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beandelphikiWhat a bitch of a weekend. I wish I could have spent it on lj instead of doing a silly astronomy project.
Buuut...no such luck. And what a yucky day it's been on that score. Really, if you need something done, do it yourself. The world proves this to me every day.
Ugh. So we had to do this "observing report" which was 15% of our course grade. We have this CD that comes with our textbooks, and on it is a program called "Stargazer" which essentially allows you to view the night sky from any location on earth at pretty much any point in time. (I assume; I haven't tried the future, but I know you can go waaaay into the past.) You can also: set it up to make visible things you wouldn't normally be able to see with the naked eye; zoom in on objects to a view a high-powered telescope would show you; make it show constellation boundaries; ask for mythological background; and on and on.
Our assignment was to set up the program for a certain time in May this year and make observations about what we saw, following certain basic criteria. THEN we had to do supplementary research, add pictures, etc, for a full "report." A pretty big amount of work, and with 3 large sections, it was a necessary group project.
I did major constellations. Cari did Saturn and the specified M objects. Some random guy assigned to our group at the last minute agreed to do the moon section.
Because Cari had to go away this weekend and the random guy was JUST assigned to our group last week, it was basically impossible for us to get together to work on it. So I ordered everyone to do their section separately and email it to me by late Sunday, early Monday at the latest, so I could put it all together and have it ready for today.
Cari, good girl that she is, had her section totally finished and sent to me by Friday - all her observations and research, her pictures, her glossary of terms and her references. She promised to bring the (required) drawings of her observations for today. Without the drawings, and without the glossary and references (I assimilated them with my own), her section made up a good 4 pages. Nicely done.
With all MY observations and research and pictures, I had about 5 pages.
Guess what Random Guy sent me LATE Monday (after calling me early in the morning and waking me up to tell me, "I'll send it, I'll send it!")?
Three paragraphs.
Three fucking paragraphs.
His drawings, which I received this afternoon to add to the whole report, are nicely done, but so what? He sent me three paragraphs on a section our prof WARNED us was generally poorly done, and needed a lot of detail for it to get a good grade.
ARRRGH.
The worst of it was that when I went to put the three sections together last night, MS Word crapped on me and complained there wasn't enough memory to save new stuff. (Time for a MAJOR comp flush, that's never happened before.)
So I had to email it all to school and skip my English class today to put it all together. I even forgot to add in my observations from our (real life) observing nights. Ooops. I just didn't have the time. And I was the only one who got off my duff to go. *sigh*
It was hard coming down from the total panic that I went through after I opened my email at school and discovered three paragraphs I just didn't have the time to supplement myself. It was an hour into our astronomy class, long after the project was bound neatly and handed in, that the "I'm gonna puke" feeling finally faded.
I'm probably going to give myself ulcers.
So I sort of felt even worse when I saw Elena and Myles' observing report, but...god, it was so beautifully done. That's all Elena, the artist. She had everything printed up on nice stationary-type paper, with hand-drawn (and with Elena, that's saying something) title pages for each section, and little symbols for sub-sections. All that and it was bound like a book with a cover that Elena had painted herself - a little painting of she and Myles gazing up at the sky. It's just their backs, and Myles has his hands in his pockets and Elena is pointing upward.
It's just honestly beautiful, and the cover painting is touchingly whimsical.
Buuut...no such luck. And what a yucky day it's been on that score. Really, if you need something done, do it yourself. The world proves this to me every day.
Ugh. So we had to do this "observing report" which was 15% of our course grade. We have this CD that comes with our textbooks, and on it is a program called "Stargazer" which essentially allows you to view the night sky from any location on earth at pretty much any point in time. (I assume; I haven't tried the future, but I know you can go waaaay into the past.) You can also: set it up to make visible things you wouldn't normally be able to see with the naked eye; zoom in on objects to a view a high-powered telescope would show you; make it show constellation boundaries; ask for mythological background; and on and on.
Our assignment was to set up the program for a certain time in May this year and make observations about what we saw, following certain basic criteria. THEN we had to do supplementary research, add pictures, etc, for a full "report." A pretty big amount of work, and with 3 large sections, it was a necessary group project.
I did major constellations. Cari did Saturn and the specified M objects. Some random guy assigned to our group at the last minute agreed to do the moon section.
Because Cari had to go away this weekend and the random guy was JUST assigned to our group last week, it was basically impossible for us to get together to work on it. So I ordered everyone to do their section separately and email it to me by late Sunday, early Monday at the latest, so I could put it all together and have it ready for today.
Cari, good girl that she is, had her section totally finished and sent to me by Friday - all her observations and research, her pictures, her glossary of terms and her references. She promised to bring the (required) drawings of her observations for today. Without the drawings, and without the glossary and references (I assimilated them with my own), her section made up a good 4 pages. Nicely done.
With all MY observations and research and pictures, I had about 5 pages.
Guess what Random Guy sent me LATE Monday (after calling me early in the morning and waking me up to tell me, "I'll send it, I'll send it!")?
Three paragraphs.
Three fucking paragraphs.
His drawings, which I received this afternoon to add to the whole report, are nicely done, but so what? He sent me three paragraphs on a section our prof WARNED us was generally poorly done, and needed a lot of detail for it to get a good grade.
ARRRGH.
The worst of it was that when I went to put the three sections together last night, MS Word crapped on me and complained there wasn't enough memory to save new stuff. (Time for a MAJOR comp flush, that's never happened before.)
So I had to email it all to school and skip my English class today to put it all together. I even forgot to add in my observations from our (real life) observing nights. Ooops. I just didn't have the time. And I was the only one who got off my duff to go. *sigh*
It was hard coming down from the total panic that I went through after I opened my email at school and discovered three paragraphs I just didn't have the time to supplement myself. It was an hour into our astronomy class, long after the project was bound neatly and handed in, that the "I'm gonna puke" feeling finally faded.
I'm probably going to give myself ulcers.
So I sort of felt even worse when I saw Elena and Myles' observing report, but...god, it was so beautifully done. That's all Elena, the artist. She had everything printed up on nice stationary-type paper, with hand-drawn (and with Elena, that's saying something) title pages for each section, and little symbols for sub-sections. All that and it was bound like a book with a cover that Elena had painted herself - a little painting of she and Myles gazing up at the sky. It's just their backs, and Myles has his hands in his pockets and Elena is pointing upward.
It's just honestly beautiful, and the cover painting is touchingly whimsical.
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-04 12:13 am (UTC)that sounds so crappy about the random guy. I totally hate having to depend on people... because most of the time, someone pulls something like that. I can't imagine how things will look, with a 2 1/2 page part I, a 2 1/2 page part II, and 3 little paragraphs for part III.
*blah..*
:(((
*puts little tiny biting spiders in random guy's clothes*
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-04 12:16 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-06-04 12:19 am (UTC)(maybe you can give "credits" for who did which part at the beginning of the presentation)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-06-04 12:21 am (UTC)