The Contradictory Feelings Thread

[vampireshark]

I really want to see my grades for the semester and know for certain that I'm good to go to the third year, but, at the same time, I don't and I'm nervous about one in particular where the final was brutal. And I'm not sure how I did in the other class, either, considering there really weren't marks/grades awarded... so IDK.

Also, my dad's here helping me move, and having him help is a great thing indeed... but I already feel my sanity eroding away.

[Risla]

I have a really bad crush on a guy in my course. The course ends in a week. I reeeally like this guy and almost think it might be reciprocated (!) but we don't live very close.

Also, just in general, I'm actually really enjoying this course, despite all the hype about how it's intense and brutal and stuff. I like it here. I like being in a place where I can actually leave the house and go somewhere when I want to. I like my classmates. My suspicions that all the depression and stuff would melt away once I got out of that awful place seem to be being pretty well verified, and in a week I'll have to go back.

[Ketumak]

@Risla - I guess you could use the end of the course to exchange email addresses with him. That's low key enough not to seem too forward and doesn't commit either of you to anything, so I'd be surprised if he refused.

And if you don't live nearby just now but are looking to move soon, maybe you will end up living near each other, you never know!

[linguoboy]

Bear Pride/IML Weekend in Chicago. I know in the end I'll go, have fun, meet new people, etc. but right now I'm in my pre-event "I hate everyone because no one gives a shit about me" phase.

[rotting bones]

I'm feeling very peaceful. Low blood pressure.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Hey, it's been ages since I've posted on this site, but I thought I'd stop in and say hi. It was last my last day at my job, which was my first "real" job in my chosen vocation (web development/programming). It's brought up a mix of emotions that, honestly, really reminds me of my last day of classes before my high school graduation. I'm kind of drunk ATM, so I'll be the first to admit that I'm not in the most lucid of states, but I feel like the mix of hope for the future and regret for what I'm leaving behind is f*cking tailor made for this thread, so please indulge these inebriated ramblings.

The pay is a lot better, as are the benefits, and I think I'll be learning a lot more than I would be at my current (well, now former) employer, so I can't really question that what I'm doing is the right choice, but I'll really miss the people I was working with. And it's scary moving on. When I came to them I was working at f*cking Walmart (God, what's with the reticence to swear, must be a battle between booze and inhibitions) and coming out of the depths of a mind-messing depression. I've grown so much in the intervening years, but I feel like I've outgrown them, and I need to move on before I start stagnating. And yet, I still can't help but question it. I know I'm making the right choice, but it still hurts to move on.

If this just seems like ethanol-fueled rantings, don't worry, it's just because it is. I hope that you will indulge this alcohol-induced rambling as a way to vent as I face a terrifyingly interesting future before me. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to headbanging to music that doesn't really seem to warrant it (Eurythmics, classical covers of Disney songs, and so forth).

So baby talk to me... \m/ ...like lovers do... \m/

[Ketumak]

The library where I work has an IT department that's half full of temporary contractors, so my impression is that the IT field as a whole contains a lot of project work and moving on. So I guess there'll always be new opportunities waiting for you in the web design field, Herra Ratatoskr.

My own contradictory thing is that my home region of Yorkshire in North East England hosts the start of this year's Tour de France. The first day finishes here in Harrogate and the second day passes through. We've friends and family coming to stay and watch it with us. This is all good. Trouble is lots of other people have the same idea, so the place is going to be heaving. Parts of town are already under lockdown with more to follow.

Still, local people have taken to it well, with yellow bikes everywhere, little knitted yellow and green jerseys strung between trees and goodness knows what! Besides, it doesn't happen everyday.

[finlay]

Why is the Tour de France starting outside of France? Is it now also the Tour d'Angleterre?

[hwhatting]

Why is the Tour de France starting outside of France? Is it now also the Tour d'Angleterre?

You know that they have had one leg outside France for years?

[sangi39]

The library where I work has an IT department that's half full of temporary contractors, so my impression is that the IT field as a whole contains a lot of project work and moving on. So I guess there'll always be new opportunities waiting for you in the web design field, Herra Ratatoskr.

My own contradictory thing is that my home region of Yorkshire in North East England hosts the start of this year's Tour de France. The first day finishes here in Harrogate and the second day passes through. We've friends and family coming to stay and watch it with us. This is all good. Trouble is lots of other people have the same idea, so the place is going to be heaving. Parts of town are already under lockdown with more to follow.

Still, local people have taken to it well, with yellow bikes everywhere, little knitted yellow and green jerseys strung between trees and goodness knows what! Besides, it doesn't happen everyday.

We're already starting to get annoyed by it here in Bedale. There are a few people who are going to be watching it, but some of the road closures are forcing shops to close and some people can't get into work at all. Being a rural area, people relying on public transport are also being affected negatively, despite the best attempts of the local bus service to run on time, and locals are flooding into Bedale and Northallerton with the idea that they won't be able to either get around or buy food over the weekend.

On the other hand, some business are doing incredibly well out of the event, e.g. (from what I've heard) Brymor Ice Cream near Masham and a couple of other village pubs, opening up their fields, forming temporary camp-sites for tourists, some along the route itself.

There are mixed feelings all round the local area, but most people who've talked about it in our shop, and most of my neighbours, have generally negative views towards the event, with some businesses that won't do overly well from the event, simply bearing it (yellow bikes are being put up in windows, but we've done it because "we don't want to look like we're not participating" and it seems like this is somewhat common for other shops). On the other hand, there are rumours going round that if the event goes well, the NYCC might attempt to host it again next year.

[Ketumak]

I didn't realise the Tour was having such a big impact on rural areas. I think we can be fairly confident North Yorkshie won't get it again next year, though. The leg outside France tends to rotate around neighbouring countries and last came to Britain in 2007.

I'd like to think FIFA were watching and could see how well the UK hosts big sporting events. Then we might get World Cup fotball sometime.

[KathTheDragon]

And lose again.

[sangi39]

I didn't realise the Tour was having such a big impact on rural areas.

I think it might not be having the impact we think it is, it's just that we've got miles of road being closed over the weekend (anyone living west of Leyburn is basically stuck up in the Dales since unless they're willing to take a fairly lengthy detour south past Harrogate and back up the A1 (I can imagine the back roads are going to get quite busy in some places)) and a few shops having to close since none of the employees or customers would be able to get there. It's probably going to have a more positive effect than a negative one, but, well, people don't like being inconvenienced now do they And true to form, a couple of people have asked us if any French people have shown up yet. Good old rural racism (we're not that bad, everyone just dislikes foreigners around here (God I wish I could move)).

I think we can be fairly confident North Yorkshire won't get it again next year, though.The leg outside France tends to rotate around neighbouring countries and last came to Britain in 2007.

Most definitely good news

I'd like to think FIFA were watching and could see how well the UK hosts big sporting events. Then we might get World Cup football sometime.

We did recently have the Olympics, but I didn't watch any of it, or follow it at all, so I don't know whether we hosted that well or not

[Particles the Greek]

The leg outside France tends to rotate around neighbouring countries

Taken out of context, this has a lot of potential for humorous reinterpretations.

[finlay]

I didn't realise the Tour was having such a big impact on rural areas. I think we can be fairly confident North Yorkshie won't get it again next year, though. The leg outside France tends to rotate around neighbouring countries and last came to Britain in 2007.

I'd like to think FIFA were watching and could see how well the UK hosts big sporting events. Then we might get World Cup fotball sometime.

Ew, no.

[Salmoneus]

I'd like to think FIFA were watching and could see how well the UK hosts big sporting events. Then we might get World Cup football sometime.

We did recently have the Olympics, but I didn't watch any of it, or follow it at all, so I don't know whether we hosted that well or not

We hosted it brilliantly. Yorkshire's success in getting the Tour this year was also built on the success of the '07 Tour.

And yes, hopefully we're getting closer to a World Cup, to complete the trifecta.

[250,000 turned out to watch the race in Leeds alone (a third of the entire population of the city). 10,000 were on the Buttertubs climb. In total they were anticipating 1-2 million roadside spectators.]

[Chagen]

Augh.

I just bought myself a new graphing calculator because my old one is just a gigantic pain in the ass and falling apart. However, the one I bought (a Ti-89T) even though it's got a lot of nice features, is probably something WAAAAAAAAAAAY too powerful for any math I'll take in a few years and now I feel like me and my parents (we split the cose) wasted our money. I was blinded by the shiny features I'll probably never use.

And of course all stores require that an item is unopened in order to return it, so that by the time you open it and want to return it, you can't -__-

I should've just bought a TI-84 because I know that one a lot better >_>

[Thry]

Make the best out of it. It's not hard to learn to use it well for whatever you'll be needing.

Similar thing happened to me but I did it on purpose because I wanted to have such a calculator... it actually came in handy later for university and stuff.

[gach]

Glad you found good use for your calculator at the university. At our department everyone just switched to using computers for their more specialised computing needs after starting their studies. Anyway, most of the exercises were analytic so you could have worked perfectly fine with something that gives you sines and logs.

Though now that I think about it, it was nice to have a calculator with a good amount of free variables to store all kinds of physical constants you couldn't care to memorise or when we had the odd iterative calculation to do.

Speaking about memorisation of physical constants, why is it that very often when I'm doing scientific outreach I get numerical questions like how far is Jupiter from us? This is not the kind of stuff most people spend memorising if they really are interested in science nor is saying some value of millions of kilometres going to give any insight into how the world works.

[Thry]

Well here sometimes there are written exams that need you to make complex operations.

And then also computer-based exams in which you, obviously, use the computer.

Oh yes xD, that was an immense benefit. I could sneak data into high school exams with the calculator so I didn't have to bother remembering. I also remember proof-checking integral exercises we did manually in high school because the calculator could do them and the teacher probably hadn't realized. But I have the feeling if you bothered to get the calculator and use the feature you probably also knew how to do the thing.

[gach]

So your school didn't have a policy for forbidding too powerful calculators and the teachers didn't bother to check if you had emptied their memories before exams? That's terrible teaching.

[KathTheDragon]

But great practice for work and later life.

[Thry]

Yeah, though that wasn't by far the worst thing with the teaching there.

[gach]

But great practice for work and later life.

Well it's possible to boil it down so that the only two things you need to learn in school are how to learn new things and where to check facts when you need them. This is how much of the university teaching works. It just doesn't work that well in school since most kids aren't that worried about learning those things or realise that they have to learn loads of other more concrete stuff while doing so.

[Thry]

Also, I probably made it sound worse than it was. It wasn't technically cheating, because I still had to outline the procedure, it was just an aid to know I was in the right track. And it wasn't that important quantitatively, anyway.

Teachers did check calculators, but for other reasons - people often wrote formulas on the plastic case xD.