Group assignments piss me off.  I have a feeling that teachers make group assignments because they think it will prepare us for a real world job where you need to work with coworkers on million-dollar projects.  Let me give you a clue, teachers…the people in those real world jobs?  They were deemed competent by managers.  They won the pick during a grueling interview process and their livelihood depends on keeping their job.  They’re not complete fools who got into the job because the company lets everybody in.

I know what you’re thinking.  Those responsible people in the workplace already WENT through school and group projects, maybe that’s how they learned to be so professional.  Wrong.  Dead wrong.  Slap yourself for thinking that.  I guarantee you those people hated group projects because it made them look bad.  Why?  They give a shit.  They already gave a shit before the group project.  It’s a life decision to give a shit, and some people just don’t…and never will.

Going through a group project is a horrible experience.  I’d rather be lost in the woods and be forced to eat tree bark and insects for the duration of the project.

Let’s go through this blow by frustrating blow.

Meet your new enemies

“Enemies?  What?  They’re your partners!”  If you thought that…you have much to learn.  These people will stop at nothing to impede progress, but I’ll go over that later.

So the teacher doles out the names of the groups, unless you’re unlucky enough to have to pick your own groups.  If having to do a group project is not bad enough, having to pick your partners is like getting spit on after you get kicked in the nuts.  Who the hell am I going to pick?  I don’t know these freakshows and I don’t want to.  I spend every day looking at others’ test scores when they get them back and they’re always lower than mine.  Now I have to pick which people suck less?

So friends go with friends and there’s always that loser group that doesn’t know anybody.  I’m always in that group.  I see it coming a mile away.  I just sit there and wait until I see people looking around with a dumb, blank stare…partner-less and afraid.  I walk over, ask to be their (obvious) partner (like I need their permission) and we begin by saying something derogatory about the assignment.  A few more partner-less people see the castaway group forming and join in.  OK…now we can work…

…Unless you’re in a group that are friends.  Standby for the entire first work session while everybody jizzes on eachother’s faces because they’re so happy to be working together.  Oh well, maybe we’ll get some work done next session.

Work session 2

By now, everybody realizes no work has been done.  The general mood of the session is “get it done.”  Now it’s time for everybody to say HOW they’re going to get the work done and assign jobs.  Nobody wants to get shit on with all the work, so the tactic-minded people mentally pick out what’s the easiest for them to do and claim that to do.  The smart-minded people pick the thing they know anybody else would jack up horribly, and claim that so they can do it right.  What you can count on though, is somebody thinking they’re doing more than their fair share.  For you people, I’ve got news for you.  You’re going to do loads more than your fair share by the end of the project anyway, so get used to it.

If everybody miraculously shows up to class for this session, by the end, everybody will “kind of” know what they’re doing, no work has been done, BUT everybody has a mental note about what, minimally, they have to do by the next session to not look like a slouch.

Work session 3-???

Every session after that has a few things to look forward to:

• Key people don’t show up for class – you waste a day.  This is actually a blessing for some people-an excuse to talk/text all class.
• Somebody has to redo another person’s work.
• Spending 15-20 minutes whining that you’re never going to finish – blame it on the project (but really the people).  Usually happens towards the end.
• Disagreements on what the teacher wanted – blaming the teacher.
• A lot of wishful thinking planning (“Well I can take that off your hands, I have a sweet computer app that will do that for me in a few minutes…it’s going to be da bomb!”) – End result is never as good as the hype.
• For some reason, people are scared of their own (great) ideas so they tweak them so that they sound better to the group…but would suck for the project.  Then the group shoots it down, while the originator tries to better explain the true idea they’re just not telling anybody.  Apparently nobody wants to be the nerd.  How is this learning?

I usually spend these work sessions staring at people and imagining their deaths.  Or imagining me going complete Jackie Chan kung fu on the entire class…using different objects to my advantage, and ultimately, walking calmly out the door after doling out so much devastation that the teacher, bloodied on the floor, gives me an A on my project and everyone else an F.  Want to be my partner?  No?  GOOD. THANK YOU.

Hand in or present the project

I will never, EVER, be the “presenter” in a group project.  Why would I want to present to the class this total train-wreck of a project?  To me, being a presenter means you have to believe in the product.  I’m not Billy Mays.  I just can’t go around and promote filth.

Also, when I watch the presenter in my own group, I pity him.  Look at him.  Poor bastard up there.  Spouting out everybody’s cheap ideas that don’t have any substance…knowing he could do better.

One more thing – I GET FLIPPING GRADED ON THIS?!?!?!?  That’s like people judging a person’s suicide jump off a building.

What have we learned?

• Nothing about the subject
• Never be a presenter
• You can fantasize about mass murder – just don’t do it
• Nothing about the subject
• This probably happens more often at ECC, because it’s loaded with maniacs
• Group projects in school will not help you with real world group projects.  Just hire competent people.  When they group, they’ll get it done
• I was right the first time, I really don’t care for people
• Nothing about the subject

How to survive the group project when you know it’s doomed

Always assume the leadership role if you are aiming for less overall frustration.  Always assume the typing role if you want less thinking to do.  Always assume the tedious roles if you want a good grade.  Always present the project at the end if you think you’re good enough to take a C project and make it seem like an A.

Be up front right at the beginning.  Those people are like dogs.  If you wait to complain about them doing jack diddly all class, they’ll just keep doing it and you’ll lose your edge and probably a bit of grade.

Dogs need direction.  Give them it.

Reward the dogs.  “Oh sweet you made this?  Nice.”

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• Camping
  • Essential campfires you should be able to make
  • Vacation item lists
  • How to backpack
  • Can you find a more awesome way to sleep in the woods than this?
• Hiking
  • Allegheny/Letchworth trail lists
  • Land navigation PDF
• Geocaching
  • Geocaching.com
  • Is your GPS ready to go?
  • Are your geocaching.com pocket queries set to how you want them?
  • Learn how to make a geocache
• Bonnaroo
  • 2010 lineup
  • See my previous Bonnaroo posts
  • Bonnaroo survival guide

I’ll probably add more as people complain I’m leaving something out.

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I don’t think I’ve ever studied for a single test in my entire life.  There are rare times that I answer each question right, but I still do great…anywhere between 90%-100%.  I’m not especially gifted…I just take the class seriously and listen in class.  I’ll take notes, but I don’t review them.  I’m not bragging…and there are a lot of people out there that have far better memorization skills – like the guy who can memorize any credit card number by hearing it once, or that savant who can “feel” numbers.  You just have to change the way you learn.

It won’t happen overnight – especially since we’ve spent years and years having teachers/parents making us do repetitive memorization tactics.  I remember staring at Spanish word lists for hours.  “Read it slowly,” they’d tell me…”then cover up one side of the paper and quiz yourself.  Repeat until you know them all.”

I remember about 10 Spanish words.

Children learn quicker because their minds aren’t as clouded as ours.  Their creativity is always with them while ours takes a bit of setup – like making your work area conducive to creativity…placing your drink next to you…quieting the area down…putting music on…going to the bathroom…thinking “ok NOW I’m ready to learn this.”

You have to change the way you learn.  Most rapid learners do not learn from step-by-step memorization (looking at information long enough until you remember it)…they link ideas together.  They see the entire picture unfold as the pieces are given to them.  They’re not just memorizing what’s on a standardized test.

When I need to memorize a list of definitions, I look at the word and then what it means.  Then I quickly stare at the word until I can feel what the word is saying.  For instance, I have to know what “federalism” means.  The definition tells me that it’s a division of power between state and federal governments.  When I look at the letters of the word though, I see letters that are higher and letters that are lower.  I see the word “federal” in there.  The word itself looks important and clean…something that should be honored a bit.  It takes me a few seconds to do this, but I don’t forget what it means.

The trick is to do this naturally and not have to remember to, well, remember.  Be a kid and clear your head.  Open it up to new ideas.  Don’t make a memorization system that’s set in stone…like forcing yourself to make flash cards for every test.  Learn and remember as the information comes in.  Then once you have it, plot it somewhere in your mental web of other information.

It also helps me to take a word’s feeling and relate it to everything else I’m learning.  Relate it to the teacher’s inflection and mood when it’s being taught.  Relate that to everything else in the topic.  Make the pieces fit together, and you’ll remember the chain even when one link is missing.

Then there are some other memory “hacks”…like memorizing a sequence of numbers by assigning letters to numbers (a=1, b=2,…), then creating a story using the resulting letters.  I haven’t ever done this, but I know my dad once memorized a long network key for a wireless network using this method.  The story was off the wall, grammatically incorrect and confusing to others…but it worked for him.  He might still remember what that key was, just because he made his story his own.

I’ll leave you with a clip from an article about that autistic savant:

“Tammet is calculating 377 multiplied by 795. Actually, he isn’t “calculating”: there is nothing conscious about what he is doing. He arrives at the answer instantly. Since his epileptic fit, he has been able to see numbers as shapes, colours and textures. The number two, for instance, is a motion, and five is a clap of thunder. “When I multiply numbers together, I see two shapes. The image starts to change and evolve, and a third shape emerges. That’s the answer. It’s mental imagery. It’s like maths without having to think.” – guardian.co.uk

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“Doing less” is a great message for anybody who wants to rationalize being lazy…but the good kind of lazy.  The efficient kind of laziness where you get everything done without trying very hard.  You find pressure points and exert little energy.

I used to over plan things.  I would find everything I wanted to accomplish and spend awhile coming up with a daily system and routine to get them done.  It was an endless cycle and eventually the system got overloaded…I couldn’t plan anymore…things fell apart…I got discouraged…then I tried again when I felt less like shit.

Now, I’ve embraced minimalism.  I cut back on everything.

I started with my possessions.  If I haven’t used it in 6 months, it was trashed.

If I was only keeping something because I “might” end up using it later, it was trashed.  Expensive items were sold and cheap items were trashed.  I put everything in a pile, and really, only a few things made it out alive.

I moved onto activities.  I stopped going out to bars to get drunk – not the drunk part, just going out.  This one wasn’t that hard to do.  I rearranged my hobbies so I could spend more time on the ones that will make me a better person in the end, or rather, who I want to be.

I now have 4 days off per week…to do anything.  Hopefully it’s something worthwhile…but if it isn’t, that’s OK too.

I buy essentials and don’t replace something until it’s certainly broken.

I know homework is due on a certain day but I don’t stress about it.  If I feel like sleeping instead of doing more math problems, I’ll take a nap and possibly stop working on it for a few days…and I’ll feel great about it.  If it’s important enough, it’ll get done.

I am less involved in the drama of everybody’s life.  I involve less people in the drama of my life.  I don’t try to cajole people into doing things – I let the pieces fall and go from there.

I drive slow and watch the town go by – so I use less gas, get less frustrated and have less of a chance of getting into an accident.

Automation is your friend and you should learn to love it.  Automate everything you can.  Finances, your house, your phone, computer tasks, shopping…everything.  The less you need to think about and remember, the better off you will be.

It’s the concept of doing less that will clear your day and your mind to accomplish what really matters.  You can take your time.  You can use your brain more.  You can learn and remember better and more clearly.  So go ahead – try doing less of everything.  Instead of you moving around life, let life move around you.

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1. The internet has changed, making the book useless
2. The teacher wants to change the steps to make it mesh better with her teachings
3. I want to torture myself

I’m something of a computer literate person as it is, and this class is so easy it’s hard.  If you skim over something like “Click the Home button in Internet Explorer,” because you’ve done that over and over again and you’re just going to go to a different page anyway, the forward/backward buttons may be greyed out…so when you take a screenshot to prove that you can click a flipping HOME button (for the 20th time), it won’t look right…therefore you get a lesser grade.

If I was new to computers, I’d think that computers are the hardest most complicated thing in the world.  Why?

1. What?  I need 6 books for this class?  It only takes one book to learn physics!  Computers must be hard.
2. If I can’t afford all the books, I still am required to spend $65 for an access code to an online study course.  The teacher apparently can’t teach me what this online course entails because she is only one person and computers are more complicated than that.  I don’t even know what an “online study course” is.  I will pay anyway and learn as I go…hopefully.
3. This is weird.  I went through class today and haven’t even used a computer.  The teacher hasn’t even told me how to use it.  All she had me do was things out of the book.  I’m starting to feel like I could learn this on my own, but I know I can’t because there’s all this overwhelming stuff.
4. I asked a question, but when my teacher’s answer didn’t make sense to me…my partner cleared it up for me.  This is so hard the teacher doesn’t know.  It’s going to take the whole class of students to figure out this magic box!  Teamwork!

Ridiculous.

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It’s been awhile since I’ve played Vanguard.  I had quit for awhile there because real life was getting in the way and I felt like I wasn’t making any progress in the game.  In fact, I got drunk one day and even tried to write up a “25 reasons to quit Vanguard now” paper…because anybody who plays Vanguard can tell you it’s a love-hate relationship with the game.   It’s the greatest “hardcore” MMO out there but nobody knows about it…or gave up on it because of bugs/performance issues.

I even tried to get two friends playing, but they all said the same thing when they would play – “I can’t find a group.  Seems like nobody is low level.”  It’s true.  Try going to a video game store and buy a copy of Vanguard…you won’t be able to.  For fun, I try to look for Vanguard whenever I’m in a Gamestop or Best Buy and I never can.  There hasn’t been any advertising either.  My friend even had a problem downloading the digital download and had to wait days for a response email.

The only people who play the game already have high level characters and have been playing since release.  You’ll be hard pressed to find a true newbie.  There are low levels – they’re just alts.  Sometimes I think the Vanguard community is just 100 people with a bunch of characters.

Either way, I’m back, bitches!  Playing the Druid as my main and getting badass and rich.

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Earlier that day I was shoveling a truck out from the underpass.  When 40mph gets tunneled in there, it feels like 60+ because I was literally getting taken off my feet.  Now when it’s time to go home, another truck is stuck.  Also, I should have continued streaming because watching him getting towed out was hilarious…I just didn’t know it would happen so soon.  Snow is cool though.

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This was waiting for me when I woke up at noon, hungover.

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Happy New Year!

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Whether or not I’ve changed my mind?  You’re goddamn right I haven’t changed my mind.  I really wish I could find last year’s post so I could link it here…if anybody stumbles upon it, let me know.

Let me explain what it takes for me to go through Christmas in timeline form.

Around Thanksgiving, I’m having a blast because there’s food and family and no presents to buy.  This year’s Thanksgiving was great…tons of family and it felt like we were all reconnecting in a way we haven’t done since the few divorces and fights in the family.  When it ended, I thought about Christmas.  A deep grumble happened in my stomach and can you guess the first place I went to plan for this Christmas season?  Not the attic that stores our decorations.  Not Gmail to email family/friends and figure out availabilities.  I went to USAA to check my account balance and groan that it’s going to be a tight one.  I then opened up Evernote and figured out how much money I could spend on each person.  I signed up for deals websites.  I signed up for Amazon’s lightning deals on twitter.  Then?  I forgot about Christmas.  It didn’t like me right then so I didn’t like it.

December 17th, the last day of online shopping where most retailers won’t deliver by the 25th, I didn’t shop.  I had the entire day off too…I didn’t really care.  It was a burden to me.  I’m pretty sure I was still clinging to the idea that nobody would get me anything and I didn’t have to get anybody anything.  I could show up to parties empty handed, right?

December 18th, reality kicked in.  I said “oh shit I have to go to the mall.”  It’s probably way too late to tell people not to get me anything.  I went to the mall, but bringing a girl grounded me a little.  She definitely kept my sanity longer than I would have alone.  When we got to the mall, I couldn’t find a parking spot anywhere.  I was angry before I even stepped foot into a store.  BULLSHIT! THIS ISN’T REALLY CHRISTMAS, IS IT!?!?

In the mall, places were crowded with fat people.  I’d imagine they had the entire day of shopping strategically planned to hit deals and had lists of what they were going to get people.  I had no list.  I was unprepared.  I was surrounded by two types of people; slow people and desperately slow people.  The heat started to get to me and I was sweating in my hoodie and jacket.  I needed a cigarette.

I lasted as long as I could and that was at 3 or 4 stores before I gave up.  I didn’t know what to get anybody, my legs hurt and I couldn’t take the people anymore.  I left with a few items and the thought that I’d have to eventually go back there anyway.  Gaaaaaaaaaah.

Two days went by and I decided I’d invite the same girl that went with me, because I’d never make it otherwise.  I was an hour late meeting her at the mall because of traffic on the thruway.  Again, I was angry at the world before I even got to the mall.  I parked in the same area I parked last time just to avoid frustration trying to find a good spot.  This time, I wasn’t messing around.  I said the name of who I needed a gift for and browsed the first suggestion the girl I was with gave.  Gifts were being purchased at record speed.  Eventually, I ran out of money on one card and we left with 1 gift still having to be bought.

Luckily, the check I had cashed a few days prior went through on Christmas Eve, and I was able to go out to Target, then Gamestop…which took 2 hours.

Now, it’s the 27th.  Everything is over and I’ve decided I’m never going to procrastinate shopping ever again.  Even if I do and gifts won’t get to me in time, I’m going to say they haven’t shipped yet so deal with it.  I’m never going through Christmas shopping in a store again.

In terms of what Christmas is really all about…I think I did a better job.  I prolonged my stays at each visit and talked to family members I usually don’t talk to.  I learned a lot about them…and I even broke my Grandpa’s shell.  He rarely talks but we talked for almost an hour.  I probably should have been doing that all year long, but if it takes Christmas to remind people to do that, then maybe it’s not all that bad of a holiday.

Got some pretty sweet presents in the meantime too.

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