I guess I haven’t updated in a while. Well nothing has happened worth writing about. That’s not to say that things of little or no consequence have been happening; nothing has happened at all. Nevertheless I will not forget about this blog, there will always be new posts. I’m not the kind to give up on things.
As you can already guess, something new happened. I once again returned to the college today hoping to set up my online classes. Before I left I was playing Ace Combat 6 because I figured I’d be doing a lot of work once I was at the college and so I thought I would get in as much relaxing game play as possible. I’d prefer to do my classes online so that I can do it wherever and whenever I please while wasting very little time. Not to mention my plan is to blaze through it all as fast as I can. Much to my dismay this was not set up today.
Once I arrived I soon found out that my teacher was not around. I asked the only person I could find in the office about this and they said she was in a meeting of some kind. I wasn’t in any hurry and I asked when my teacher would return, to which they said ‘maybe an hour’ and as usual I didn’t mind waiting. They asked me what I was there for and once I answered they brought me to one of the rooms where students were working and told me that a different teacher could help me.
When I walked into the room this other teacher was hanging something on a board. After he was finished he asked me what I needed and I told him I was there to set up my online classes. We moved over to a computer and he looked at the screen and asked if it looked like ‘a+’ (which is the name of an application used for one of their online programs). I said I wasn’t sure and that I didn’t even know how any of this works or what I needed. He then said something along the lines of “Well… I don’t either” followed by “People like to think I know things that I don’t” at which point I said “I figured I’d probably just have to wait.”
He told me I could use the computer until my teacher was back and I said “I don’t know what I’d use it for.” He then asked for my name and set up an account for me on an application called ‘plato’ for me to work on as I waited. He told me that he gave me two English sections to work on and said “I don’t know if this is what you’ll be using but it probably is so it won’t be entirely in vain.” I said “ok” and began working.
As soon as I started I was underwhelmed. The questions, setup, and difficulty of the work before me was ridiculously simple. The very first segment was identifying pronouns. All of the segments were as effortless as distinguishing a finely cut diamond from ordinary river stones. At this point I assumed this computer program was for ABE (Adult Basic Education) because it certainly seemed too easy for me. Despite this I felt the need to finish as much as possible including all of the tutorials simply to kill time.
When my teacher finally returned I had finished almost the whole first course I was given. I would’ve finished everything to be sure but the program was set in a way that it requires you to be on certain screens for a preset amount of time before advancing. I later found out, not much at all to my surprise, it didn’t count for anything. For once I didn’t mind that I had done work that was meaningless. It was incredibly easy and I’m the kind of person that can get caught up in things and not realize how much time has passed.
Now that my teacher was here I expected things would move quickly; they didn’t exactly. She was already helping another student with something and told me to wait in the front of the room and as soon as she was finished she would get to me. Roughly ten minutes later she was back and started telling me what credits I would need. She had another ‘revised’ version of my transcript which actually gave me more of the credits I rightfully earned but it still wasn’t acceptable. From my understanding this wouldn’t even be a problem save for the fact that my old teacher apparently doesn’t like to return calls.
What was wrong this time? My name was displayed correctly. It granted me more but not quite nearly all of my credits. It even had numerical values as far as I could see and they were still wrong and far lower than what I had actually received. So what could have possibly made this one unacceptable? For some reason my old teacher decided to change the dates on the transcript. This might not have been an issue (though I have to wonder quite simply why they felt the change was needed) if it wasn’t for the fact that the dates that were listed as my final high school years were in fact dates which I was still attending middle school.
…
Moving on she told me that for the moment they’re going to assume they will be getting a fixed transcript so that I won’t have to redo the credits that were listed. “Good luck with that”, I thought. Then she showed me the core credits I needed and how many electives I would need. For the moment, I need a total of fifteen credits. She also told me I could challenge only two classes. A challenge is more or less where you take the final test and if you pass you automatically get that credit. Yet I wonder why I can only do that for two classes? The entire program from what I’ve seen is free so it can’t be a money issue.
She then passed me off to her superior who told me pretty much the same things. Her superior then started to write a list of classes I could challenge. This entire process took quite a while because students kept coming up and asking questions and for some reason they would always both respond. Around half way through the list she erased two of the classes and said something like “You’ll never be able to pass those anyway.” I couldn’t help but think to myself “Excuse me? Isn’t that for me to decide?” but I chose not to say anything since I can only do two total. She then asked me which two classes I wanted to challenge and I was a little astonished that they expected me to decide this right there so I simply said “I don’t know yet.”
Next she handed me a book titled “You and the Law” saying that it was an easy elective credit since it only took a couple days to complete. She told me how to go through the book; read one chapter, do the test at the end of the chapter (but not in the book), and so on. Subsequently she went to pull out the photocopied test only to find they didn’t have any more copies. So she took the master copy and we walked down the hall to the photocopier. I’m not sure what she was doing since the room was far too small for more than one person to be in but she seemed to be having difficulty with the machine. My teacher soon walked in and attempted to create the copies the way that they wanted them. The two of them were in disagreement over how to accomplish this and then I heard my teacher say “Don’t tell me how to use this machine. I know how to use this machine.” I’m guessing she said it with a slight bit of sarcasm because they weren’t actually arguing over it but I wasn’t really paying attention.
After the photocopier pandemonium was over my teachers superior gave me one of the copies of the test as well as a folder and told me that the book can’t leave the room. This meant that I couldn’t take it home and complete it. I would ascertain that this was a measure to keep people from cheating however one could easily turn the pages back, search for the answers in the previous chapter, and no one would have any idea. Finally she told me that whenever I was going to leave I was to place this folder into a green crate on a desk by the wall.
My teacher then said to me that before I could take the online classes I would need to come back tomorrow and take an instructional course to learn how to do it. I thought that’s what I was there to achieve today but evidently not. Since I was only really interested in getting the online work out of the way as fast as I could I surmised that I wouldn’t get anything finished today and I should just come back tomorrow.
It always seems like I can never get anything accomplished especially when it’s not in my power to accomplish it.
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