Last night was my Fundamentals of Project Management class. It's a four week, 12 hour class. Last night was the second night, so we are half way through chronologically. However, we are only about 1/3 through the syllabus. Reason: other people. Other people (not me) asked 10,000 questions and bogged the class down so badly that the instructor dropped hints with the subtlety of a roadside bomb that he needed to move the class forward. No joke: dude next to me bogged down the class for no less than 20 minutes because the definitions of the terms scope statement and scope definition were unclear to him because, in his mind, the instructor's slides on the topics were in the wrong order. When I wasn't sketching axes and swords and ligers on my trapper keeper, I looked around the room and saw several other people rolling their eyes. If poltergeists are real, then that room is going to be haunted for centuries by a spirit painting the walls in blood with the words "GET ON WITH IT!"
This is the problem with me and classrooms. Unfortunately, I learn best in classrooms, but invariably, the class proceeds too slowly for me, and I get bored. And there isn't nothing worse for my productivity than boredom. I mean, I am noding at work, after all. I wish I was the sort of person that could sit down with a book and study and just glean knowledge off the page. Sadly, I am not.
It's my problem, so I don't want to blame anyone other than myself. But having said that, let me blame others. First, I never was challenged in school. Ever. I never once, until college, was pushed to anywhere close to my potential. Consequently, I became a terribly lazy student. There are numerous mediocre marks on my report cards with comments like "Doesn't work at full potential" and "Would have gotten an A if turned in work". In college, this all bit me in the ass because I made the mistake of taking some classes that were beyond my ability. I took an honors physics class that really cornholed me. In college, too, I was lazy, but there are just as many examples of classes where I was hindered by a lack of study and reading skills as there are of me blowing the class off.
So fix it, Ed. Fix the problem.
*sigh* My wife says, "Do the SQ3R method!" I do that and I just get, not just bored, but bored with a bunch of useless note cards lying around.
I'm doomed.
I saw The 40-Year-Old Virgin last night. Funny, but I had a question. Does anybody know the name of the girl Andy had trouble de-bra-ing? It was during his flashbacks to the sexual disasters of his past, right after the snagglechick oral sex episode and before the toe sucking debacle. Anyway, I greatly admired her work. I've exhausted all the googleing and imdb-ing I dare while at work.