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Because I honestly want to start from the Central Avenue in California.

This is a response that popped up when I typed in “Central Avenue Station” into the MBTA’s Trip Planner. For the record, Central Avenue is a trolley stop on the Red Line. If you don’t type “Central Ave” and instead type “Central Avenue”, however, you get this. I can see that this is just Google Maps working its mojo, but entries it returns to you should only be limited to the state of Massachusetts and within the T’s reach.

While searching for “using DLC on another wii” in the Rockband forums, I came across this message (click to zoom):

I have developed a habit here at Boston University in which I go home every two weekends. I do it for a number of reasons, the main of which is to do laundry. Sure, there are, of course, laundry machines at BU, but the other reasons I have for going home lead me to do my laundry at home. Home is a different atmosphere than college; there, I have more privacy and a better peace of mind. I can relax by myself to a Red Sox game, an episode of Law & Order, or play music and listen to video games without worrying about being respectful toward a roommate. Conversely, I can live for a couple of days in a week without having to worry about anything my roommate may do that might annoy me. This applies for any roommate, of course, because you can never love everything a roommate does. All the games I play are at home; thus, I get to chill out while I’m there and play games I don’t get to play during my twelve days at school (I spend twelve days at school and two days at home in a fourteen-day period). I get to sleep in my own bed, eat a home-cooked meal, see my family, and get away from the people here for a little bit.

Is this really a problem? Does this say that I have an issue staying away from my family? Or does it just mean that I need to dip into two separate worlds in order to keep my sanity? Next year, when I become an RA, this pattern will definitely change (as much as the person that incited me to write this post refuses to believe). I will want to do the best I can to serve my position, which includes being there for my residents for as many weekends as I can. Yes, I will spend a night at home every once in a while because the stress will be great and I will need a change of atmosphere to keep myself balanced. I find it to be perfectly human. I don’t feel like I should be attacked just because I go home every two weekends to relax from school. I work hard and I feel like I deserve a break every so often.

I can’t take that break here. I have to take it away from my work atmosphere. That’s at home.

Being confronted with a differential equations test this morning, I have come to a conclusion concerning partial credit. Partial credit should be a part of every test, of every procedure. I was confronted with one page of problems in which I was asked for short answers and some calculations to show from where my short answers came. It also stated that “partial credit will only be awarded in exceptional situations”. With only five minutes left to finish the test, I thought to myself, “What’s the point?” Why should I write something down if I’m not going to get any credit for it anyway? There is no incentive for me to write anything down, no incentive for me to even try the problem. I didn’t think I was going to get anything right on the head, so I thought it was useless to try something out.

Not giving partial credit, especially in math classes, is very demoralizing. One time last semester, I completed a problem using the wrong method and got the wrong answer. But the method was something that could be used for a situation similar to the one presented to me. Still, my professor gave me no credit. At all. All that work, that ten to fifteen minutes of my time. Wasted. I might as well have left it blank.

Sure, partial credit doesn’t always exist in life: if you build the bridge with the length of a part of it slightly off, it may fall down and lives may be lost. But I’m not building bridges right now. I’m answering questions about abstract mathematical concepts that won’t help me in life. Give me some credit for taking a stab at the problem, at least! I know that when I start teaching, I’ll give my students partial credit. Partial credit encourages students to try, to take a risk. With such credit, students will at least feel that if they write something like “I know this is this kind of problem and that this is the equation for it, but I’m a little confused about applying these numbers to it”, the teacher will respect their knowledge and give them some points.

I’ve decided that it would be a good idea for me to place my poems on a new site called “Lavo’s Poetry Vault”. I’ll try to post poems there on a weekly basis, with the first poem after the introduction being posted on Friday. I’m hoping a dedicated poem blog will allow me to better organize my poetry.

Go take a look!

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