Admissions Interviews, Day 2

Q. Why do You want to study psychology?
A. I want to understand what makes people do the things they do, like head scratching.

Q. When did You first become interested in psychology?
A. When I was 12, I'm sorry to say, I hated women.

Admissions Interviews, Day 1

Q. So, why is it that You want to study psychology?
A. I have a lot of aggression, and I think psychology will help with that.

Q. Do You have any specific interests within the field of psychology?
A. This might sound strange, but I like dead people.

Q. You were saying a little about the overlap between psychology and psychiatry. What do you think the goal of psychiatry, versus psychology, is?
A. Giving people bills.

Today a student posted a job offer on our studies' fb page. It was addressed "Dear Ladies," and went on to indicate that one had to be female and Polish-speaking to apply. I looked at the ad, which was very legally non-discriminating regarding the sex of candidates for the position, and so posted a comment saying that if she was officially representing the company it would be best to reconsider phrasing that could indicate to potential rejected candidates that sex was used as a criterion of selection, and that if any of those candidates were reading they should contact me because I know a good human rights lawyer.

I was pissed, to be honest. I concluded with "because this shit is not cool. NOT COOL."

I hesitated before I posted, and I fumed for a while before deciding to, but I eventually thought it would at least be read by students from my stereotyping and prejudice class, and I would not be passively propagating an atmosphere that condones sex discrimination with my silence.

Anyway when I logged back on a few hours later her post (and my comment) was gone.

Today at my Norwegian class we were talking about indirect speech and one of the examples was "I asked her to meet me here." I conveyed this in indirect speech thus: "He said he asked her to meet him here." The instructor said that in indirect speech "here" becomes "there".  I protested. Then another student insisted that it is a rule in English too that in indirect speech "here" becomes "there". I said, "no, it doesn't". Then she said that she is an English teacher and yes it does. Then I said "I'm a native speaker, and sorry but You're teaching Your students wrong." (Obviously not in a very conciliatory mood today.) Then the instructor told us to stop arguing about it, because it wasn't super relevant to the lesson. And I exited the interaction with my stereotype of Polish English teachers being incompetent confirmed, and she exited the interaction, I'm sure, with her stereotype of native speakers being arrogant  ignorant assholes intact.

Hurrah, Humanity.

I did a very civically responsible thing today, and I want to feel good about it; but what I feel is like a freak, because people in this town don't stop for crying drunken people to make sure they are safe.

Today some change spilled out of my pocket when I was at the bar and I left it on the floor, with blessings to the lucky finder, who turned out to be my brother when, 2 hours later, he went up to buy me a lemonade. He picked it up and dropped it in the tip jar.

Did I ever tell You about the time I landed in Oslo and couldn't get off the plane because there was a new bridge operator who couldn't match up the gate ramp with the plane door? The pilot asked for our patience.