Posts tagged: My online course is a curse
That is right. I am going to celebrate every one of these MoFo essays.
Whom ever developed these courses is an idiot didn’t quite think this through.
I have to write a paper about the Virginia Plan at the Constitutional Convention. They ask that I use real sources like Britannica, Ebsco Host, and a third encyclopedia whose name I can’t remember. They forgot to provide me with passwords to their accounts in these websites. *facepalm* Wikipedia it is.
I am 14 assignment away from finishing Virtual School. This means that I have completed 56 assignments in a week.
I am trying to be good about these assignments. After all, if I fail these classes, it will go on my transcript and no one wants to be idiot who failed the Mickey Mouse courses. So I decided to actually do one, no BSing, no paraphrasing of well written essays, just to see what I can do.
The assignment asked what Lincoln’s second inaugural address tells us about his leadership, and what I would have responded if I had been a southerner listening to his speech. Fair enough, I thought. Then I read his speech. Twice. Then a third time, for good measure. Let me tell you something about Lincoln’s second inaugural address. I hate it. It is written in that weird syntax of yore. Not the Charming of yore, its ugly cousin, Undecipherable of yore. Also, he misspelled inaugural, and said dissole instead of dissolve. ‘If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him?’ I have read that one statement five times now. ‘Must needs come’?!?! Even my word processor thinks that is weirdly stated. Also, what the hell do God’s divine attributes have to do with war? I find it silly to ask me what I would have thought about this speech if I had been a southerner living back then. I don’t know what southerners thought. Hell, they probably heard this here statement and said something along the lines of ‘That damn Lincoln and his shit speeches!’ I don’t know. Wasn’t much of the nation illiterate at this time? Perhaps they were more accustomed to this kind of speech and completely followed what he was saying. If so, kudos to you, southerners of the late 19th century. I can’t begin to think about how I am going to BS the answer to this question. It will probably be something like That last sentence took me 20 minutes to write. ‘This speech shows that Lincoln had a good understanding of the metaphor, bible verses, the use of the semi-colon, and parallel sentence structure, but was lacking in the use of run-on sentences.’ I mean, ‘This speech tells us that Lincoln wanted the war to end already, and was using God, the large size of the war, and the amount of money spent on the war as persuasive arguments.
So, I, being the hard working scholar that I am being as good at making decisions as Napoleon, decided to take summer online courses. I have taken them in the past, but perhaps I forgot that I am the laziest person on the planet from June to the first half of August.
Online courses are like Mickey Mouse courses, but they are so hard to complete because there are so many distractions. At school, it is easy to pay attention because there is nothing else to do. There are no children high after going to the dentist , no Maddow, no music, none of the super awesome things to be found online. The reverse is true about Online school.
They are full of loop holes, these courses. They can’t check to see wether I am doing my workouts, for all they know, I have an American History book open right in front of me while I take my History test. There are these required chat assignments where you are supposed to go o this chat room and talk to your teacher about whatever it is you have learned so far. It is terribly awkward. Then you write down in a document what you talked about. But you could write that you were discussing the merits of unicorns vs. Bats as a means of transportation and you get a 100. I am supposed to be working out three times a week. I sure am ‘working out’ this summer, and by working out, I mean spending hours and hours with my derriere in a comfy chair in front of the computer.
They trick you into a false sense of security, these loop holes, and then suddenly you find yourself with 9 days and 70 assignments to forge/bs/creatively work weird magic on.And that is exactly where I find myself today.Therefore, I am hijacking this blog to bring you my adventures in Virtual School. Enjoy.
