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May. 14th, 2008 11:47 amSo, Alexandria needs to learn to stop writing when she's finished with her essay. Idk, I tend to do that a lot on these big tests (just got out of English Language and Composition, but did the same on the Lit test last week); I'll start winding down the essay/that paragraph/whatever, but then either come up with something I've got to get in there or realize that I've got significant amounts of time left and should probably keep going just so I can show off my impressive verbiaging (YES LIKE THAT) some more, and wind back up again. It'd be no problem if I got to use a computer, as I could just cut the wind-down bit and paste it back on again at the end, but when you don't get that option, it ends up sounding a bit strange; you don't want to cross off large bits of writing because that feels like a waste and it does still fit, but it's not what you'd like to have there.
Another reason I want a computer on these things? Writing is messy. My hands are covered in pen. Somehow I managed to get marks (mostly tiny ones, but a couple substantial, looks like I was trying to cross out my own fingerprints type) on 7 out of 10 fingers, plus a large smudge in between two of them that crosses halfway down my palm, LOL. Plus, though I've never actually timed it, I'm pretty sure I type faster by quite a bit.
The biggest reason? Since we've been typing everything since pretty much elementary school, my spelling has become fail, thanks mostly to Word/Word Perfect's auto-correct. At least when you had to go back and change it yourself, you got to see it pulled out at you as wrong and the correction presented. Now, half the time you don't even notice it change. I'm really good at noticing when something doesn't look right, but when it changes it for you, you don't learn how it really is spelled. It's the worst on the easy words where you're just not quite sure about the order of letters or whether there's a silent something in there, because they're the most often autocorrected by the word processing software and you look the stupidest when you get them wrong on an English language essay.
But yes. Now my back and hand hurts from scribbleage. That was tiring. Especially because none of the group of us that didn't take the Lang class really knew what to expect on that. The essay topics were decent; the passage analysis one was easy just because it was straightforward English class stuff, and the two persuasive-y ones were very ACT/SAT-esque: specific topics (and both pretty politicy-related, which let me go to town), provided backup in the form of either the question intro or the documents in the document-based-question one. I liked them a lot more than the stupid minor-character-as-foil prompt on Lit.
The physics homework (really, extra credit, but still; I needed it, and thus it counts as homework) saga last night was not fun, though. Professor had graded our Saturday finals and had the grades up Monday morning, so I expected to be able to find out how many of the stupid busy work assignments (summarizing in one single-spaced page each the chapters of the textbook--for only one point each, fail--seems like the single most pointless assignment in history, no?) I had to do on Monday morning and then I'd have Monday and Tuesday to do them before they were due by 11:55pm Tuesday night. But no. I spent Monday fighting with the professor because he lost my lab calculation sheet and was trying to give me a 40% on one and a 60% on the other, and I was like OHELLNO, SIR. He finally got back to me telling me that he found it, but by now it was Tuesday and I had 10 to get done. I did the first two during the day only to find out that the outline form I was doing them in wasn't acceptable and I had to write it all out prose-style. Gah. After school I had a doctor's appointment, then a picnic for points for my Econ class, so by the time I got home at 5 or so, I still had essentially 10 of these things to go. Did them. For hours. (Got my mum to transform the outline ones into prosyness for me, though, which was nice. I had to go back through and fix bits, since some bits didn't make sense because she didn't know what she was talking about, and one of them was a bit short because she was just adding the barest amount of words possible to un-outline it when it needed flowered up to hit the 1 page mark, but it saved time.) Finally finished right about 11pm, emailed them to him, ran to the gym for an aborted workout (as they close at 12), got home, cooked dinner even though I was already exhausted because I'd gone to bed really late Monday night and got no nap during the day due to all the workage (because doctor's running bloodwork I've got to get stuck for on Saturday or so and I've got to appear semi-healthy on that), ate dinner, then started studying for today's Lang test. Gave up studying, set the alarm for 5:50am so I could do some of it in the morning, work up at 6:30, ate breakfast, ran out the door, got to school, took test. And here I am. Endsaga.
Another reason I want a computer on these things? Writing is messy. My hands are covered in pen. Somehow I managed to get marks (mostly tiny ones, but a couple substantial, looks like I was trying to cross out my own fingerprints type) on 7 out of 10 fingers, plus a large smudge in between two of them that crosses halfway down my palm, LOL. Plus, though I've never actually timed it, I'm pretty sure I type faster by quite a bit.
The biggest reason? Since we've been typing everything since pretty much elementary school, my spelling has become fail, thanks mostly to Word/Word Perfect's auto-correct. At least when you had to go back and change it yourself, you got to see it pulled out at you as wrong and the correction presented. Now, half the time you don't even notice it change. I'm really good at noticing when something doesn't look right, but when it changes it for you, you don't learn how it really is spelled. It's the worst on the easy words where you're just not quite sure about the order of letters or whether there's a silent something in there, because they're the most often autocorrected by the word processing software and you look the stupidest when you get them wrong on an English language essay.
But yes. Now my back and hand hurts from scribbleage. That was tiring. Especially because none of the group of us that didn't take the Lang class really knew what to expect on that. The essay topics were decent; the passage analysis one was easy just because it was straightforward English class stuff, and the two persuasive-y ones were very ACT/SAT-esque: specific topics (and both pretty politicy-related, which let me go to town), provided backup in the form of either the question intro or the documents in the document-based-question one. I liked them a lot more than the stupid minor-character-as-foil prompt on Lit.
The physics homework (really, extra credit, but still; I needed it, and thus it counts as homework) saga last night was not fun, though. Professor had graded our Saturday finals and had the grades up Monday morning, so I expected to be able to find out how many of the stupid busy work assignments (summarizing in one single-spaced page each the chapters of the textbook--for only one point each, fail--seems like the single most pointless assignment in history, no?) I had to do on Monday morning and then I'd have Monday and Tuesday to do them before they were due by 11:55pm Tuesday night. But no. I spent Monday fighting with the professor because he lost my lab calculation sheet and was trying to give me a 40% on one and a 60% on the other, and I was like OHELLNO, SIR. He finally got back to me telling me that he found it, but by now it was Tuesday and I had 10 to get done. I did the first two during the day only to find out that the outline form I was doing them in wasn't acceptable and I had to write it all out prose-style. Gah. After school I had a doctor's appointment, then a picnic for points for my Econ class, so by the time I got home at 5 or so, I still had essentially 10 of these things to go. Did them. For hours. (Got my mum to transform the outline ones into prosyness for me, though, which was nice. I had to go back through and fix bits, since some bits didn't make sense because she didn't know what she was talking about, and one of them was a bit short because she was just adding the barest amount of words possible to un-outline it when it needed flowered up to hit the 1 page mark, but it saved time.) Finally finished right about 11pm, emailed them to him, ran to the gym for an aborted workout (as they close at 12), got home, cooked dinner even though I was already exhausted because I'd gone to bed really late Monday night and got no nap during the day due to all the workage (because doctor's running bloodwork I've got to get stuck for on Saturday or so and I've got to appear semi-healthy on that), ate dinner, then started studying for today's Lang test. Gave up studying, set the alarm for 5:50am so I could do some of it in the morning, work up at 6:30, ate breakfast, ran out the door, got to school, took test. And here I am. Endsaga.
