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well it's been a while. but i will avoid the temptation of trying to
fill in all the gaps (who reads this, anyhow?!) and just launch
straight in, as if i had never been away.
spent
most of the weekend trying to do battle with four weeks' worth of OU
work, including two statistics chapters AND the assignment due
yesterday. By Sunday afternoon i realised it had really all just go on
top of me. i found the statistics so impossibly hard to handle i just
burst into tears. Crying (privately) in the bathroom was (for me) the
best way to handle the immense pressure, but i think it upset Tn. he
keeps thinking i am crying about him, when really it has NOTHING
WHATSOEVER to do with us, it is only my OU work.
by Sunday
night, i realised i was jut not going to get this done in time....i
looked at the TMA question and realised i would need to go back in the
book a little for some help. as i read this previously covered (and
understood) material, NONE of it made any sense to me. i know how to
work out a z-score, but what exactly IS a z-score and how does it fit
into the bigger picture??!! i had worked this out and now had just
forgotten?!!!!!!
so i had another little weepy at the table and
decided i should leave it for tonight and maybe email my tutor Monday
to explain i will have to subsitute this one. Never before had i felt
such a spectacular failure. in all my past assignments i ALWAYS managed
to get through by the skin of my teeth, and so i had developed a very
blase attitude of 'it will be alright, it always is!' and knew that one
day, ONE day i would come a cropper... and that moment has finally
happened. My lesson is (hopefully) learned.
my tutor emailed me
back and offered a 2 week extension. i have leapt on it and i think i
will be able to do this in time, assuming i study two hours every
night, and start the essay on Tuesday. it will still be closer than is
normal for other people, but is plenty of time for a seat-of-pants type
person like me.
i have never attended even on Tutorial,
either... and i think that has been a crucial mistake. i never realised
that the isolation of ideas has made the material more difficult to
process... at a tutorial i would have been able to ask about the
category learning experiments of Murphy & Alopenna, which are not
clearly explained in the textbook. searching for it on the net, i find
nothing in plain english, either.
i knew Tn was not going to
be much help, and i find it annoying that he continues his pretenses.
he keeps telling me he won't 'help' me because ...he is too tired....
he does not want to get into an argument with me (if he had really done
Psychology, he would know that it would not be an argument, i would be
discussing a topic with him, the ideas, the evidence and the results -
no disagreement, just going over what the experiment was about - this
excuse, more than any other shows his ignorance of the subject!)
when
it comes to the stats he pretends it is familiar to him yet won't help.
he says because 'you need to go through this on your own' which is
totaly uncharacteristic of him. Tn is the type of person who is eager
to show when he knows more about a subject than you do. Not in a
put-dwn sort of way, just in a 'be proud of me' way. he does it to me,
he does it to Colin, he does it to Josh.... yet with stats, he is
silent.
now, had he ever done statistics and had merely
forgotten, he would know that the easiest excuse to give would be:
stats were not my strong point and without my textbook, i'd find it
hard to remember the details. He could also claim that the terminology
in my book is different to the terminology in his (which would be the
case, if he had studied in the US) - but never does he say these things.
i
have tested him in the past... talking about Skinner boxes (a very
basic piece of Psychological jargon) and it was very obvious he had no
idea what a skinner box was. his evasiveness and attempts at turning it
around (well what does it mean to you?...why not explain to ME what you
think it is) just didn't wash. i remained in discussion about the
Skinner box, while completely avoiding any description of what such a
thing IS.... he was so lost he turned me away with a 'i'm too tired for
this'
his certificate say he has a PhD in philosophy - yet he
showed no interest when i spoke of Plato's world of ideas. (and did not
correct my deliberate errors in talking about it - very unlike him)
the
other clue i noticed very early one, was when we discussed ways of
handling assignments. he never spoke of how HE handled the stress or
what his writing techniques were. He would tell me how Emma
(ex-girlfriend) coped. would tell me how he helped her - but never how
HE felt when writing. anyone else I have spoken to about essay writing
has spoken about their OWN strategies. this makes me think Tn has
never written an essay, certainly not to degree level and CERTAINLY no
PhD!
i never liked his 'pulling rank' with the words 'as a
psychologist', after which would follow a very lay-person's approach to
a problem, but now i find that opening esepcically insulting. i am
working damned hard for my psychology degree - i am more qualified than
he is.
his reading standard is quite poor considering he would
needed to have read a lot for his course. (his lips move when he reads
and he often gets words wrong - he may have undiagnosed dyslexia)
and
lastly, he tells me not to discuss psychology with his parents. they
don't recognise his PhD, because they dont see psychology as a science.
he told me his parents are utterly dismissive and dont seem to
recognise his qualifications..... i guess they know he didnt work for
it!
i am not fuming, though.. i am not angry at him for (i
suspect) buying his qualifications - but i do feel a little bit bitter
that he continues to use the words 'as a psychologist' to me, when we
both know full well he does not deserve to. i deserve some credit for
the work i am putting into getting my degree.
still. i won't
bring this up. i will let him carry on his pretense for as long as he
thinks he can. i can understand that he may now regret not having told
me the truth, and does not know how to fess up.... i would be fine if
he just stopped using those undeserved words 'as a psychologist'.
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28.4.04 17:50
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