Farhenheit 450.9

As I do every Tuesday morning, I arrived at University of North Texas' Baptist Student Ministry to play a few rounds of ping-pong with my friend Zac who I carpool with. I really enjoy it in the morning because it gets the blood flowing and helps me focus in class.

After losing two games to one, I left the building to attend my Economic Research methods class. The coolness felt wonderful on me but I realized that it would only be comfortable if I kept my sweater and my leather jacket on.

On my way into Wooten Hall, I pass by and smile at a professor I had last semester, I see an old friend who I awkwardly wave but receive no reciprocation, and then I see the flood of students walk out of the building wearing a T-shirt and pants... I even saw a girl wearing a short skirt.

I have always been a lover of the cold. I admit, I was caught a little off-guard by Winter than I.

I then proceed leisurely into the building preparing for my most hated class when I instantly start feeling beads of sweat roll down my back (the first place I always sweat... gross, I know).

I am hit by a wall of "public" plus heat and actually gag due to the commercial and tepid smell combined with a pulse of heat likely to ignite a potato.

People all around me are removing any extra layers of clothes as they head up the stairs causing people to climb the stairs while blinded by sweaters being taken over their head and running into other people.

What is UNT thinking?

Sure its nice to come into a warm building, but not one where your books instantly ignite. I wouldn't be surprised if that were the purpose so that they could make a new edition of the book and sell it to you. Not only that, but the heat of people removing clothesthat were containing their own musk are released into the air, amplified by the heat, and then spread around to every happy student there. We all dwell together in our own signature form of stink.


IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE...
If UNT's intent was to create a more comfortable learning environment, what they've done is created an atmosphere in which the middle-aged women coming back to college don't know if they are entering menopause, or if the campus employees of the building in their offices are comfortable from a central A/C unit.

I know space heaters are so expensive and hard to find this time of year.

It's a jerk move and if UNT or UNT's SGA weren't so busy working on their new multi-million dollar union and trying to get all the bells and whistles they can, perhaps they could address the practicality of students sweating in their classroom during the first 15 minutes of class.

People stink. You stink- and if there is anything I can do to not be miserable WHILE BEING MISERABLE ALREADY, I will do it.

The most hilarious, counter-effective ad campaign

Production Company Plane Stupid has recently created an ad where Polar Bears fall to their deaths in an urban environment. The purpose seems to try and show the gravity of the situation with global warming (See what I did thar? :B ). The thought of it is unbearable (OK, I'm done)



What it instead does to me is gives me an irrational fear of one of the most unpredictably aggressive mammals known to man to fall from the sky and crush me, and if they miss, they'll get back up and eat me.

I'd be more willing to campaign against Global Warming if it caused polar bears to precipitate from the skies and into my neighborhood.

This ad campaign has effectively concluded that in relative levels of alarming crises facing our earth through the following equation:

Volume Carbon Dioxide > Weight of Polar Bear crushing you from stormy skies.

Someone doesn't have their priorities straight.

Mr. Barber drops a class

About two weeks ago I started noticing a pattern in my grades and am unable to determine whether it is based on one of two things. Here are my hypotheses.

Hypothesis 1: I am failing arguably my two hardest classes this semester, Economic Research Methods and Price Theory.

Hypothesis 2: I am culturally insensitive and failing only classes taught by Chinese Nationals with severe accents and barriers to cultural similarity.

Let me elaborate...

In the last week of September, we proceeded to take our first test in Price Theory. Class Average was a 60. The good doctor proceeded to claim that it was better than last semester's class who averaged a 50. When someone asked what the highest grade in the class was, she said someone had scored a 100. Some people stood up and immediately walked out to go and drop the class. Others asked if she thought it was too low and then she reiterated the "improvement" over last semester.

So, after receiving a dismal grade that was less than the average, she proceeded to indicate to the class that she was very tricky on the test, I was fuming but decided to stick it through at that point.

Then this week, she started preparing us for our next test and started talking about how the test was full of tricks and gimmicks. I promptly raised my hand and politely asked " So, if you're putting so many tricks on the test, why don't you teach us how to do these tricks?" She insisted that the questions were of the same difficulty as practice sets and that they just seemed harder to us because of the time constraint.

I pretended as if I agreed with her when the whole time I was envisioning myself giving her the middle finger. At this point she started talking about how teaching us through torture seemed to be the most effective way. That's when I realized that there is a whole cultural gap that separates our minds. She suggested that if some students drop to take another instructor, that he was much harder. I leaned forward to my fellow classmate and uttered " but at least I can understand 'em". He didn't respond... I don't know because he didn't hear me, or just thought I was a jerk.

I had decided it... I was going to drop that class to keep me from academic probation. Price Theory is required for my major and if I had made less than a C in it, I would've had to retake it anyway. I believe with the grading scale that I am still able to pull my grade up in Economic Research Methods.

So, am I culturally insensitive? Maybe... a few child evaluations performed in my youth indicate that I am not. However, when it comes to my education and my money going towards tuition, I will undoubtedly look up pictures and use pure prejudice on nationality and who I will take.

Am I certain that this will come back and bite me politically some day? Yes. If they get onto George W. Bush for making "C"'s at Yale, they surely wouldn't want some "C" student from a public TEXAS university to run for anything. My fiance's best friend is a Hong Kong National. While I love her company, I'm not sure I want her as a professor.

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So when I went to drop the class today, I went to the Economics department to try and get a withdraw and convince my professor to not bestow a Withdraw-Fail (WF). Her office hours indicated that she would still be in her office, but after inquiring the secretary, she informed me that she had left an hour ago. Charming. She then asked if she could help me with anything. I let her know that I was planning on dropping Price Theory and flashed my form. She scooted her chair back, reached in her filing cabinet and pulled out a pre-filled form with the professor's name already signed and the department chair's signature with the "W" already circled (Thank Goodness). I just looked at her slack-jawed momentarily.

They were anticipating us to withdraw.

After getting information on procedures to drop, she had me sign a booklet to let the department know I was dropping a class. While signing, I saw that plenty of other classmates had dropped the course. I saw about 12 from my class and had noticed that our class had been reduced to about half capacity.

So anyway, it seems that Price Theory is a prerequisite for itself. My dad had always talked about the fabled course that was such a horrible weed-out course in each field. For him it was Statics. For me, it's Price Theory.

I'll be back at its throat again next semester. I will take no prisoners... I will also take EFL teachers. That is... "English First Language"... as long as I am able.

P.s. This is not about any kind of hate. I respect the Chinese culture immensely. I just do not respect my professor in the least.