Loyal's Thoughts

GraybeardGhost said:

Moonsets for the past three nights were at 7:04, 7:58, and 8:53, which is probably why you missed it then.

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Yes between the poorly weather and my lateness I have missed it every time!

Thanks for the app, it never occurred to me that I was too late for the moon! :shyness: :bigsmile:

LoyalXenite said:

Damn! I knew I was missing something!

Thanks for the app suggestion, Im downloading it now. Dont worry I wont cheat. But it will help me work out what time to try and find the moon, because i've checked ever 45 minutes or so since 8:30, its now 1:33am and no sign of the moon, I even walked up to the top of my driveway and looked from the street. Nothing mg:

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Yep. It's hard to see a thing when it's not there.

At 8:30 the moon would have been well on its way to the horizon, so any buildings or trees to the west of your location could easily have blocked your view. I'm sure you'll have better luck next time. :thumbup:

GraybeardGhost said:

Yep. It's hard to see a thing when it's not there.

At 8:30 the moon would have been well on its way to the horizon, so any buildings or trees to the west of your location could easily have blocked your view. I'm sure you'll have better luck next time. :thumbup:

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Not only are there buildings and trees, theres a mountain!!

LoyalXenite said:

Yes between the poorly weather and my lateness I have missed it every time!

Thanks for the app, it never occurred to me that I was too late for the moon! :shyness: :bigsmile:

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You're welcome!

LoyalXenite said:

Not only are there buildings and trees, theres a mountain!!

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We have those here, too. Durned uppity things, always gettin' in the way.

GraybeardGhost said:

We have those here, too. Durned uppity things, always gettin' in the way.

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I know! Who do they think they are! Its just plain unnatural

Caught up on all the readings for my Animal Behaviour unit, I have an assignment due for that unit as well but I cant start it until I hear back from my lecturer about which film I need to watch to do the Ethogram on....

In the meantime I'm attempting to do the 330 pages of reading I have to do for the Astronomy unit.... After that I just have to read 2 novels for English and watch 18 hours of lectures for Astronomy and Animal Behaviour... Then I'm caught up and I get to start normally again from next Monday....

So in other words its 5:03pm on Saturday and I have until Sunday night to read 330 pages of Astronomy textbook, 2 novels, watch 18 hours of lectures and do an ethogram assignment. So that from Monday I can do the normal 7 hours of lectures, readings, and assignments each week...

Got a response from the convenor for the animal behaviour unit...
Not a remotely good response though...She said

"I hope you are doing OK - really I do. Life is rough - and that is an understatement.
About the class, again, I must say that:
The ethogram film is a practical exercise.
In this course you must attend the pracs if you are to do your best because they build upon one another and because prac material is exam material.
That is the way this course is structured.
Please know that I sympathise with your condition.
I strongly suggest that you are no longer enrolled in this course and instead enroll in on-line courses. This course, BBE200, is not an on-line course.
The BBE200 course requires in-class participation and active engagement.
Perhaps active participation is not something you can do at this point?
Perhaps you would be more successful by pursuing your education via on-line courses until you can comfortably work with others in a classroom setting?
These are just questions for thought for you.
I do strongly advise that you withdraw from the course before it is too late. You are a dedicated and lovely student and I want to see you succeed when the time is right for you. This course may be too much of a challenge for you at this point in time.
I will look forward to seeing you enroll when you can in the future."

Then she send a second email saying
"I DO NOT WANT YOU TO FAIL BBE 200.
GIVEN YOUR EMAIL MESSAGES, I SUGGEST THAT YOU DIS-ENROLL FROM BBE 200 FOR THIS SEMESTER AND RE-ENROLL WHEN YOU ARE ABLE TO ATTEND PRACTICALS AND LECTURES WITH OTHER STUDENTS.
Please do let me know of I can be of any further help"


I sent this reply to her
"I did read your response, but as I said I will do my best to attend the tutorials, I am aware that there is no exceptions for the tutorial attendance. I have missed two but I have documentation for the one of those. I have a strong interest in animals and therefore in this course, and I do not want to have to drop it without trying a little longer.

If you can just give me the name of the film to watch to do the Ethogram on I will be able to submit this assignment and try to not miss any further tutorials."




Its very frustrating, not to mention if I have to withdraw this unit I will only be doing 2 units and therefore will end up being classed as part time, which will screw with my centrelink payments. They will make me get a part time job as well which makes the studying just as stressful as before I dropped the units anyway.

Dont know what to do if I cant convince her to just let me try...

Well I've submitted a request to the uni directly for special consideration in order to try and get them to make it so that I can get an extension on the assignment and I will try and convince the convenor to just tell me the name of the video....

Man the convenor posted an announcement on the unit board which is totally about my requests to her...

Dear All,

Lately I have been deluged with "prac attendance" questions. I hope the following will help answer these questions and future questions:

First and foremost:

As stated in the Unit Guide, in order to pass this course, you must complete ALL the assessments or you fail.

1) You gain from a course exactly what you put into a course. If you want to understand animal behaviour, you must attend the lectures and the pracs and do the work assigned.

2) If an assessment is due and that assessment is based on an activity in the prac - you must attend the prac in order to do the work and get the points. No exceptions.

3) There are no make-up pracs. There are no external pracs.

4) If you have a valid medical certificate (these are now being checked by MQ) , it must be submitted through the proper channels and approved. If it is approved, you will then set up an appointment to discuss the situation with Professor Jennifer Clarke.

5) If you decide to miss a prac because no assessment is due - your mark will likely suffer in an indirect manner. Each prac builds upon the prac before it. What you learn in one prac (which has no assessment) will be essential in order to complete the next prac (which has an assessment).

From the emails I have received, unfortunately here are some students who should drop the course now - before the deadline because:

As stated in the Unit Guide, in order to pass this course, you must complete ALL the assessments or you fail.

Sorry but very seriously,

Jennifer

Since the unit convenor is refusing to help Im just going to watch a bunch of videos on the animal and do a rough ethogram that way... Then at least I have submitted something..

Watched about 15 different youtube videos and documented all I could (only 14 behaviours). I know its not going to get any kind of good mark. But its only worth 3% and this way I have submitted something and can try and fight the convenor's demand for me to quit the unit.

Well I caught up on the Astronomy readings...and its only 3:07am

Now I just have 18 hours of lectures and 2 novels to read...tomorrow... So that monday I can get on with the usual workload/do an essay.

Had to do the grocery shopping today so I haven't been able to do the lectures, although I did manage to squeeze one in last night. I'm feeling very exhausted though, but I still have a lot of uni work to do plus housework!

Got another response from the unit convenor of the Animal Behaviour unit... she said again for me to drop the unit. Having her say that to me in every email I get from her is really making it hard for me to want to try to stay in uni... I sent her quite a lengthy response but hopefully she reads it and backs off a little bit. I mean I'm trying, and I'm trying hard.. At the end of the email to her I said

Please stop insisting I drop the unit because it makes it very hard to see a point in any kind of academic future if I have people telling me to quit at all let alone repeatedly. So please understand that I do acknowledge your insistence on me dropping the unit, but I dont want to drop it until I have given it everything I have. If it comes to it that I cannot go any further and I feel that I need to give up, at least I will have some comfort in knowing that I tried my best.

So hopefully she will stop telling me to quit the course because much more and I feel that I will just quit uni all together...


On a more positive note I FINALLY managed to see the moon last night and have officially charted my first moon! Although I hope we don't get marked on the quality of our sketches coz I'm not very good at having nice circles.

Got to go to uni tomorrow. Feeling so anxious that Im having trouble sleeping, gotta get up in like 5 hours to travel almost 4 hours to get to a 2 hour tutorial with a tutor I cannot understand, to travel 4 hours back.

The convenor repeatedly telling me to drop the unit has me even more stressed about this unit than normal. I really dont want to go, but I suspect even if I get a medical certificate to cover an absence she will still kick me out of the unit.

LoyalXenite said:

Got another response from the unit convenor of the Animal Behaviour unit... she said again for me to drop the unit. Having her say that to me in every email I get from her is really making it hard for me to want to try to stay in uni... I sent her quite a lengthy response but hopefully she reads it and backs off a little bit. I mean I'm trying, and I'm trying hard.. At the end of the email to her I said

Please stop insisting I drop the unit because it makes it very hard to see a point in any kind of academic future if I have people telling me to quit at all let alone repeatedly. So please understand that I do acknowledge your insistence on me dropping the unit, but I dont want to drop it until I have given it everything I have. If it comes to it that I cannot go any further and I feel that I need to give up, at least I will have some comfort in knowing that I tried my best.

So hopefully she will stop telling me to quit the course because much more and I feel that I will just quit uni all together...

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Did she reply to this?

MikeyC said:

Did she reply to this?

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Nope, I havent heard from her since. Part of me was hoping she would acknowledge it and maybe apologise, but for the most part I expected her to either say nothing or keep telling me to quit.

Im feeling like this semester is nothing but bad luck. There has been nothing but bad luck with each unit. The latest issue is with the ENGL unit, I was supposed to do an essay, but I was given an extension for a week to give me extra time due to the workload and stress I had going on. Then when I finally managed to get to it, I discovered that the books I am to do the essay on is not available online... So she gave me an extra extension for the weekend, I tried to get the book from the local uni library and the local library- neither of which were open. So now its a day late and I still havent gotten the books.

Frankly Im feeling like I dont even want to do uni anymore, nothing but troubles over and over again with every unit. I dont think its worth the amount of anxiety and stress it causes.

So Im trying to work out what to do with my life, while my partner and I are attempting to do a bit of househunting so we can move out of this place because we hate it here. So hopefully we find a house that we can afford/that allows pets

Im done with uni. I've decided its not worth the stress its causing me, Im having nothing but problems with it, it causes so much anxiety and stress and frankly I dont get the marks I used to be able to so I dont have any motivation to keep going.

Im alternating between utter disappointment at failing at my attempt at uni, resigned to it because it just wasnt worth all the mental pressure and relief at being out from under that burden.

I tried, thats what im trying to keep reminding myself, I tried and I tried but Im not like I used to be and I cant handle the strain and I dont get the marks I used to be able to get.

Still trying to come to terms with my failure at uni, trying to accept that I've given up on it. Its been hard the last couple of weeks. A person who I grew up with, who was kinda like a sister to me, who is the daughter of my best friend who was killed a few years ago, has ended up in the psych ward. The place she is in is really nice and its the best place she could be right now, especially coz she is so suicidal.

My partner has gone out shopping with her sister, so I've been sitting at home dwelling a little bit on everything.

Feeling a bit lost today. Doesnt help that I havent been getting much sleep lately, and what I do get is very broken.