i give up

update on the workshop last week: went ok, better than i expected i guess. the teachers didn't talk when i was talking, but i tried really hard to make it so i never talked more than 5 minutes without asking them some kind of question so they could talk. i was assimilating their cultural ways and all into the structure of the whole thing. how considerate of me. it did go like 30 minutes over time, but it wasn't my fault. and i think they learned something, even though they seemed utterly shocked at my suggestion that they should focus their teaching on scientific processes (e.g., basics of experimental design, how to draw a graph) rather than on the minute details of specific methodology.

then this weekend was camp. i was cautiously optimistic about camp. they asked me to design two "experiments" but gave me absolutely no idea of how camp was structured or what sorts of things are typical "experiments" for such a camp. so i came up with 4 ideas, presented them to the boss, and she said they all look fine so i should just write up 2 of them. so i wrote them up, directions, data sheets, questions for the students to answer, the whole shebang. gave them to the boss to look over, said she should change things or have me change them if they didn't fit with the plan. to my knowledge, nothing was changed.

so we left at 6am on saturday morning for the 3 hour drive, which was followed by a full day of activity with like 30 minutes of rest scheduled. holy crap, that was brutal. because of course we were running late. so my first experiment was scheduled for 2pm. we started that part i think at about 3:30. this experiment was supposed to look at ant diversity in different habitats. each group was supposed to get pork balls and some jelly to put out to attract ants (or whatever) and then the students were supposed to collect whatever came, compare and contrast among the different habitats. well, they were given 4 sugar cubes and i think told to put them wherever they wanted. pork balls are not hard to come by!!! and i gave you a weeks notice that i wanted them for this!!!

my second experiment was basically an excuse for me to hopefully see some cool insects. we set up a blacklight after dark. but my understanding was we didn't have an extension cord, so our options for placement were extremely limited. so i put the lamp in a crappy place and crossed my fingers. it totally sucked, basically nothing came. there was better stuff out by a huge floodlight on the field across from the cabins. so mostly we collected stuff there. then i found out, low and behold, we had several extension cords! oh i was so pissed, why did they tell me i could only plug the lamp into the outlet???

so it was a totally crappy time. it could have been so interesting. but like so many other things here, it seems to me that they like to just do things for the hell of it, with no real plan for what the learning goals are or anything. and totally inconsiderate of whatever i planned or asked them to do or anything. sooooo frustrating. not to mention that someone's alarm started going off at 5:30 in the morning and they just kept hitting snooze. oh, they just ooze the respect for other people that they pride themselves on.

i won't even go into what we did on sunday. suffice it to say, it was perhaps the most boring morning in my life. absolutely dreadful. the whole time, i couldn't keep myself from thinking, "i should be watching elephant polo right now." because i could have been. i was supposed to be. and how could it not be interesting???

i'm ready for this to be over. only 18 more days.

mental list i made while bored out of my mind--things that make me excited to go home:
-pizza (especially chicago style)
-cornbread with honey (just sounds good right now)
-bread (not the wonderbread style you get here)
-people will talk to me (it sucks when almost everyone you know tries to avoid talking to you because it means they'll have to speak english)
-having a sense of expectations and knowing what is going to happen
-cooking for myself so i'm not surprised when a whole chicken leg appears in my green curry (**clarification--by "whole chicken leg" i mean the whole part from the claws to where the feathers start growing, not the drumstick and thigh**)
-not having to answer the questions "can you eat spicy food?" and "do you like thai food?" (have you ever met anyone who doesn't like thai food?)
-my pillow (why did i not bring it? its awesome.)
i think their are other things i forgot. its hard to remember things when you are soooooo bored.