Tales from the Steppes

2004-03-06

4:32 p.m.
detente at the U.N.

I am doing much better, now that I have gotten some sleep. Sleeping is one of my favorite things to do, but I never seem to get to get to do it. But last night, I did not work on anything. I'm sure that puts me even further behind, but not only was I too tired to see straight but I was in a foul mood. And that is even by my standards.

Yesterday in class, we were supposed to present three design options for our projects. The group with the Baltimore site presented first and they had three options done and had background material gathered from a previous class, as this is not the first time we have worked in this area. Totally pisses me off that not only is their site local, but Morgan has spent over a year working in that area and last semester's urban design class had already done a site analysis and gathered background data. Wheras we not only have to drive 3 hrs each way but have to start from nothing, not even a basemap. Anyway, we did not have three options, as we had just visited the site last weekend for the first time ever. We had some analysis, although I have to admit that most of it was kind of crappy. We had criteria for rating our design options, as well as some inventory. Anyway, the professor went ballistic and totally dismissed everything we did, as well as giving us a raft of shit about leaving on Saturday. He did not even let us finish presenting our work, but just started ranting at us. I generally do not put up with that kind of crap from anyone, but since I need his signature on my thesis, I did not get up and leave.

After he was done and had left, we met as a group and tried to develop a plan of action. Unfortunately, the reaction of the UN, as I have come to think of them, was to come up with a plan that produces a lot of work with no meaning and usefulness in a backassward way. We have a bunch of tasks and a number of blocks to do them on. Instead of dividing up the tasks, they felt we should divide up the blocks, perform each data collection or analysis on the given block, and then try and put it all together. Aaaaaarrrrgh!!! I'm at the point when I get really testy about people wasting my time, so I was not necessarily kind in my reaction to their proposal. Well, ok, I wasn't brutally honest, but I did note my displeasure and point out some of the shortcomings to this proposal. Unfortunately, the Turks and Indians had retreated into cultural mode and kept interrupting, gesturing, and yelling; the Thai does not speak English well enough to be a nuisance. Note to F. - I was not merely one of the ones throwing rocks at JC; I must have been the one with the spear. Definitely a karmic pothole.

But on a tres happy note, I found the last (I hope) piece to the framing of my thesis. I am going to be inviting people to poke holes in my reasoning, hopefully later this week. All I want to do now is sit here and write. Makes it tough to work on the OC project with any degree of caring. I even successfully worked through a Chuck E Cheese birthday party today.