How Was You Day?

[Kaharz]

I figure that as a city driver, you don't have to try, it just happens on its own.

When I lived by Johns Hopkins University I was terrified of running someone over. A lot of the students just walk into the street without ever stopping or looking up from their phones. I'm told the school has a pedestrian safety seminar during orientation because the problem is so bad.

The rest of the city is pretty much lawless as far as driving / biking / walking goes. The police do almost no traffic enforcement and everyone knows it. The end result seems to be that everyone who lives in the city maintains a high degree of awareness. There are some intersections where I will almost completely stop before making a right turn on green because visibility is poor and people tend to run those lights a lot.

There are a few other areas where drivers will go way too fast and pedestrians will just walk out in front of you because they don't care. But those are pretty small areas.

I don't drive in the city all that much though. I commute to and from work and I'm usually out of the city by 5:30 am on my way to work, so the streets are pretty empty. I usually walk everywhere else unless it is late at night, then I get a cab. Being able to walk almost everywhere is one of the reasons I live in the city.

[Astrogirl]

My day was fine.

But my aunt tried to run over my mum. Who knew when she threatened to do it if she ever saw my mum again she meant it? My mum usually adjusts her schedule so as not to encounter the crazy woman, but she got a job delivering the census and had to deliver it to McCrazyAunt's house (you can't skip house that's the whole point of the census). And aunt saw her, chased her down and tried to run her over.

I'm just so amazed I had to share it.

omg

[Kimra]

When I lived by Johns Hopkins University I was terrified of running someone over. A lot of the students just walk into the street without ever stopping or looking up from their phones...

Whenever I drive near the university it's an active task not to run into the students. My most favourite recent experience was the pair who stepped out in front of my car five meters from the pedestrian crossing. Looked at me like I was a monster for not running into them. And THEN proceeded to walk down the street past the pedestrian crossing. (To be clear, they passed the crossing either way, it was in their path, they had zero reason to walk out into traffic.)

[Liriodendron_fagotti]

they had zero reason to walk out into traffic

Except that sweet thrill of staying alive in the face of danger.

[Kaharz]

I'm taking a terrible project management class, so it is terrible squared. It is unfortunately required or I'd skip it since I already have the professional certification that the entire class is lifted from, albeit 15 years out of date. This week was scheduling and resource management. The homework assignment took seven hours, and not due to an increased difficulty, just way more work. The other assignments took only 1-2. I am not amused by the irony.

I'm already pissed over this class. The professor is worthless. Although I had him before so I knew he'd be no help going into it, especially since it is online. I know I answered some of the quiz questions questions correctly and was marked wrong by the computer. But the professor takes no appeals. On the upside I only need a 55% to pass, so I will certainly pass. And while my GPA doesn't actually matter since I'm not looking for a high profile job, this will probably be the first class in a while I won't get the highest possible letter grade in (A). That is despite it being a class I actually have a lot of real world experience in. Only one more week though.

[Astrogirl]

Sounds terrible.

[Liriodendron_fagotti]

Started my first Real Person job on Friday! It's a research assistant position in a pulmonary diseases center at UNC. The lab I'm in is mainly focused on the effects of tobacco products on various lung diseases - bronchitis, emphysema, and pneumonia, mainly. The lab head is super nice. She was already encouraging me to do my own experiments when I interviewed with her. Really excited.

[Felstaff]

So she's asking you to take up smoking?

[Liriodendron_fagotti]

So she's asking you to take up smoking?

I smoke mice. It's a little grim.

[Kaharz]

So I'm supposed to do some work at NSA. Nothing major or super secure or anything. I'm not IT or anything. But like most government contracts (even though I'm a subcontractor) they wanted a corporate and personal resume to make sure we/I could do the job I was saying we/I could. A few hours later I got a call back telling me to skip the personal resume, because the NSA was 'familar' with me. They should be familiar with me, I've worked there before. Although all very trivial stuff and I've never been given access to any buildings. But they know more about me than probably everyone but about five people. It still seems a bit weird because I actually had to tell them who approved me for access for another job. So they didn't know who approved me for access for a job on their property but knew enough about me to know I could do the job? The mind boggles.

Also, I got a B (2nd highest letter grade of 5) in that project management class. It really should have been an A since the median was a C (mid-range) and the mean was an E (bottom 25%, there was some weird curving). But I passed and don't have to take it again even if it ruined my perfect scores.

[Liriodendron_fagotti]

I've been watching a lot of Olympics. Avoiding the main NBC broadcast as much as possible.

Stinks about the B. I made one B+ out of all my biology classes in undergrad.

Some of my music classes were less stellar.

E: Ooooooh NSA. Are we all going to be checked out because you posted that here?

[Apocalyptus]

Let's be honest, we were probably already on a list.

[Lethal Interjection]

*Deleting browser history*

[Astrogirl]

For an application to the German equivalent of the NSA they wanted information about parents (but they provided only two pages and I have more than two parents) and siblings (not nearly enough space either to get all my half- and step-siblings in) and someone who knows you relatively recently and someone who knew you before 18 and answers to questions like where you in East Germany before 1990 (born there), in Czechia before 1991 (yeah, school trip ... wait, I don't remember if it was in the first or second half of 5th so maybe it was in 1992) and other Eastern countries ... I think they hadn't updated their forms since the 80s. And they wanted to know which newspapers one reads.

[Kaharz]

Stinks about the B. I made one B+ out of all my biology classes in undergrad.

The minimums for the class were 85% - A, 70% - B, 55% - C. Since it is a core requirement engineering class, anything less than a C is failing. I got a 71% weighted, although it should have been higher. My unweighted was an 85%. The median weighted was a 60% and the mean weighted was a 45%. This was not a hard class, it was just horribly managed and the professor did nothing except assign reading and homework and put grades in. It was online, so I didn't expect much. I got a 44% on the online final. The catch is that about 40% of the points were fill in the blank / short answers that you could only get 'correct' if you typed in the exact same thing as answer key. I got one of those 'right.' I thought he would manually regrade because of that, but he didn't even bother to do that.

My GPA doesn't matter, I knew I wouldn't learn much in the class, and it was a generic project management class. Not a technical class with critical material. So I'm really only upset because the professor put no real effort in. And apparently there are no reviews for summer session, so I can't anonymously complain.