Anime - the emotional rolercoaster.

[Malcador]

5 hours ago, majestic said:

Well, never say watching anime won't teach you anything,

DBZ taught me that all problems can be resolved by exponentially increasing the force being applied.

[Bartimaeus]

7 minutes ago, KaineParker said:

My school experience was being bored senseless then going to work part-time, so I can't completely relate to that. I do remember [redacted] on the weekends and staying up till 3 in the morning playing videogames or watching movies, neither of which I regularly do these days.

I didn't know the former, I knew the latter due to being familiar with a horrible phrase roughly translated from German to English as "work makes you free".

Same boat, the feelings of guilt for not living up to my potential combined with seeing the work I was doing as useless and irrelevant was very distressing for me. I pretty much sailed out of high school because of my test scores, and could have failed due to not doing projects and busywork. Maybe this all shows how the school system is ****ed and how current working hours are too much. But that would be in politics and something something the market can never be wrong in its divine wisdom bootstraps.

Anyways I guess dinosaurs exist in Sailor Moon because of course they ****ing do.

Oh boy, projects were always my kryptonite. It's not that I'm necessarily anemic towards actually completing something functionally useful - I work on and complete projects of various technical degrees for my own purposes all the time, after all. It's more that I can't...roleplay and make up imaginary problems fitting ultra-broad goals and criteria and try to react to and solve them as if they're real. Give me something concrete that I actually need to fix or solve, and I can at least put mind to it and probably get it done. Alas, that's never how they ever went. Nevertheless, I did manage to finish four years of college with a 4.0 GPA...and I don't feel like I actually accomplished or learned a single thing the entire time. It takes real talent to be given so much and do so little with it, .

I'm not sure if dinosaurs actually truly exist in the Sailor Moon universe. I can only assume that particular episode was total filler, and the writers went on a bender.

[Amentep]

1 hour ago, Malcador said:

DBZ taught me that all problems can be resolved by exponentially increasing the force being applied.

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

43 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Oh boy, projects were always my kryptonite. It's not that I'm necessarily anemic towards actually completing something functionally useful - I work on and complete projects of various technical degrees for my own purposes all the time, after all. It's more that I can't...roleplay and make up imaginary problems fitting ultra-broad goals and criteria and try to react to and solve them as if they're real. Give me something concrete that I actually need to fix or solve, and I can at least put mind to it and probably get it done. Alas, that's never how they ever went. Nevertheless, I did manage to finish four years of college with a 4.0 GPA...and I don't feel like I actually accomplished or learned a single thing the entire time. It takes real talent to be given so much and do so little with it, .

I'm not sure if dinosaurs actually truly exist in the Sailor Moon universe. I can only assume that particular episode was total filler, and the writers went on a bender.

Yeah, the level of abstraction and fiction in projects made them both very hard and very easy for me. Like if I'm gonna make **** up I'm going to go big and wild instead of copy some real world problem to solve with an ideology laced solution. Despite this I managed to graduate magnum **** laude which I'm told is impressive but I don't feel like I accomplished anything and my acquired knowledge is either really dumb or fake and I don't use it anyway. Should have just gone to film school or majored in anthropology but I had to go for economics and bizness lmao.

Dinosaurs definitely exist in Sailor Moon, if only because the episode in question was actually fun and didn't revolve around killing a monster. Canon be damned.

[Bartimaeus]

Oh crap, was there really not a monster in that episode at all? I totally overlooked that. Hell yeah to dinosaurs then!

Sometimes, I get the feeling that the whole 4 year and beyond university system is a complete joke for the majority of fields. Well, would you look at the time, seems like it's just about time to send the next generation through...

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

12 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Oh crap, was there really not a monster in that episode at all?

Well there were sharks, but they were just the ordinary kind.

12 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Sometimes, I get the feeling that the whole 4 year and beyond university system is a complete joke for the majority of fields. Well, would you look at the time, seems like it's just about time to send the next generation through...

I do as well (which frankly has a lot to do with structural issues outside of the university) but the meat grinder must grind.

[majestic]

Look at you all graduating with honors or reaching top scores and talking how you feel you performed below your potential. Psh. Thanks guys, you made me feel even worse about myself.

Spoiler

No, you didn't. I knew I was never going to graduate with any kind of honors, that would require something from me that I cannot offer or don't have, or otherwise teachers that would understand. The one is impossible, the other in short supply.

I can live with that. I never expected to drop out of University, but it was probably the best decision I've made. Funny how that turned out.

I went to University for three years and the only thing I had to show for it was... one completed course, and that was an optional course called advanced mathematics for software and information engineering. I finished that before the two required basic math courses. I mean, I actually finished it while I never could be arsed to finish basic math I or II. The hell was that supposed to be anyway, they didn't want to give me credit for any of the two basics based on my prior scholastic career.

Wait, that takes some explanation to make sense. To attain a Bachelor's degree here, you need to complete a certain set of courses, reach 180 ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) points and write a thesis. You can always do more if you feel like it. Yeah sure, that totally sounds like me.

The biggest problem is that nobody forces you to do anything. You can sign up to any number of courses you would like to attend, but you do not have to take the exams at all (you even need to sign up yourself for the exams and there's always an exam just after the holidays, so "yeah I'll sign up later" and then you never do. Right? RIGHT?). So I never did.

Advanced math just had homework instead, so that's why I actually finished that. By not doing the homework and just pulling the solution out of my behind when asked by the professor. Geez, that, like watching Sailor Moon for the first time, feels like a lifetime ago. I thought I'd need multivariable calculus at some point. Turns out I never did, because I turned corporate. Yikes. 's what I never wanted from life, business software development, but it is hard to argue with better pay and less crunch. Screw dreams.

Anyway, back to the 180 ECTS points you need. I went to a special type of high school that replaces the regular four years of education with a five year course of vocational training in a field of your choice, which for me was software development and organisation/economy (i.e. a combined software development and management course, this is where I learned everything about bootstraps, by teh way), that actually gives you 90 ECTS points.

In other words, you come out of it when you're 19 and have "half" a Bachelor's degree under your belt. But in a way I paid for that with my youth. Because we're talking 36 to 40 hours of classes per week (nominally it's 32 to 36 depending on the year, but there are always "optional" extracurricular activities you attend because you "want" to), then there's homework, project work and to top it off I had a three hour commute per day (at a good day, missing a train meant it was four hours). Oh, right, and you're supposed to study at some point as well. Huh.

Spoiler

So when Minako wonders if it is worth it, boy do I know what she's talking about. I mean... sort of. Can't relate to being a Pretty Sailor Suited Soldier fighting evil in the name of love and beauty. Eh, but you get the idea.

Back to the point transfer, I applied for it, obviously, and... got most of it. Universities reserve a right to deny a transfer if they feel that the student is not up to the task, and with me having bad grades in math, well... I didn't get either of the basic math courses. I said screw you and did advanced math in an attempt to prove that my grades back at school were not my fault, but they wouldn't have any of that.

I soldiered on for a bit, but found a nice side job doing logistics (a company where I could easily get a job - go go nepotism - got a larger IT corporation as customer and needed someone who could figure everything out) and eventually dropped out of university alltogether. I initially wrote three years, but the last year I didn't show up at all, just for a handful of courses I thought I could use.

I'll just post this and call it Part I, I need to go and prepare some stuff for tomorow. Be back soonish.

[Bartimaeus]

"In other words, you come out of it when you're 19 and have "half" a Bachelor's degree under your belt. But in a way I paid for that with my youth. Because we're talking 36 to 40 hours of classes per week (nominally it's 32 to 36 depending on the year, but there are always "optional" extracurricular activities you attend because you "want" to), then there's homework, project work and to top it off I had a three hour commute per day (at a good day, missing a train meant it was four hours). Oh, right, and you're supposed to study at some point as well. Huh."

It doesn't sound like you have anything to feel bad for - as a matter of fact, it sounds like you worked a lot harder than I ever did in school. Actually, now I'm starting to see why Ami is your favorite...

Edited February 8, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, Amentep said:

 

Ah, the old memes.  That was handy in school though, ended up working hard to an insane degree (two weeks once without seeing the sun).   Now I just have a fun habit of only being productive past 2100 for the rest of my life

[majestic]

 

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

It doesn't sound like you have anything to feel bad for - as a matter of fact, it sounds like you worked a lot harder than I ever did in school. In fact, now I'm starting to see why Ami is your favorite...

I don't really feel bad per se, I just know virtually everyone expected more of me, like graduating with honors or being valedictorian. In hindisight it all seems so ridiculous. Here's the thing: I didn't work hard, outside of the insane time comitment. That's... not the way learning (or being taught) works for me. My grades always depended on whether or not a teacher would accept that or not.

My math teacher in years one, four and five didn't. Hence the bad grades. She couldn't fail me because I got good grades on the exams, but she sure as hell wouldn't give such a lazy arsed student any slack*. No sir. In our final graduation exam we had two math parts, one was graded by a different teacher (straight A, or at least our equivalent) and hers was barely a passing grade. I can only assume that she was the type of person who always had to work hard or study hard to grasp certain concepts. She also taught programming in our first year, where I barely got a passing grade, teachers in later years gave me an A without bothering to look at the programs I've turned in. 

There was a teacher who told me that the biggest problem I have is that I never learned how to study. To this day, I still don't know what that's supposed to mean.

Once I was forced by an English teacher of mine to join a special extracurricular English focus course that was meant to help students with learning disabilities to keep up with the other students after getting a perfect 100% test score on every single god damned test we had because I didn't seem to be paying attention in class and when pressed for an answer couldn't explain what ridiculous grammar rule I applied to get to the correct result on something or another (I think it was reported speech, which is supposed to be "hard"). I only knew the correct tense to use, not why it was the correct tense.

*Okay, so here's a little more info on this, I've posted that before but it's buried somewhere in a locked thread and looking something up on this board is annoying, to say the least.

In order to be actually accepted into the course at the time, you needed to pass something similar to your SATs, only at a level for 14-year-olds. Roughly one in ten students manage to pass. We had 2500 applicants this year for the five year course, and 220 were accepted (one of them me, obviously). When I graduated there were 48 people left, however, not all of them were from the group of 220 people who passed the application SAT, because if you fail a class you can repeat a year. You can do this twice. Fail a third time, and you're out. Half of the people who graduated with me were what we called "repeaters" - students who had to retake at least one year. 

The teacher in question began the year by telling us that she'll be giving copious amounts of home work, but that is merely for our benefit. It's optional, but highly encouraged to turn it in. Already strapped for time with all the other homework and commuting, I just didn't do any math homework. Now I'm there, obviously not paying attention to her (because at the time I didn't know yet I was supposd to make people feel like I listened to them, instead of just listening to them when they speak) and not taking any notes (mostly things I already knew, first year is just there to weed out the dum-dums that somehow made it past the application examination and bring everyone up to the same level).

It ended with her telling me halfway through the semester that homework is no longer optional, and I'd better spend the the Christmas holidays catching up with all the homework I missed. Why thanks. Why the change? Well becaus roughly half the class failed the first math exam but I didn't, but they showed initiative in always turning in their homework. Luckily for her she didn't have to give me the A I was due because she claimed it was impossible to read some of my numbers (couldn't argue with that, my handwriting is horrible).

Oh, right, and she was also the teacher that was organisationally reponsible for our group of students (we were group 1C, i.e. 1st year, third group, out of six). When I ended up not failing the year she just had me transferred out of her group of studens. Screw you, hag. Really.

The more the years went on, the more I applied the same concept. I barely took notes on anything, I never studied at home. I only did homework for classes I liked doing. I stopped caring about my grades, thanks to being treated unfairly. Heck, I started skipping classes, which I've never done before. That's actually on my graduation diploma. "Missed over 200 hours at school with no leave of absence." Yay?

And yet... I somehow muddled through, on a 5 year course that drops 99% of all applicants (and 85 to 90% of all those that were accepted). Ami is what I could have been. With a little understanding and encouragement. Too much to ask from teachers, I suppose.

edit: I also hope that explains why I dropped out of university over a silly basic math course. No more. Until here, and no further. Seems silly to draw a line in the sand like that.

Edited February 9, 2021 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Look at you all graduating with honors or reaching top scores and talking how you feel you performed below your potential. Psh. Thanks guys, you made me feel even worse about myself.

Well on the other hand I did almost fail my last year of high school (due to doing almost no work lmao) and didn't have really good grades until I learned how to game courses.

[Bartimaeus]

If you're already content with your job and career and not completing the degree will affect it not at all, then there really is no point anyways, especially seeing as experience is almost always more valuable anyhow.

I despise teachers like that. I had a couple of those - similar to you, they best illustrated to me how useless it was to actually try to apply yourself when you could just slack off and instead put in a minimum amount of effort at the very last second using a combination of being just a little more intelligent than everyone else (it's amazing how far being 'thoughtful' can get you with so many people...not everyone, but a lot of them), being able to absorb just enough information on the fly to get the right ideas, and a good heaping of BSing. To be honest, I never learned how to study or take notes ever - at a certain point, I became determined to spend as little time absorbing as little information as possible, because realistically, information I would need in the future I would re-learn at greater length and detail than I'd ever be able to do in school with its break-neck pace, so what was the point? Get top marks doing as little as possible, nothing else matters, .

I cared more the last two years of high school than I did all the years previous and the years after. The reason? I had a run of a few really great teachers. Big surprise, .

Edited February 9, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

45 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

If you're already content with your job and career and not completing the degree will affect it not at all, then there really is no point anyways, especially seeing as experience is almost always more valuable anyhow.

Disclaimer: I wasn't sure if I should post this for a while. Will do. I hope it doesn't come across as overly arrogant, which it really isn't (eh...).

No, my intention was not to whine, if that's how it came across. I'm content. I love my job, actually, even though I never thought I would, and my boss leaves me alone and doesn't require me to prove that I work in some sort of structured or explainable manner.

This is hard to explain, and this has to do with what I mean with my brain doesn't work that way in terms of conforming to how studying and taking tests is seen by other people. My boss is like that though. Normal, I mean. He takes a problem and tackles it in a structured manner. Models everything he needs on paper or in Visio using a variant of UML (that depends on whether he needs it for a presentation or not), figures out how to solve the issue and then starts to code whatever is needed.

I... don't do any of the things I'm supposed to as software developer, or that I learned I should do. I just sit down, look at what I have available and code what's needed. There's no iterative process that I do to reach a solution, no structure, no explanation in the end, and whereas other people who try the same approach because they don't know any better (there's a reason all this is taught or considered good practice, after all) end up with a confusing mess of code that's hard to read, has bad performance or is impossible to maintain (i.e. they begin coding and then iterate until it works), I never had that problem.

For want of a better way to express it, I just need to see the statue in that block of marble and set it free. Except it's often the other way around. I see a solution and write it down. But I can do the inverse too, see a confusing mess of code and remove everything that's not necessary. It makes me really, really good at fixing other people's errors.

Oh, and I still don't take notes, not even during work meetings, but I also really don't need to. My memory is usually quite good. There might come a time where I would need to take notes to remember things, but hopefully that time is still far off (or ideally, doesn't come at all, but alas, time lays waste to all things, as TNO once said). However, since people were alienated by me not showing up with any sort of notebook (paper or electronic) and taking notes, I've begun to emulate what is expected of me. I now have a company branded notebook (paper, that is, not a laptop) and a pen that I bring to business meetings. It's full of terrible doodles of male genitalia, copious amounts of "booooooooooooring", some jokes and at best a list of bullet points I go out of the way to write as badly and full of errors as possible.

Emulating the way I should behave has really been helpful with social interactions too, and no, I'm not autistic or have Asperger's.

Spoiler

I was tested when my first grade teacher in elementary school wanted to drop me off at the loony bin school because "he is weird and can't keep up". Man. I wish I was making this up. I remember minor details of the tests, like having to draw a horse, and some people, count numbers, writer letters. Eh. Anyway, the end result was that the teacher got transferred. Worked for me.

 

[Malcador]

2 minutes ago, majestic said:

I hope it doesn't come across as overly arrogant

As if this is a concern on this forum.

 

2 minutes ago, majestic said:

Emulating the way I should behave has really been helpful with social interactions too, and no, I'm not autistic or have Asperger's.

Sounds like you're a sociopath

[majestic]

2 minutes ago, Malcador said:

As if this is a concern on this forum.

No it's not, this was me emulating. 

2 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Sounds like you're a sociopath

Can't argue with that.

 

Edited February 9, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

Uh, that wasn't in the script, Minako...

Spoiler

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/aow0ur0q3pna1yl/imcFesPdUj.mp4

...but even so, it only makes me like her more, . You can tell it couldn't really fit (there really should've been at least a momentary pause between the sentences)...but they still went for it anyways.

(e): Usagi is basically Sonic the Hedgehog in this episode, flying around everywhere with spinny legs. If only she could move that fast during fights...

 

Edited February 9, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

Wait, did you see only the first part then? Because...

Spoiler

You're going to LOVE what Minako does in the next one.

 

[Bartimaeus]

holy **** lmao I'm dead

Spoiler

"Hold on..............................something's not quite right." understatement of the year, lady

(e): Also, I'm glad they actually had a great minion for this episode, too.

(e): So much for my Usagi theory - that or Michiru and Haruka are total dunderheads. My next best guess is now The Professor himself, because, uh, he ironically has a really pure heart for trying to get pure hearts idk lmao there's no way that's right

(e): Goodness, that was a brutal ending. What a fantastic three episode run that was.

(E): WHOOPS I watched the next episode preview and guess who's baaack? ...Okay, except my Usagi-Mamoru-Chibiusa theory literally just collapsed the previous episode, so there goes that...I wasn't expecting her back so soon!

(e): Finally, I'd like to congratulate Usagi shockingly being the first one to finally recognize someone in their alter-ego disguise...except that random boy from literally the previous episode figured out who Sailor Venus was, even though it presumably will never come up again. Drats, Usagi - almost had it!

 

Edited February 9, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Amentep]

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