Oops... I think super-achiever here needs a lesson..... Wait.... He did say he was a Marine...... I'll let you off this time.... ;)

Miss riding for finals? Nah, I usually put in about 100 more miles than normal during finals week. Gotta love the College of Agriculture...

I feel ya man, I just wrote a 12 page paper on Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism. Now, I am studying on Tocqueville and Durkheim for a final tomorrow, plus I gotta study for my Crime and Criminology final too.


I don't even have my bike near me.. Too busy studying.

Smitty, do you go to UCSD?

**** im probably near your ass stressing about finals typing this bs while I should be studying..

Work hard. Make your mum proud.

yep finals piss me off, got exams this week and next as well as semester projects due, there's gonna be a VERY long ride when this semester is over.

I think there might have been a bit of sarcasm here. I don't think the idea was that we college students have it worse or better than anyone else, I think it might have just been someone venting. Since it's the internet, though, bring on the pissing contest.


In actual related news, my finals week doesn't even start until Monday, but my toughest final is tomorrow and I also have a rather enormous paper due. The paper is rough because it's a group project (should have seen that coming in a class on group communication), and I more or less had to drag my groupmates kicking and screaming to start last night instead of tonight or tomorrow. Unfortunately, my grades are quite important in the long run because I plan on going to law school as well, but I guess staying in and working weekend nights while my friends are out drinking themselves stupid or putting in that extra effort to ensure I get the grades I do day in and day out makes me a candy*** with no concept of work, responsibility, or deferred gratification.

In the end, having so much to do this week works in my favor, as I hurt my knee at the gym earlier this week and now I'm not even tempted to test it. However, actual finals week (starting Monday) while probably be the most riding I do all winter, as I only have two finals that week, they are both going to be easy, and they are spaced out. Rifle season is over, time for some 'cross in the gamelands.

Misery is relative, so Zyler's retirement and sixty hour work weeks are shadows on the cave wall to us. In more modern rhetoric, we call this a "false analogy." It is what it is.

A friend of mine was writing his MSc thesis while not knowing if his mum was dead or not after his town in southern Lebanon was bombed. A friend of his on the same course was in Lebanon - she asked for an extension after getting evacuated in an airlift out of the embassy compound without being allowed to take her laptop (which had her thesis on it). The request was denied. She finished it in time anyway.

Kinda put things in perspective I ran into him -
'Hey Treefox, how are things?'
'Meh. Rough meeting with my supervisor this morning.'
'Yeah, I hear you. I have to re-write my literature chapter. There was also an air strike on the box factory up the street from my house and I'm not sure if my family survived.'
'Oh... uh.... yeah....'

Then one of my then-girlfriend's course-mates was from Haifa in Israel - she'd ring up her neighbours two or three times a week to check that her house (which she and her husband were renting out while in the UK) was still there.

Dangit, I just went from a solid A in Eco Stats to a probable B because I bombed the final...

I got all confident because I had A's on the first two exams, and then spent more time with the bike and less time with the HW.

Finals SUCK!

Off topic, but you are completely wrong about this as far as linguistics are concerned.

The latter claim is a lie perpetuated by prescriptive grammar propagandists since the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The former has been shown to be historically more accurate. The rise of the middle class in 18th century England gave rise to the feeling that English usage and spelling needed standardization, partially out of desire to emulate the way the upper class talked and to distinguish themselves from the Cockneys and the lower class. Prescriptive grammars made their ways into elementary schools after movable type and inexpensive printing in England contributed to the rise of dictionaries and formal grammar books. Once prescriptive grammar tool hold any idiosyncratic word usage became wrong.

However, a careful study of the evolution of the English language, and of language in general reveals that it is constantly changing. What is grammatically correct today may not have been grammatically correct a decade ago, or yesterday for that matter. Case in point: placing a preposition at the end of a sentence. This was once a big no-no, now you'd be hard pressed to find an average college student who even understands what a preposition is, or how it should be used. Further proof of the shift to descriptive grammars after linguists made this realization is the format of dictionaries. Both Merriam-Webster's and the Oxford English Dictionary do not say necessarily how a word should be spelled or used, instead they describe actual common uses, of which there may be a variety.

So, in reference to smitty22's "grammatical correctness": we have high grammatical standards, but his grammar is not incorrect, it's just his.

I'm continually amazed at how simple, light-hearted observations turn into a complete b!tch-fest so quickly on BF.

BTW....most boring paper....20 page lab report on neutron detection due tomorrow. I'm on page 4.

^^^Lab reports blow.

Anyways, my high school has us spit out 157 papers (2 pgs. or more) by the time we graduate.

I love finals. All the students are off studying or going home. Same with the professors. The office gets real quiet! I guess that's the difference between going to university and working at university.

The single greatest part of getting old is that you *never* have to take another final.

My mom has a BA in history and an MLIS in library sciences both from UC Berkeley. Her master's is about 20 years old and basically obsolete since the whole library system has drastically changed. She's going back to school to get another master's for the same thing. It's kind of cute, she even bought a new iMac just for school. She has three kids in college, one in high school, and now she's going back to grad school.

I am studying right now, and my bike has also been neglected now for the last couple days, between studying and bad weather. I need a trainer...

Just do well in the finals and then you can override your bike during winter break to compensate :D

there is a girl in my section at school that is amazing. she goes to law school, has a 40 hour work week, and two kids (single mom). that is truly amazing.

This thread is actually interesting in the very different perspectives. Having been in the same situation, I will say that I was never very fond of the end of each term, where I found myself inevitably cramming to make up for a bit of procrastination from the previous weeks. However, how things change. I always say that I would love to return to the sanctuary of school - how I would take advantage of the great learning opportunities that, at the time, seemed more like useless information. These days, I have very little time to myself, from work and kids. However, I try to take an hour and 15 minutes 2 out of every 3 days to ride.

Don't take the old-timer's comments as criticism as much as a yearning to return to simpler, more carefree time. Also, don't complain too much - don't forget that college students typically get 2-4 weeks of free time after those dastardly finals are done. What I wouldn't do to get a summer off again.

I gave two finals today and will be holed up grading for the next few days while the weather is glorious here in North Central Florida. By the time I am done a cold front will come through and I'll have to get the leg warmers and long-sleeved wool jersey back into the rotation. Yesterday I did get out for 46 wonderful miles, though: shorts and short-sleeved jersey zipped half-way down for cooling in the 80 F, dry, calm, sunny conditions. W00t!

I loved Finals Week when I was a student because during finals I had enormous amounts of free time to do anything I wanted to do. It was the easiest week of the school year. Of course it helped that I was always completely on top of my studies all semester so no last minute cramming was required. Now that I'm a prof I hate finals week. Grading final exams is so depressing.

i'm glad this thread took off in a good way after coyote tried to ruin it.

i just finished up another final. we had a 12 page essay which was the ticket in to class in order to get the final. the final itself was a 2 hour hand written test.

now its time to take advantage of my local trek store sale and get some sweet gear.

coyote can we be friends now? i promise i won't whine or complain. and i won't make anymore unequivocal statements. pleeeeease?

haha i feel with the students, i just hit up spin class cause by the time i got done with my finals today, it was already dark and freezing.

cant wait to hop back on the bike tomorrow night for the indoor bike races.

and by the way, you all dont have it too bad, im an architecture student.

I spend about 100 hours a week working on stuff that wont ever be built, i dont get to party hardly, the professors are the cockiest lot youll ever meet, and on top of that, i am taking 18 hours this semester lol

to finish my semester out, i had a 30 page paper on the history of Modern architecture, an exhibition for my studio class, a digital model of a peter eisenman house (an idiot whose buildings are more jokes than livable), a building wall section model at full scale and exam on the methods and materials of construction, a real life fabricated light and an acoustics project for a concert hall on top of an exam for my environmental control. all that and now my studio professor expects me to have a book that is essentially 40 pages about my project and exhibition by tomorrow at one... and anybody that went to school with someone in architecture can validate- its insane.

i doubt thats going to happen though, there are a few too many beers and girls in the way...



vent over, beer cracked!
hope the rest of your exams go well for all that have them, teachers and students...

Good Lord, how do you find time to sleep let alone ride.;)

I think professors tend to come from the smartest kids in each class since they're the only ones who don't equate more school (Master's and PhD?!) with killing themselves.

I have no chance of being a professor.

If my finals weren't keeping me from riding my road bike, the weather would be. I'm stuck using this ugly badboy.

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c2...y/IMG_4945.jpg

Eeeeww!

Or even better yet..... I know some full time workers going for their PhDs and MDs (PhD/MD Program) - now THAT's a killer!!!!

+1 on whoever thought the class was easy (solid A) and then messing up the Final at the end. I had three solid 4.0s in my classes and a possible 3.7 on the fourth.... I only studied for that fourth course..... In the end I got three 3.7s and one 4.0 (the class I studied for) MAN, I felt like a FOOL!!!! NEVER will I do that again....