Showing posts with label group work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label group work. Show all posts
Thursday, January 27, 2011
We came, we saw, we debated
Wow, arguing for privately funded/delivered healthcare in a crowd full of nurses (and a model that I don't personally ascribe to) was probably the hardest thing I've done in school. But we went out there, we stirred the pot, we pissed people off, and people gave us death stares- but we defended it with all our hearts and received many congrats from attendees on our convincing arguments. We even earned a shout out from Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU), who said we deserved academic credit for our work!! Wow, it was so intense. I loved it and it terrified me. More updates to follow once I am on my home computer :)
The view from our podium:
-- from the cellular desk of undergrad RN
The view from our podium:
-- from the cellular desk of undergrad RN
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Well, that was fun.
Diaphoresis++, blurred vision, tachycardia, fearful affect, agitation, alogia....
What are these symptoms related to?
...
...
Public speaking....
Yes, in an entirely safe environment filled with people I know, I completely flipped shit on my part of the presentation.
I don't even know what happened but I couldn't WAIT to get out of there.
Oh, I hope the end of the semester comes soon.
In other news, and except for my performance, the presentation was pretty good. It was for our topic "Poverty and Pregnancy" I bought $5 of McDonald's and $5 of a healthier lunch food. It was a cool comparison. The healthy lunch was a small salmon filet and a side of low fat pasta salad. At McD's I was able to buy a small coffee, a muffin, 2 blueberry pies, and a McDouble burger. Then I highlighted the nutritional and (ginormous) caloric differences between the two lunch options and the importance of patient teaching.
I also found this video which was a total gold mine. Thank you, Google. Again.
13 days until the end of finals and a few days' stay in sunny Mexico... *stares wistfully at calendar*
What are these symptoms related to?
...
...
Public speaking....
Yes, in an entirely safe environment filled with people I know, I completely flipped shit on my part of the presentation.
I don't even know what happened but I couldn't WAIT to get out of there.
Oh, I hope the end of the semester comes soon.
In other news, and except for my performance, the presentation was pretty good. It was for our topic "Poverty and Pregnancy" I bought $5 of McDonald's and $5 of a healthier lunch food. It was a cool comparison. The healthy lunch was a small salmon filet and a side of low fat pasta salad. At McD's I was able to buy a small coffee, a muffin, 2 blueberry pies, and a McDouble burger. Then I highlighted the nutritional and (ginormous) caloric differences between the two lunch options and the importance of patient teaching.
I also found this video which was a total gold mine. Thank you, Google. Again.
13 days until the end of finals and a few days' stay in sunny Mexico... *stares wistfully at calendar*
Friday, November 26, 2010
Your children strike fear into my very soul...
I'm pretty sure I will be a terribad peds nurse.
Today our lab focused on the immunizations clinics we will be running during our Community Health rotation in the coming term. We will be giving Hep B series to Grade 5 students.
I quiver in fear - bloodcurdling FEAR - at the thought of being THAT nurse, the one who makes your kid deathly afraid of needles and healthcare providers for the rest of his or her life, or screws them up forever, and they go on to become political leaders with personal vendettas against nurses like me.
As part of lab today we had to come up with some pre-vax teaching for the wee 10 year olds. My group of 4 had some Official Pamphlets on Hep B that was not designed for kids, and we had to present it in a kid-friendly format.
Harder than I thought.
Every time I wondered aloud as to how we could modify the content, my group said "Don't you remember what it was like when you were 10?"
The answer is no, actually, I don't. I don't have a friggin clue how actual informative speeches should be presented to children. Puppets? Skits? Fred Penner? The one thing I do remember about information presented to me at the ripe old age of 10 was that I definitely noticed, and was filled with righteous indignation, if the speaker was treating me like I was younger than 10.
But how to actually achieve that balance? Urrrgh.
The worst part was trying to explain the means of transmission. I looked at the pamphlet and it was the usual. Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, son. I would be comfortable presenting these straight facts to people that I am reasonably confident actually KNOW what sex is about. Grade 12, sure. But Grade 5?
It's so weird too because those who know me know I am not a prude by any stretch. I am a sexually comfortable person and very open minded. But just the thought of telling these kids that they should wrap their tools put my stomach in knots. For NO reason! SO weird! I truly have no idea when these kids move from "when two people love each other very much..." to "hey, sex is fun, but watch the Rohypnol!".
Maybe it's one of those things that will make sense one day if/when I have a Grade 5 child of my very own.
Until then, they scare me. Really. Make them stop looking at me.
Today our lab focused on the immunizations clinics we will be running during our Community Health rotation in the coming term. We will be giving Hep B series to Grade 5 students.
I quiver in fear - bloodcurdling FEAR - at the thought of being THAT nurse, the one who makes your kid deathly afraid of needles and healthcare providers for the rest of his or her life, or screws them up forever, and they go on to become political leaders with personal vendettas against nurses like me.
As part of lab today we had to come up with some pre-vax teaching for the wee 10 year olds. My group of 4 had some Official Pamphlets on Hep B that was not designed for kids, and we had to present it in a kid-friendly format.
Harder than I thought.
Every time I wondered aloud as to how we could modify the content, my group said "Don't you remember what it was like when you were 10?"
The answer is no, actually, I don't. I don't have a friggin clue how actual informative speeches should be presented to children. Puppets? Skits? Fred Penner? The one thing I do remember about information presented to me at the ripe old age of 10 was that I definitely noticed, and was filled with righteous indignation, if the speaker was treating me like I was younger than 10.
But how to actually achieve that balance? Urrrgh.
The worst part was trying to explain the means of transmission. I looked at the pamphlet and it was the usual. Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, son. I would be comfortable presenting these straight facts to people that I am reasonably confident actually KNOW what sex is about. Grade 12, sure. But Grade 5?
It's so weird too because those who know me know I am not a prude by any stretch. I am a sexually comfortable person and very open minded. But just the thought of telling these kids that they should wrap their tools put my stomach in knots. For NO reason! SO weird! I truly have no idea when these kids move from "when two people love each other very much..." to "hey, sex is fun, but watch the Rohypnol!".
Maybe it's one of those things that will make sense one day if/when I have a Grade 5 child of my very own.
Until then, they scare me. Really. Make them stop looking at me.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Group Projects
Typically, I hate them, because I've never felt like the group did a better job than what I could have done by myself.
I'm working on my last project for the year (!) which is a group presentation with myself and another girl. It has been AWESOME because we had a total mind meld and worked together like magic. We both contributed equally to the project and helped each other completely.
Project, start to finish = 4 hours.
For the first time, I think I *enjoyed* a group project. Don't tell any of my instructors. I have an image to maintain ;)
[/profound]
I'm working on my last project for the year (!) which is a group presentation with myself and another girl. It has been AWESOME because we had a total mind meld and worked together like magic. We both contributed equally to the project and helped each other completely.
Project, start to finish = 4 hours.
For the first time, I think I *enjoyed* a group project. Don't tell any of my instructors. I have an image to maintain ;)
[/profound]
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Recap of this week
Because I haven't yet and I said I would. And because I read over my last post and probably everyone who visted today is wondering what the hell I was smoking. I should make a bumper sticker: "yes, you CAN be this tired!"
So on Sunday I was at the U until about 2200, and I came home and died until Monday morning. My Discipline class is the first one of the week and really interesting as usual, this week we talked about ethics. I love a good debate and there were many... i.e. ethical dilemmas, values, conflicts of interest. The best part of that class is how great my instructor is. She really loves to teach and she's really good at class management. Anytime we get off topic she smoothly brings the conversation back to the point, which I love.
After classes on Monday, I spent the rest of the evening cramming for Physiology.
Tuesday morning more of the same, and then I wrote the midterm at 1100. The questions that I knew, I knew very well, but the stuff I didn't know was awful. Specifically andrenergic and cholinergic receptors and their associated info... nicotinic, muscarinic, alpha, beta... WTF. So I was reasonably sure of 80% of the material and I made educated guesses on the rest (a careful deduction process by evaluating all of the answers, and picking the one that sounds most unlike the others)
I need to revise my revision strategies because I just don't have the time to study like I want to. Normally what I like to do is print off a copy of the slides to bring to class, write notes all over it, and then rewrite all of that into my notebook. Handwriting only, because after years at call centers, I have mastered the art of transcribing speech or notes onto the computer without really registering anything in my brain. Handwriting, I remember. So this strategy worked great for the last couple of years when the notes load wasn't so extreme. However, it's just not realistic anymore. By the time I finish rewriting all of the notes, I have a serious handcramp and I don't have time to actually study... hence my not knowing anything about cholinergic or andregenic receptors.
New plan. I am ONLY rewriting things that are on my "key concepts" list that the instructors hand out on the first day. This goes against my instincts since I like to know everything that was in the course but I think I'm going to have to start being more choosy about what I learn.
So, Wednesday afternoon while studying for Anatomy, I followed this strategy and it is working great. I actually remember where the sphenoid bone is. And what it looks like - yeah, sella turcica!
In regards to the presentation from last Thursday, the one on addiction that we got absolutely roasted for in the previously-unannounced critiquing part of the class, we got our mark back. 9/10! I'll take it. I was expecting way worse, from how the critique went.
We watched a bunch more presentations today (yes, I did go to class after all), and I brought an ice cream bar with me as comfort food because it is so frustrating. The instructor *gasp* changed her mind again: now we accentuate the positives and no more than 5 minutes giving feedback. Compared to my group's 15 minutes. I scanned the submitted feedback from the class: "maybe don't go so long", "no hands in pockets or GUM", "don't say 'um' so much", "maybe you should have handouts!". WTF, people, handouts? Are you going to pay for them? Alright, I'm biased, but everyone else's power points sucked ass in comparsion. Stretched clip art, 1000 fonts, not embedding media...
What I'm getting at here in an angry rant is that people made all kinds of great (ahem) comments on our presentation, but their presentations had the same problems if not more. One girl was so nervous I thought she might cry. 'Um' was the word of the day. I may have hand my hands in my pockets but at least I wasn't hiding behind the podium, you know? And I'm just pissed off about this whole thing because the point of the presentation was to MAKE A PRESENTATION ABOUT A HEALTH TOPIC. She didn't give a shit about our content after all our hard work. Her comments were made solely on our presentation skills. It was completely missing the point.
AND, here is my big point, she is fostering a completely negative attitude in the class. Instead of watching peoples' presentation and learning something about health issues, we are ignoring content and just staring at their flaws. Then she pinpoints someone and says "YOU: What could they improve on?" and all it does is make us pissed off at each other.
She is building the eat-your-young attitude. That is SO WRONG.
So I'm trying to formulate a scathing email to the dean but I can't seem to write coherently because I am so angry about it.
Anyway, quick change of topic, I also got my mark back on that awful paper I wrote for English. My strategy appears to be successful - I got one of the highest marks in the class and special mention! My nose is a whole new shade of brown. Also, I picked my English research topic. I'm going to write on euthanasia. If you have any good sources for further reading, let me know :)
So on Sunday I was at the U until about 2200, and I came home and died until Monday morning. My Discipline class is the first one of the week and really interesting as usual, this week we talked about ethics. I love a good debate and there were many... i.e. ethical dilemmas, values, conflicts of interest. The best part of that class is how great my instructor is. She really loves to teach and she's really good at class management. Anytime we get off topic she smoothly brings the conversation back to the point, which I love.
After classes on Monday, I spent the rest of the evening cramming for Physiology.
Tuesday morning more of the same, and then I wrote the midterm at 1100. The questions that I knew, I knew very well, but the stuff I didn't know was awful. Specifically andrenergic and cholinergic receptors and their associated info... nicotinic, muscarinic, alpha, beta... WTF. So I was reasonably sure of 80% of the material and I made educated guesses on the rest (a careful deduction process by evaluating all of the answers, and picking the one that sounds most unlike the others)
I need to revise my revision strategies because I just don't have the time to study like I want to. Normally what I like to do is print off a copy of the slides to bring to class, write notes all over it, and then rewrite all of that into my notebook. Handwriting only, because after years at call centers, I have mastered the art of transcribing speech or notes onto the computer without really registering anything in my brain. Handwriting, I remember. So this strategy worked great for the last couple of years when the notes load wasn't so extreme. However, it's just not realistic anymore. By the time I finish rewriting all of the notes, I have a serious handcramp and I don't have time to actually study... hence my not knowing anything about cholinergic or andregenic receptors.
New plan. I am ONLY rewriting things that are on my "key concepts" list that the instructors hand out on the first day. This goes against my instincts since I like to know everything that was in the course but I think I'm going to have to start being more choosy about what I learn.
So, Wednesday afternoon while studying for Anatomy, I followed this strategy and it is working great. I actually remember where the sphenoid bone is. And what it looks like - yeah, sella turcica!
In regards to the presentation from last Thursday, the one on addiction that we got absolutely roasted for in the previously-unannounced critiquing part of the class, we got our mark back. 9/10! I'll take it. I was expecting way worse, from how the critique went.
We watched a bunch more presentations today (yes, I did go to class after all), and I brought an ice cream bar with me as comfort food because it is so frustrating. The instructor *gasp* changed her mind again: now we accentuate the positives and no more than 5 minutes giving feedback. Compared to my group's 15 minutes. I scanned the submitted feedback from the class: "maybe don't go so long", "no hands in pockets or GUM", "don't say 'um' so much", "maybe you should have handouts!". WTF, people, handouts? Are you going to pay for them? Alright, I'm biased, but everyone else's power points sucked ass in comparsion. Stretched clip art, 1000 fonts, not embedding media...
What I'm getting at here in an angry rant is that people made all kinds of great (ahem) comments on our presentation, but their presentations had the same problems if not more. One girl was so nervous I thought she might cry. 'Um' was the word of the day. I may have hand my hands in my pockets but at least I wasn't hiding behind the podium, you know? And I'm just pissed off about this whole thing because the point of the presentation was to MAKE A PRESENTATION ABOUT A HEALTH TOPIC. She didn't give a shit about our content after all our hard work. Her comments were made solely on our presentation skills. It was completely missing the point.
AND, here is my big point, she is fostering a completely negative attitude in the class. Instead of watching peoples' presentation and learning something about health issues, we are ignoring content and just staring at their flaws. Then she pinpoints someone and says "YOU: What could they improve on?" and all it does is make us pissed off at each other.
She is building the eat-your-young attitude. That is SO WRONG.
So I'm trying to formulate a scathing email to the dean but I can't seem to write coherently because I am so angry about it.
Anyway, quick change of topic, I also got my mark back on that awful paper I wrote for English. My strategy appears to be successful - I got one of the highest marks in the class and special mention! My nose is a whole new shade of brown. Also, I picked my English research topic. I'm going to write on euthanasia. If you have any good sources for further reading, let me know :)
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Addiction Presentation, done
Ahhh, at last.
I had another nutty day today. I worked until 2200 last night and came home and died for 8 hours. Then I had to get up earlier than I normally do on a Thursday because my job was sponsoring flu shots that I almost forgot making an appointment for (whoops). So I was at school about 4 hours early.
My nurse was really nice. She asked what I do, and I told her where I worked. I also told her that I'm in nursing school and she started explaining all the information about what she was doing, what kind of wipes she was using, how the WHO comes up with the flu shot (I think that's what she said), and all kinds of interesting info. I told her my school, and she said that was the best choice I could have made. So that's encouraging! She gave me the jab and was like, "Wow! you didn't even flinch!" and I LOL'd and said that after tats and 4-gauge needles, that little syringe was practically soothing.
From 1000 - 1200, I worked on our references. There were 5 pages. Of references. Total project, including printed slides, notes, and references: 25 pages. I am killing the rainforest.
From 1200 - 1400, I tweaked my presentation and read it aloud.
From 1400-1430, I willed my churning stomach and heartbeat to STFU.
At 1430, we gave the presentation. We blew minds with the videos, as I knew we would. I was praised as a computer genius, which is inaccurate but nice. And then we got endlessly critiqued on the presentation and then went home (but we didn't get applause.. boo-urns).
Then I worked until 2200 tonight.
And here I am.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
I'm a slack blogger
Sorry about that. This past week has been back in the pressure cooker. 2 big assignments and a quiz were simultaneously due this week. One was a paper for Disc due this morning, the other is a presentation in Foundations due tomorrow morning, and last night after the paper I tackled the quiz. I was up until 0100 doing that, then up again at 0600 for class, and I'm working here until 2200. I hate Wednesdays, FYI.
My paper (my first nursing paper!) was on the topic of Nursing Education. The assignment was sweet. We had to go in the wayback machine and blow the dust off the historical Canadian Nurse periodicals, and pick one to write the paper. My article was rockin': "The Tragedy of Nursing Education" (Badgley, 1963).
I wish I had an at-home blood testing kit so that I could see just how much cortisol I've been producing over the last 8 weeks (holy shit, has it been that long already?! ...but on the flip side it already feels like forever)
Nursing school would all be about 1/3 as stressful if I didn't have to work 22.5 hours on top of everything. Damn you, rich kids with your no-rent-parent's-basement-homecooked-meals!
The presentation (Addiction) due tomorrow is pretty nice now that I've beat the hell out of it. I put in some shock videos like those found on methproject.org and Faces of Meth. IMO, sometimes having cool videos and transitions and doing fancy shit with my computer can make my project seem better than it is. Not my fault if the teacher gets caught up in the shinyness and doesn't notice that there might be content missing :)
No, no, I jest. I think we did a pretty comprehensive job. I might look into volunteering at a inner city health centre/needle exchange program... I really do need to volunteer on top of everything else. Scholarships are nigh unavailable unless you "show an interest".
Please, please, do not take any of my mumblecore too seriously. Yes, I am stressed. Yes, there are a lot of intense assignments, and very theoretical... but yes, I love every second of it!! Some of the instructors aren't that great, but some of them are amazing, and my classmates are just. like. me. It's definitely where I belong.
My paper (my first nursing paper!) was on the topic of Nursing Education. The assignment was sweet. We had to go in the wayback machine and blow the dust off the historical Canadian Nurse periodicals, and pick one to write the paper. My article was rockin': "The Tragedy of Nursing Education" (Badgley, 1963).
I wish I had an at-home blood testing kit so that I could see just how much cortisol I've been producing over the last 8 weeks (holy shit, has it been that long already?! ...but on the flip side it already feels like forever)
Nursing school would all be about 1/3 as stressful if I didn't have to work 22.5 hours on top of everything. Damn you, rich kids with your no-rent-parent's-basement-homecooked-meals!
The presentation (Addiction) due tomorrow is pretty nice now that I've beat the hell out of it. I put in some shock videos like those found on methproject.org and Faces of Meth. IMO, sometimes having cool videos and transitions and doing fancy shit with my computer can make my project seem better than it is. Not my fault if the teacher gets caught up in the shinyness and doesn't notice that there might be content missing :)
No, no, I jest. I think we did a pretty comprehensive job. I might look into volunteering at a inner city health centre/needle exchange program... I really do need to volunteer on top of everything else. Scholarships are nigh unavailable unless you "show an interest".
Please, please, do not take any of my mumblecore too seriously. Yes, I am stressed. Yes, there are a lot of intense assignments, and very theoretical... but yes, I love every second of it!! Some of the instructors aren't that great, but some of them are amazing, and my classmates are just. like. me. It's definitely where I belong.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Working on our addiction presentation
and watching "17 Kids And Counting" in a state of morbid fascination.
Went partying last night for the first time in ages. A friend of ours bought his first house, so we had to have a housewarming! Started on the spiced rum at 2100 and sleeping by 0100... yes, my hard core party days are well behind me :)
I like the presentation I'm making. methproject.org has got some incredible resources. The only obstacle I'm facing is that our prof is making the weirdest requests... the presenter's notes area of Keynote is supposed to be filled up with a "mini paper" of what we want to present, in APA format. As if putting the presentation together isn't enough work... sigh.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Heading to class early
To break free of my procrastination. Seriously, when I sit on the couch, I could sit for hours in a state of contemplation. It's comfort-induced paralysis.
We are presenting our second group project next Thursday. It's on the impacts of addiction (specifically, crystal meth) on public health. I think the topic is interesting but I am so burned out from all the other projects that I just kind of say "meh" every time I think about it. Can you tell how inspired I am by the thought of another presentation?
I must say, though, our group has gotten fantastic support from other sectors. One girl sat down a few times with a drug inspector for the city police, and I played phone tag for a few days with AADAC and now we have a ton of information.
Next process is actually compiling all of this data. Hence, I am going to school early to try and get a start on the project. Even if I just throw something together in Keynote, it will feel a lot less nebulous.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
A few reasons why I love Canadian health care
(and why I think socialism got it right)
All I know is, when I get sick, all I'm going to have to worry about is how I'm going to get better, not how I'm going to try and get my "insurance" (term used loosely) to cover the astronomical costs, or else get my extended family to borrow against all of their homes to help me pay for it.
That vodcast I linked the other day in my presentation - I have been watching it on my iPod and I am more relieved than ever that I was born in this country. Although I wouldn't have minded being Swedish or even Belgian, I'll gladly settle for being a socialist in this country, too.
Watching this shit just makes me so sad! The United Corporations of America can't help but put their fingers in every pie. Seeing health care approached as a business is just so wrong to me. Of course people are going to get substandard care, if they can't afford to pay for better. Of course for-profit health insurance companies are gaining profit at the expense of the health of their customers. Where else would those dollars come from? How can this be allowed??
And yet, I hear American opinions that socialism is potentially the worst thing that could ever happen to them. (Well, maybe communism is a little worse.) But as I understand it, government regulation regarding universal access to health care is not so much socialism as it is humanism.
Now, now, I'm not trying to get all up on my high horse and say that universal health care is not without its flaws or that no one slips through the cracks.
All I know is, when I get sick, all I'm going to have to worry about is how I'm going to get better, not how I'm going to try and get my "insurance" (term used loosely) to cover the astronomical costs, or else get my extended family to borrow against all of their homes to help me pay for it.
Yeesh!
(end rant)
Which reminds me, we got our mark for the presentation today - 13 marks out of a possible 15. Not too shabby! One of the criticisms was that we should have all talked equally. Yes, I guess she noticed me covering for the Slacker.
Monday, September 22, 2008
One significant chunk of this semester, down!
My group and I did our presentation today on the roles of unions in nursing. I had pretty well finished my Keynote presentation last week, but last night I buckled down and put the finishing touches on it. I had thought I only had a few minor changes to make, but one change led to another, and I ended up putting in another 6+ hours on it! While I was searching for the sources/authors for the media I used, I stumbled upon a great Vodcast that highlighted some of the exact points that our presentation was trying to cover. I embedded a few minutes of it into my Keynote and it worked perfectly... after a few hours of troubleshooting.
So the slacker came to class today with a skit for us to do before our presentation. I was in the middle of setting up the slide show, and the other girls were busy getting their content and activities ready. She handed out folders to each of us with our lines... 15 minutes before we were due to present! She had even brought props and costumes and everything. One of the more assertive girls basically said, "Yeah, thanks, but... no." You could see how deflated she was, but I was a little glad (horrible, I know!) that she had actually done some work even if we weren't going to use it. In the end I had to do her slide content for her because she neglected to email me. Again.
Anyway I had spent a solid hour last night before bed rehearsing my slide content and how I would introduce it. This preparation is a first for me, normally I get so consumed with the presentation that I forget to actually practice what I am going to say! So I talked to myself in the mirror and told me all about unions. I have to say, I felt super self-conscious at the beginning but what a difference it made! Usually during presentations, I get red and sweaty and experience involuntary GI contractions. Man, today I was absolutely rocking the presentation. Coupled with the other two girls, the three of us really knew our shit and pretty much blew the prof's mind. Or, that was the general impression we got. I'll take it!
We gave ourselves 10/10 on the self-evaluation (even the slacker gave herself 10, but... meh) and for once I really felt like I deserved it. I am so glad that we are done. I think we set the bar pretty high, and that's all I wanted. We will know our mark later this week, hopefully.
In other news, my English Lit. prof is ghastly. I love to read, write, and understand literature, but this class is bringing back awful memories about why I hated English in high school. Honestly, who cares what your interpretation of a story's theme is, or style techniques that you perceive the author used? I often wonder, what if the authors wrote their stories with absolutely NO UNDERLYING THEME and just meant for them to be a story? Why does the author have to be "arguing a point" in everything? It's also a little sketchy because she, like, over-reads into a piece and finds all these little nuances that no one else can see. I just kind of mentally check out at the door - the class is seriously a waste of time. Especially because it seems highly irrelevant to nursing! I can just picture myself 10 years from now, starting an IV or drawing up a syringe and thinking I wonder what the central theme is to that memo that my manager sent out this morning? I should have a look for any uses of imagery, irony, or perhaps foreshadowing that we will work yet another week short-staffed. Yes, this class is definitely worth paying tuition... *cough*
Anyway, I popped my presentation up on Youtube if you want to have a look. Because I'm in copyright v. fair use paranoia, you can find the references for the content below. The video at the beginning has Woody Guthrie's "Union Maid" playing, which is a folksy bluegrass-type song. It didn't upload because of the DRM protection, but it's there on the real thing :) Let me know what you think.
References available upon request :)
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Group angst
It's been a week and some since I last mentioned the ubergroup that I was assigned to for my Discipline of Nursing presentation. My views have somewhat changed since then. 3/4ths of my group is still rad (myself included), but there's one person who just can't seem to get her shit together. We're presenting on Monday and she still hasn't given me her content for the slides... she kind of sort of had something for me this morning (that, ahem, looked like it was written this morning) but she took it back again saying she had to work on it. Les sigh.
We just met up for our semi-last group discussion, went over the slide content, and made some adjustments. Everyone was awesome about thanking me for putting together the presentation. It was really nice of them, but I'm a huge control freak so I took that on purpose. I hate it when people are using Powerpoint like it's the first time and fill it up with ugly transitions, clip art (or distorted clip art, aaargh!), and strange audio clips. Not many students have discovered that Keynote is, like, light years better than Powerpoint will ever be, so my presentations always look bitchin' even when it's straight out of the template and took me an hour to throw together.
I went a little above and beyond on the Keynote (as I am wont to do) and found a fun hack for pulling video off of YouTube and importing it directly into the slideshow. Honestly, considering how much Apple and YouTube are in bed together, you'd think that would be a thoroughly integrated feature. Actually, it's a huge pain in the ass. The program works pretty well though, it automatically finds the .flv Flash video file from the website, downloads it, and re-encodes it as a .mov Quicktime file, which is compatible with Keynote. It's nothing you couldn't do yourself with a little know-how and a Quicktime Pro subscription, but it saves time and money. My only complaint is that the audio is lost. For my presentation, I used a b&w video of railway workers in the 30s and played Woody Guthrie's "Union Maid" intro over top. It goes very well and I'm happy with it.
One point I was re-iterating with my group again and again was that slideshows alone do not make good presentations. How many times have we watched presentations where the group just gathered around and read off the slides with their back to the audience? How effing boring is that? I can read for myself, thanks. I REALLY pushed my group to come up with something creative to have as filler. We left this task to the slacker because he seems fairly creative. Surprise, no content! So now we are just like every other group with a slideshow that we will read verbatim. Hopefully he will come through with something fun by Monday morning. If not, I'm going to try and add in some additional fun content to the slides so that it's not completely lame.
I just put in an order for a new iPod touch/Macbook (which is no surprise to those who follow me on Twitter!) and I'm hoping to have the new computer in time for the presentation on Monday. Two days ago it was in China, yesterday in Anchorage, and today in Tennessee (um, ok..?) so it should be. My old iBook doesn't have a remote so you have to hit a key to change the slides, and it runs so s-l-o-w-l-y that sometimes my transitions don't happen when they are supposed to. Here's hoping, anyway.
Other than the whole group project thing that is consuming me, I made the mistake of going away to a house party out of town last weekend. I don't drink often (last time was last year, I'm pretty sure) but I was in the mood to party. We all had an uproariously good time but what it did was waste the one day I have to recharge my batteries. We were up all night and then I went to work on Sunday, and straight into the school week from there. The extended hangover/sleeplessness killed my study drive and I spent Sunday and Monday's study time doing absolutely dick all. Watched TV and ate a tin of smoked mussels... that was pretty much it. Result being that I am behind on all of my readings and I had tons of work to do on this presentation anyway!
I'll be glad once this is presentation is behind me. I'm pretty stoked that we are going first, so that all of this shit wouldn't be piling up right at midterms or something! It's always harder to get something done when you have all the time in the world to do it. Well, that's true for my procrastinating self, anyway.
Monday, September 8, 2008
A day of grammatical proportions
Today, I am feeling like a student nurse. Although this semester we are only covering theory (no clinicals), I got a glimpse of Pressure - with a capital P.
The morning class was great. Maybe it was the fact that I remembered my coffee this morning, but I just loved how it went. We started out doing some "forced fun" with the instructor asking us yes or no questions and having those choosing yes or no move to opposite sides of the room. It was a nice way to break the ice with my neighbors as a few of us kept choosing the same response. She then put up a few sticky notes around the room with activities on them like biking, reading, listening to music, hanging out with friends, etc and asked us to move to the sticky note that we preferred the most. I chose reading, as did a few other people. She then used the sticky note groups as a platform for assigning our project groups. Let me tell you, I have been in (more than) a few unpleasant groups in college so far and this was the best way of choosing cohesive groups that I have ever experienced. There are 4 of us and it appears that we all have the same effort level and we were all keen to get the project going. I am SO relieved. More than once, it has been me pulling the lion's share because I just can't sit around until the last day to get it done. We also had to come up with a group name - so we called ourselves the Four-ceps. Our presentation is the first of 10; we present on Sept. 22! The dates range between then and Dec. 1. I'm glad we go first because we can get it out of the way and it's sorta smooth sailing after that.
During my break before Anatomy, I went to pick up another 2 of the books I need this semester - Essay Writing for Canadian Students and Health in Canada (which, oddly, does not exist anywhere on the internet, even on the publisher's own website. Hmm). Anyway, except for one more used book that I will secure soon, I am finally done buying books and I'd say that the grand total is just under $1000 for 12 books.
Anatomy was CRAZY. Everything about it was CRAZY. I mean, I really like biology and I excelled in senior biology, but I just about had my head 'asplode all over the lecture hall. My prof has a Ph.D. in some science field and he is definitely smart and knowledgeable. He is also incredibly enthusiastic. He's talking about epithelial cells, and then about cancer, and then about reproduction and cilia, and back to epithelial cells again, and he changes the powerpoint slides all over the place along with his train of thought. Add this with his heavy Indian accent and the unfamiliar pronunciations he uses, and you have one very confused undergrad RN. The lecture was 3 hours long and I was writing like a madhouse the whole time. Thank God the class is only one day a week. I need the rest of the week to recover.
Finally, I had English for my last class today with the prof who says everything in a quiet ramble in her thick accent and everyone in my row had no idea what points she was trying to make. We launched into a dissection of last week's reading, which was a short essay on the challenges of living independently. No one could quite follow what she wanted us to tell her. It was awkward and unpleasant. She used a lot of terminology that I haven't used since high school - which is fine, given that we all have used it at some point but it would have been a lot more effective to give even a brief review first. She asked who in the class felt competent with grammar and I put up my hand - the only one, apparently. (Don't take this to heart and start combing my posts for grammatical inconsistencies. In my blogging I write for pleasure, not accuracy!) She, apparently, took this to mean that I consider myself infallible and kept calling on me for the Final Answer on each part of an exercise that we did. It was kind of embarrassing, but I was also kind of up for it as I do consider myself to have a good 'ear' for modern writing.
Anyway, we now come to the title of this post: one question on the exercise had her and me disputing the accurate word choice. I welcome any input from you on the correct wording(s) of the following:
"Each girl and her escort have their own room in the hotel."
Now, aside from the obvious risqué innuendo of this particular problem, I see it as a sentence that has two interpretations:
1) The girl and her escort are both staying the same room, and therefore each set of girl+escort has their own room in the hotel; and
2) The girl and her escort are staying in separate rooms, and therefore each girl and each escort has his or her own room.
I brought this conundrum to the attention of the professor who assured me, beyond all shadow of doubt and through quiet mumblings referencing "rules" that I could not follow, that option #2 was the only correct answer. When I pressed her for the reason why, her response was that it was the correct answer in the textbook.
Well, pardon me.
I've seen more than a few textbooks with errors. I know from writing experience that it is easy to see an ambiguous sentence as only having the meaning I intended it to have. But I am pretty sure that I am right in that the sentence can be interpreted, and correctly worded, both ways.
I welcome your opinions! This problem has been buzzing in my ear ever since I first read it.
Otherwise, today was great! Great, great, great.
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