union's contract talks have broken down. The faculty union has a strike vote scheduled for Jan. 13.

December - Full throttle

Posted by Krystyna Hunt in

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Joanne and I have been going like gangbusters on the remaining assignments and left the other two eating our dust. Dayna is eager to learn how to work and participate and is glad to be assigned tasks. Joanne and I designed the look and purpose of the media kit, magazine and newspaper and passed some writing and layout work to Dayna.

However, again we have hit the great divide between the Mature and the Immature. Ross has disappeared. Far fewer students are in class now. Prof Marilyn tells me this is the time they start dropping off and neither the college or the teachers may know about it. The teachers just have to keep a regular roll call going to know who is and is not coming into class. Ross is one of these people who may or may not have dropped out of class, or is just skipping a lot of classes.

Like many others who have learned to goof off in high school and be passed anyway, he is not bothering to come into class, return emails, and return phone calls. He certainly is not with Joanne, Dayna and me in the library searching through reference books and image libraries. He is not picking colors or fonts or calculating the number of article inches that can fit on a page. He has not submitted one article or one photo and certainly not one idea.

Joanne has finally run into him somewhere and given him one page of the newspaper to work on, and to write restaurant reviews for the section of our magazine we designed for restaurant reviews. He emails the reviews in and that is one thing he does.

It is time to present the media kit. We have had to design a presentation folder, brochure, business card, letterhead and sales letter for this magazine and newspaper we are publishing. This is for the Adobe Desktop Publishing class and goes toward 30% of our final mark. The other two are for the Design for Newsprint class, where we have also been taught magazine layout. Joanne and I have done maybe 80% of the work, Dayna maybe 19%, and Ross maybe 1% except only .5% has been turned in.

Prof Ellen makes it clear she wants to know who did how much work. Well, Ross did nothing on the media kit - nada, zip - and I say so.

Later on Ross vexes his indignation. He was a part of our group, how come we didn't include him in the group!??! Ellen told him he better have something he designed handed in the next week, or he will lose the marks. Ross just expected us to cover for him. Just like a 10-year-old he was part of our "gang" and the gang was supposed to include him in the rewards even if he didn't come out to play. He thought we would cover for him = and I think the other 2 sould have - but I come from different priorities that does not have peer loyalty as its first rule - so I guess he was wrong.

Now the next step is due. The newspaper needs to be presented to Prof Marshall in the Design for Newsprint class. Except that he hasn't sent in the page he was supposed to design and fill with articles and photos. Again, we email and phone him to send us his page. Marshall wants to see the whole thing. No response, he's mad at us and doesn't want to play with us anymore.

Joanne gives him an ultimatum. He still talks to her, he no longer talks to me - I am too much like a teacher, expecting him to be responsible. Joanne tells him if he does not act like a functioning member of the group, he is out. We will not contact him any longer, we will have to do his page for him, and he will lose another large set of marks. Joanne tells us how tired she is of constantly checking for emails that he never sends. The rest of us are working but part of our energy is drained because we have to keep him in mind and keep wondering where he is all the time.

Ross answers his first email, ever. Yes, he's in. He has worked on his page of the newspaper and sends the attachment. The paper has to be presented in one day and Ross shows up at his first meeting with us, the next morning, to review the whole look. Joanne has taken on the editing duties, and she works until past midnight coordinating our collective effort so that the newspaper looks cohesive.

The next day, the 4 of us present our newspaper and Marshall likes what he sees.

December - Possibility of carpool

Posted by Krystyna Hunt in

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My travel time and cost problems were weighing on me therefore, I had put up posters hoping either students, staff or faculty might want to share a car seat with me. I had also placed ads in online carpool sites and on Craigslist.

I discovered earlier that only 2% of the student body came from my city. This cut down the odds of me finding a carpool considerably.

I did get one call from a member of the staff who lived not that far from me, but far enough for me to have to take public transit to her place, making whatever cost savings I was planning negligible. Anyway, she only left one message and did not return my phone calls.

Another student texted me asking how much I was charging for carpooling. I texted her back saying I was not the one with the car, I was looking for a person with a car. She texted me saying I should make that clear in my poster because it was very misleading. I texted her back saying that my poster clearly says in big bold letters, "I NEED A RIDE". She texted me back to relax and not be so snippy.

Then I got a third call from someone who sounded ideal. A furniture design student who lived only 2 blocks away from me, had practically the same hours as I did. When we met she turned out to be 27-years-old and good company for the half hour drive. She did want almost as much money as I was paying for the train but she explained that it cost her way more than the cost of the train for gas and parking, so I agreed.

And then a strange series of inexplicalbe, perhaps even unfortunate, events occurred. She told me she could not pick me up the next day because she had to take her mother to the doctor. Okay. I understand. But then she did not show up again the next day. I left messages on her phone, but no reply. I sent her an email, but nothing. This went on for 4 days. I'm thinking, has she been in an accident?

I decided to walk down to the furniture design section and try to see if any of her teachers or classmates knew where she was. Well, she was there, in class. She was surprised to see me, she said lost her cell phone and only got another one yesterday. She said she had not seen my email. I was relieved she was okay and we agreed to continue our journeying the next day.

But then I thought about it. Could she not find another phone to call me from, seeing that I was expecting her for 4 days? If she got her cell phone yesterday why did I have to go to the furniture section to find her? Oh well, not to be paranoid. She was coming by tomorrow again.

Tomorrow she picks me up and says that she won't be able to drive me home because of something or other for several days. The mornings are alright but evenings will now be unpredictable. This means the financial edge I have with this carpool will disappear because I will have to pay for single ride tickets on the train (much more expensive than the monthly pass). But this is going to be a short month so maybe it will be okay.

The next day I wait for her to pick me up at 8:00 as she is supposed to. 8:20 she is not there. I call her. No answer, I leave a message. I can't wait any longer, I have to get to the train by 8:50 to get to the College on time, and I should have left my home 10 minutes before to get that. I throw on my coat, heave on my backpack and dash out of the house. I have no hope of making the train, so I hail a cab to take me to the train station.

An hour or two later I check my cell phone for messages after class, and there is a message from her. Oops, she forgot to tell me she couldn't pick me up today.

Obviously this is not going to work out. Besides the normal chaos of trying to work out departure and return times, paying almost the same as the train fare, I am really questioning the dependability and sincerity of this person. I made it quite clear that if either she or I decided this was not going to work for us, for whatever reason, we would just say it wasn't going to work. No explanation was necessary. Just tell me if you don't want to do this anymore. She totally agreed.

But I don't know. Some people have a really hard time being direct and the passive/aggressive approach is easier. At any rate, my enthusiasm for this had died out. It appears that unless several people are involved in this carpool idea there is not much cost saving and regularity and dependability are essential.

So scratch the carpool idea.