Normally on Wednesday we have a half day of classes, so I normally get the joy of getting out of school at noon on said Wednesdays. Today we did indeed only have a half day of classes, but there was a seminar going on at 4:15 that I wanted to attend so I stuck around (and helped one of my course directors with some stuff to do with the seminar...what can I say, I'm a sucker for volunteering myself when I hear someone mention how much work they have to do for something that I can help with...plus my second impulse was that I'm going to be heading out into the workforce in less than a year and a little bit of making myself stand out can't hurt ;)...originally the seminar providers thought maybe 10 people would attend, maybe 25, but when they found out about 60 people would attend, panic ensued about getting more materials ready for the attendees). I ended up catching the 6:10 p.m. bus home, so that gives you an idea of how late I was at school today.
After the seminar, one of my other course directors came up to me and asked if he could talk to me about something for a minute. Some of my classmates had been sitting at my table during the seminar, and one of them said to me, "Oh, Joy, you're in trouble!" She said it tongue-in-cheek, but I was worried. Anyway, this course director had me come into a smaller room adjoining the room and asked me to grab a chair...so I figure this is going to be a formal sit-down talking-to about something I've done wrong somehow...and nothing is coming to mind about what I possibly could have done (it did come up in class once that a particular host teacher called our course directors regarding problems the teacher had with one of my classmates; I do hope the host teacher talked about the issue with the student first, but it made me wonder if that meant we could hear about problems people had with us out of the blue from the course directors). Well, one of my classmates came in and my course director said he would sit between me and this other student. Okay, I think, so whatever it is, it's not just me, unless this student somehow has a problem with me, but I doubt it as I've hardly interacted with the guy. Well, it turned out that neither of us was in trouble after all; we have instead been asked to do a special assignment. On Wednesday in one of our classes the topic is going to be "the nature of science." As part of this class, this other student and I as well as two others in our class (one of who joined us just a little bit into this impromptu meeting) will be doing a formal debate on this statement: "Be it resolved that science produces reliable, unbiased, value-free knowledge in an organized and systematic way." I have been assigned to the negative side...the side that disagrees with this statement. Oh, I thought, I am going to have a field day with this! Then we were told that in order to limit the amount of research we had to do, our arguments were going to be limited to things we could pull from 4 articles that he then gave us. Well, ok, that means less work, but I hope that I can find good stuff in those articles that I can agree with and say the kinds of things I would normally say on this issue. (I started reading one of the articles on the bus ride home and I found out something about a significant "missing link" hoax, so things are looking up, but one of the headings I didn't get to read more on seemed to read "there is no such thing as absolute truth," so I'll still have to see.)
Anyway, the obvious question that was on the minds of me and the first other student to come into this meeting was, "Why us?" ( We wondered this aloud to each other while our course director was out of the room looking to see if the third and fourth debate participants were still around.) When this other student asked my course director, he said that for doing this debate (which is marked by the course directors, but according to him marked quite easily--oh, some of our peers are given an evaluation to do on us, too, though, but though they decide who won the debate on those forms, ultimately the whole class votes to decide that), we get let off the hook for doing one of the reading response assignments later in the year (in the winter term), and the four of us were picked because the course directors think that we could use a bit of a break. Well, it's well and good to get that break, but I think I am generally better at writing something like this than at doing a formal debate, so I hope the easy marking and the luck I've had with doing better at such things in other people's minds than in my own will make up for that. But I am now caught up with wondering, why did they feel I (and the other three students) needed a break? Do I look stressed out? Is it because I am married (don't think so--several other students are married and even have kids)? I don't get it. They did choose one male and one female each from the J/I and I/S divisions, but there are several other I/S females...why me? I'm hoping it is not just because they thought I needed a break, but because I have managed to make myself stand out in some positive way already that made them feel I would do a good job. I just kind of wish that they had said or at least implied something like that rather than "We think you could use a break," 'cuz again, now I'm just still stuck wondering, "Why?"
Must go prepare for an activity I'm leading my grade 12 chemistry classes through tomorrow now...that is kind of nerve-wracking to think about at the moment, too, but hopefully doing this prep will ease my worries. How bad could it be :)?
Hope you all are well...
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