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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chutney @ Mar 13 2008, 10:14 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I'm so frustrated with this "Politics & Morality" course I'm taking. I mean, I'm doing good in it (at 80% right now and I aced the last test). But the content of the course and the professor just annoy the hell out of me. First of all, who decides to teach a political theory class with Shakespeare? It's such a stretch. I suppose you could extract some topics from his plays (we're studying 'Othello,' 'Julius Caesar.' and 'Macbeth') and make connections to actual political philosophers, but this one's basically been an English course disguised as a Poli-Sci/Phil course. She makes no attempt to make those connections and spends the entire time giving her interpretation of the text (her lectures consist of rhetorical question after rhetorical question).

The professor is just ridiculous. Aside from the way she's formatted her course, she's unbelievably arrogant in regards to her own interpretation of the the plays. I don't know how you can assume that your interpretations are infallible if they agree with and contradict existing scholarly opinions so arbitrarily. She'll "prove" her own opinions by referring to secondary sources (essays by Harold Bloom, Jan Blits, etc.), but when she contradicts them or someone raises a legitimate objection, she dismisses them, usually by mentioning some evidence that she doesn't bother to actually show us. That just leads into how intolerant she is of other opinions. Aside from warning us about how hard it is to prove our own independent opinions in essays/tests (ie: regurgitate what I lectured or fail), she's actually given people lower participating marks because they consistently disagree with her. I have no idea how she got a job as a UofT professor.


/rant</div>

That actually sounds like a very interesting problem, do you have any specific examples to cite?

Good rant either way.
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chutney @ Mar 13 2008, 10:14 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I'm so frustrated with this "Politics & Morality" course I'm taking. I mean, I'm doing good in it (at 80% right now and I aced the last test). But the content of the course and the professor just annoy the hell out of me. First of all, who decides to teach a political theory class with Shakespeare? It's such a stretch. I suppose you could extract some topics from his plays (we're studying 'Othello,' 'Julius Caesar.' and 'Macbeth') and make connections to actual political philosophers, but this one's basically been an English course disguised as a Poli-Sci/Phil course. She makes no attempt to make those connections and spends the entire time giving her interpretation of the text (her lectures consist of rhetorical question after rhetorical question).

The professor is just ridiculous. Aside from the way she's formatted her course, she's unbelievably arrogant in regards to her own interpretation of the the plays. I don't know how you can assume that your interpretations are infallible if they agree with and contradict existing scholarly opinions so arbitrarily. She'll "prove" her own opinions by referring to secondary sources (essays by Harold Bloom, Jan Blits, etc.), but when she contradicts them or someone raises a legitimate objection, she dismisses them, usually by mentioning some evidence that she doesn't bother to actually show us. That just leads into how intolerant she is of other opinions. Aside from warning us about how hard it is to prove our own independent opinions in essays/tests (ie: regurgitate what I lectured or fail), she's actually given people lower participating marks because they consistently disagree with her. I have no idea how she got a job as a UofT professor.


/rant</div>
If it is such a ridiculous class, then why did you choose it in the first place?
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Brian @ Mar 13 2008, 10:23 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chutney @ Mar 13 2008, 10:14 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I'm so frustrated with this "Politics & Morality" course I'm taking. I mean, I'm doing good in it (at 80% right now and I aced the last test). But the content of the course and the professor just annoy the hell out of me. First of all, who decides to teach a political theory class with Shakespeare? It's such a stretch. I suppose you could extract some topics from his plays (we're studying 'Othello,' 'Julius Caesar.' and 'Macbeth') and make connections to actual political philosophers, but this one's basically been an English course disguised as a Poli-Sci/Phil course. She makes no attempt to make those connections and spends the entire time giving her interpretation of the text (her lectures consist of rhetorical question after rhetorical question).

The professor is just ridiculous. Aside from the way she's formatted her course, she's unbelievably arrogant in regards to her own interpretation of the the plays. I don't know how you can assume that your interpretations are infallible if they agree with and contradict existing scholarly opinions so arbitrarily. She'll "prove" her own opinions by referring to secondary sources (essays by Harold Bloom, Jan Blits, etc.), but when she contradicts them or someone raises a legitimate objection, she dismisses them, usually by mentioning some evidence that she doesn't bother to actually show us. That just leads into how intolerant she is of other opinions. Aside from warning us about how hard it is to prove our own independent opinions in essays/tests (ie: regurgitate what I lectured or fail), she's actually given people lower participating marks because they consistently disagree with her. I have no idea how she got a job as a UofT professor.


/rant</div>
If it is such a ridiculous class, then why did you choose it in the first place?

</div>

It's hard to tell what class is going to be wack or not, even with ratemyprofessor.

Plus Chutney is scared of Math (yellar coward) and he's running out of Poli-Sci courses to take. He had no choice.
 
I've been depress as of lately, I think I need a girlfriend or a slap in the face to bring me back to reality.
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bynumite @ Mar 13 2008, 11:30 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I've been depress as of lately, I think I need a girlfriend or a slap in the face to bring me back to reality.</div>

ripoff.jpg


Reality.
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bynumite @ Mar 13 2008, 10:30 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I've been depress as of lately, I think I need a girlfriend or a slap in the face to bring me back to reality.</div>
Don't turn emo on me!


Nah just playing. But why are you depressed? What happened?
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (huevonkiller @ Mar 13 2008, 10:15 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chutney @ Mar 13 2008, 10:14 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I'm so frustrated with this "Politics & Morality" course I'm taking. I mean, I'm doing good in it (at 80% right now and I aced the last test). But the content of the course and the professor just annoy the hell out of me. First of all, who decides to teach a political theory class with Shakespeare? It's such a stretch. I suppose you could extract some topics from his plays (we're studying 'Othello,' 'Julius Caesar.' and 'Macbeth') and make connections to actual political philosophers, but this one's basically been an English course disguised as a Poli-Sci/Phil course. She makes no attempt to make those connections and spends the entire time giving her interpretation of the text (her lectures consist of rhetorical question after rhetorical question).

The professor is just ridiculous. Aside from the way she's formatted her course, she's unbelievably arrogant in regards to her own interpretation of the the plays. I don't know how you can assume that your interpretations are infallible if they agree with and contradict existing scholarly opinions so arbitrarily. She'll "prove" her own opinions by referring to secondary sources (essays by Harold Bloom, Jan Blits, etc.), but when she contradicts them or someone raises a legitimate objection, she dismisses them, usually by mentioning some evidence that she doesn't bother to actually show us. That just leads into how intolerant she is of other opinions. Aside from warning us about how hard it is to prove our own independent opinions in essays/tests (ie: regurgitate what I lectured or fail), she's actually given people lower participating marks because they consistently disagree with her. I have no idea how she got a job as a UofT professor.


/rant</div>

That actually sounds like a very interesting problem, do you have any specific examples to cite?

Good rant either way.
</div>
Well we're just finishing 'Julius Caesar' right now. Not sure if you've read the play, but she's been arguing the entire time that Caesar was aware of the assassination plot the entire time and went along with it to cement his status as a mythical, god-like figure throughout history. There's nothing really wrong with that. It's a bit abstract, but there are some solid arguments for it and she backs it up by referring to an essay by Blits. But, at the same time she completely refutes an essay by Harold Bloom (she was all on his jock when we were reading 'Othello') and another essay by Blits off-hand, without even bothering to explain why. In fact, despite their relevance to the topic, she's relegated them to "recommended readings" hoping that no one would bother to read them and she wouldn't have to deal with questions about them. In our exam handout, she wrote that we could read those essays when we studied, but warned us that they're academic validity is questionable (Where's the explanation? These are two famous writers who have been published and you just dismiss them summarily like that?)

This one dude argued that Antony's reaction to Caesar's dead body (he was surprised, overwhelmed with grief, eventually vengeful) seems to indicate that he was unaware of Caesar's plan to overthrow Republican Rome, and this in turn might mean that the following events are coincidence more than a delicate plan. She countered by stating that Antony was acting at the time and showing his deceptive side. That's it. No textual proof. Nothing at all.

Today, she spent some time talking about how Cassius turns into a more sympathetic, likable character towards the end of the play. I felt that he showed some cowardice in that he wasn't even willing to commit suicide himself (he needed someone else to stab him) and his death was pretty embarrassing (he killed himself thinking one of his men was captured, but he was actually being congratulated by his own troops). She argued that his vulnerability made him more likeable, without really clarifying such a vague term. I'm not assuming I'm right, because I'm not very experienced with Shakespeare, but her response was pretty unsatisfying.

Some girl got a C+ as her tentative participating mark, despite being the most vocal student in our class. The only explanation I can come up with is that she tends to butt heads with the prof a lot.

There's more, but I fall asleep in that class a lot.
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Brian @ Mar 13 2008, 10:23 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chutney @ Mar 13 2008, 10:14 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I'm so frustrated with this "Politics & Morality" course I'm taking. I mean, I'm doing good in it (at 80% right now and I aced the last test). But the content of the course and the professor just annoy the hell out of me. First of all, who decides to teach a political theory class with Shakespeare? It's such a stretch. I suppose you could extract some topics from his plays (we're studying 'Othello,' 'Julius Caesar.' and 'Macbeth') and make connections to actual political philosophers, but this one's basically been an English course disguised as a Poli-Sci/Phil course. She makes no attempt to make those connections and spends the entire time giving her interpretation of the text (her lectures consist of rhetorical question after rhetorical question).

The professor is just ridiculous. Aside from the way she's formatted her course, she's unbelievably arrogant in regards to her own interpretation of the the plays. I don't know how you can assume that your interpretations are infallible if they agree with and contradict existing scholarly opinions so arbitrarily. She'll "prove" her own opinions by referring to secondary sources (essays by Harold Bloom, Jan Blits, etc.), but when she contradicts them or someone raises a legitimate objection, she dismisses them, usually by mentioning some evidence that she doesn't bother to actually show us. That just leads into how intolerant she is of other opinions. Aside from warning us about how hard it is to prove our own independent opinions in essays/tests (ie: regurgitate what I lectured or fail), she's actually given people lower participating marks because they consistently disagree with her. I have no idea how she got a job as a UofT professor.


/rant</div>
If it is such a ridiculous class, then why did you choose it in the first place?

</div>
Come on man, you're telling me you see "Politics and Morality" and automatically think of Shakespeare? That was a total curveball. I was expecting some Aristotle, Machiavelli, Rousseau, Hegel, etc. And the shitty professor was just bad luck. I don't have a flexible enough schedule to switch courses at this point, so I'm just sucking it up.
 
I don't know why but I've just been feeling kind of gloomy and sad...weird

I need to go hit on some girls and play basketball tomorrow.
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chutney @ Mar 13 2008, 10:42 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Well we're just finishing 'Julius Caesar' right now. Not sure if you've read the play, but she's been arguing the entire time that Caesar was aware of the assassination plot the entire time and went along with it to cement his status as a mythical, god-like figure throughout history. There's nothing really wrong with that. It's a bit abstract, but there are some solid arguments for it and she backs it up by referring to an essay by Blits. But, at the same time she completely refutes an essay by Harold Bloom (she was all on his jock when we were reading 'Othello') and another essay by Blits off-hand, without even bothering to explain why. In fact, despite their relevance to the topic, she's relegated them to "recommended readings" hoping that no one would bother to read them and she wouldn't have to deal with questions about them. In our exam handout, she wrote that we could read those essays when we studied, but warned us that they're academic validity is questionable (Where's the explanation? These are two famous writers who have been published and you just dismiss them summarily like that?)

This one dude argued that Antony's reaction to Caesar's dead body (he was surprised, overwhelmed with grief, eventually vengeful) seems to indicate that he was unaware of Caesar's plan to overthrow Republican Rome, and this in turn might mean that the following events are coincidence more than a delicate plan. She countered by stating that Antony was acting at the time and showing his deceptive side. That's it. No textual proof. Nothing at all.

Today, she spent some time talking about how Cassius turns into a more sympathetic, likable character towards the end of the play. I felt that he showed some cowardice in that he wasn't even willing to commit suicide himself (he needed someone else to stab him) and his death was pretty embarrassing (he killed himself thinking one of his men was captured, but he was actually being congratulated by his own troops). She argued that his vulnerability made him more likeable, without really clarifying such a vague term. I'm not assuming I'm right, because I'm not very experienced with Shakespeare, but her response was pretty unsatisfying.

Some girl got a C+ as her tentative participating mark, despite being the most vocal student in our class. The only explanation I can come up with is that she tends to butt heads with the prof a lot.

There's more, but I fall asleep in that class a lot.</div>

Yes I am familiar with the story and I'm going to have to agree with Blit's pragmatism. Her thoughts on Antony seem especially egregious.

It's terrible what some teachers do to students who disagree, props to you for getting away with sleeping.
 
Just found out I'm probably going to Vegas next week. My dad's going on a business trip there, and he's thinking about taking us. But if I go, I'll probably have to stay there for 5 days or so, and I don't know what an underaged teen is supposed to do in Vegas for 5 days. Stay in the pool all day I guess...
 
I was playing basketball yesterday, and I got undercut when I was going up for a layup. I landed on my hip, my elbow, and hit my head hard. I didn't know what was going on for a minute, and since then my hip has been really painful every time I move.

I have a feeling it's not going to get much better by tomorrow morning. Still, I'm hoping to play basketball again...

Oh, and by the way, I made the layup.
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Brian @ Mar 14 2008, 12:05 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Just found out I'm probably going to Vegas next week. My dad's going on a business trip there, and he's thinking about taking us. But if I go, I'll probably have to stay there for 5 days or so, and I don't know what an underaged teen is supposed to do in Vegas for 5 days. Stay in the pool all day I guess...</div>

I went to Vegas when I was 17, there's stlill plenty to do. (hookers)
 
So wait, a class on politics based upon Shakespeare's opinions of how historical-type figures would act in times ancient to even him? How in the fuck is that suppose to make any sense?

Any political commentary from those plays would be about late 1500 / early 1600 politics. Unless the course is how did the politics of the time impact the plays Shakespeare wrote, it is an absolutely pointless class.

Let me guess, this is a tenured prof too.
 
^ Might as well teach administrative law according to Hollywood - makes about as much 'sense.'
 
Well, I should clarify that not all my poli-sci classes are focused on modern politics. A lot of them deal with political philosophy and theory. I actually aim for those classes, because I find them more interesting (I'm doing a philosophy major after all).

So as shitty and random as the class currently is, there are some redeeming qualities to it. There are a bunch of tie-ins she could make with Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, etc. But she's just refused to and its turned into a literature course.

I'm in my third year and I've never heard of this prof before. Neither have any of my friends and guessing by the lack of a rating on ratemyprof, that this is her first year at UofT. I think she said she taught at an Alberta university before (damn Western Canadians...).
 
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of political/legal philosophy. I was actually just talking about that with Dr. Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute yesterday...
funny coincidence.
 
I love the new Nike commercial. The SPARQ one, it's awesome.

<div><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value=""></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350" /></embed></object></div>

"My quick smells like french toast"

Here is the one with the music in it. By the way the song is called "List of Demands by Saul Williams"

<div><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value=""></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350" /></embed></object></div>
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Master Shake @ Mar 14 2008, 11:46 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I love the new Nike commercial. The SPARQ one, it's awesome.

<div><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value=""></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350" /></embed></object></div>

"My quick smells like french toast"

Here is the one with the music in it. By the way the song is called "List of Demands by Saul Williams"

<div><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value=""></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350" /></embed></object></div></div>

LT is quite articulate I see.
 
Lol, he is. Kevin Durant "I'm going to tell you what I do before I do it" Like he's so amazing.
 
Sun 16 @ New York W
Mon 17 @ Washington L
Wed 19 @ New Jersey W
Sat 22 vs Orlando W
Tue 25 @ Chicago W
Wed 26 vs Milwaukee W
Fri 28 vs Chicago W
Sun 30 vs New York W
Mon 31 @ Memphis W
Wed 02 vs Toronto L
Fri 04 vs Philadelphia W
Sat 05 @ Philadelphia L
Tue 08 @ Indiana L
Fri 11 @ New York W
Sat 12 vs Boston W
Tue 15 vs Orlando W
Wed 16 @ Miami W

14-3 the next 17 games
 
The C-USA championship is always ridiculously anti-climactic.
 
I'm so angry March break is almost over. It should be 2 weeks, instead of 1.

It's really nice here in Toronto, I might go out and shovel the courts near my house and play some ball.
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Master Shake @ Mar 15 2008, 03:43 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I'm so angry March break is almost over. It should be 2 weeks, instead of 1.

It's really nice here in Toronto, I might go out and shovel the courts near my house and play some ball.</div>

Wow really? I just started my March break yesterday.
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (huevonkiller @ Mar 15 2008, 06:54 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Master Shake @ Mar 15 2008, 03:43 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I'm so angry March break is almost over. It should be 2 weeks, instead of 1.

It's really nice here in Toronto, I might go out and shovel the courts near my house and play some ball.</div>

Wow really? I just started my March break yesterday.

</div>


March break? Wtf is this? Other than next friday, I have no days off.

There is a spring break in April.
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (The Joker @ Mar 15 2008, 08:00 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (huevonkiller @ Mar 15 2008, 06:54 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Master Shake @ Mar 15 2008, 03:43 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I'm so angry March break is almost over. It should be 2 weeks, instead of 1.

It's really nice here in Toronto, I might go out and shovel the courts near my house and play some ball.</div>

Wow really? I just started my March break yesterday.

</div>


March break? Wtf is this? Other than next friday, I have no days off.

There is a spring break in April.
</div>

Yakov Smirnoff

In Canada, kids get 1 week in March off

/Yakov Smirnoff

Ya, in the US it's Spring break, which I wish we had instead.

And Huevon, curse you!
 
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