January 7, 2011
So busy. For Christmas, I went to Seattle to visit my family. Including my father, who I haven't seen. He had an emergency gall bladder removal a few weeks ago and seems to be doing well.
Went back to school this week. Feels weird, being a student again. Also feels weird how easy it is to slip into that mold. Listen to lecture, take notes. Like riding a bicycle. More on that below.
Still studying for the GRE. Oddly enough, the verbal section I'm having the most trouble on is reading comprehension, mostly because when they ask me to figure out authorial "intent" or what is implied but not said by the passage, I'm out to sea. Who cares what the author intended when they wrote it? Who cares what's implied? If it's not stated explicitly, then it's either a) not important, b) a failed piece of writing, so I don't pay attention to it. So they're testing my ability to read between the lines, and often what I pick up between the lines is something completely different than they what they pick up between the lines.
Anyway, I have the most success if I pretend I'm a complete idiot and just pick the most obvious thing.
Between that and the absurd vocabulary (anyone care to argue that my ability to define what a Mansard roof is going to be important to my future studies?) I've become even more certain that the GRE is a waste of time and money and needs to be torn apart and rebuilt to the ground up if it's to be remotely diagnostic. Right now, it just measures how much people are willing to jump through hoops.
The arithmetic is still difficult for me. I've come to the conclusion that my score in math is most likely going to be determined by how awake I am on test day. Then there are the times when the test books are just being smart aleck-y. For example, they'll show undefined figures (figures that look like triangles, parallel lines, circles, etc.) but not explicitly define them as such, and you're supposed to work them out anyway, until you come along to one problem where they show two straight lines parallel to each other and then say: "Oh, but we never told you they were parallel, so technically you can't work out the answer! Psych!"
I am putting this off to bad test book copyeditors and hoping that the GRE will not do the same tricks on me, but it is really frustrating to have them play games like that. We should be being tested on real knowledge, not how well we can respond to trick questions.
***
On the whole, I'm expecting to enjoy my classes, though I do have grips. In one of the classes, I'm pissed about because the teacher is having us submit the homework through the book's online software. Sounds fine...except you can only get a key to the software by buying a brand new textbook with a brand new activation code. So effectively, this completely destroys the used textbook market. If you buy a textbook, it cannot be effectively resold because you have already used the unique code. So you're left with a $70 book that you can't resell and you're unlilely to look at ever again. Between that and the $30 device I have to purchase to participate in extra the class credit, I am spending $100 on things I will probably never need in the future, especially since the teacher seems to be teaching directly out of the book, ergo reading it is probably unnecessary. At U of O, for these kind of classes, I just checked out a textbook when I needed it, then put it back. I can't do that, since the library codes are useless. Moreover, the ebook for the textbook is almost as expensive as the real thing, so there's not much savings there.
So kudos for the textbook publisher on figuring out how to extract money I wouldn't have to ordinarily spend, but boo on the teacher for making me put my savings account through the ringer for no necessary reason. It will definitely be noted in my end of class review. I'm financially advantaged, but I've got a savings account because I'm a cheap, money-grubbing miser and I intend to stay that way.
***
My first impressions are positive, although a bit disappointed. I was hoping for a little more intimate situation, like with my teachers at Oregon, but those were classes of about 15 students...much fewer than the classes here. I understand why things are this way, and I like the idea of dividing a larger class into critique groups based on fervor (I'm in the most "hard core" group). I was very glad because I was concerned that the class was going to be divided randomly, and I was worried that I'd get in a group with less experienced people, who might not offer as useful comments. Sanderson also seems to be taking a different approach by emphasizing word production--by the end of the quarter, we're supposed to have produced 50,000 words. I don't know if I could do that if I were a full-time student, but since I'm not, I should be able to bag that out, especially since it's first draft quality (much like this blog post--I'm too lazy to take out the typos). Still, it's going to be a challenge. I'm looking forward to it. He's recommended that you do all the POV scenes from one character, straight beginning to end, just so you can practice all stages of writing, which is good logic but may be beyond me since my POVs tend to be so interconnected, separating one out will likely end up in an ending that doesn't make sense without information contained in the other POVs. But I'll give it a go.
I was originally planning to post my class notes online, but my grandmother said she thought that would be illegal. I don't see the harm, personally, unless it somehow undermines the authors' appearance fees, but I wouldn't want to get sued. And I could see opening myself up for liability by doing something like accidentally writing "[the author] hates fags" instead of "[the author] hates lag." Stupid example, yes, but the point is there.
There's also this train of logic--if someone posts notes from 'x' workshop, others might be less likely to take the workshop because they think they know it all already, ergo the authors earn less money, ergo, I'm depriving them of income. I don't necessarily believe this, but I'm not willing to piss off authors who might.
So in the end I won't post notes, or my notes from Scott Westerfield's appearance here, most of which was repeated on Writing Excuses, anyway. But if you want to play along by trying to write 50,000 words in three months, be my guest.
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