Really?

It's the end of another week of school. I've made it through 3 weeks, only 12 more to go until summer break.

I still can't believe what people think constitutes a "discussion post" for my online classes. No one seems to care about punctuation or spelling (if they typed their responses in Word, they could at least use Spell Check). Most of what is being submitted is gibberish that is incoherent.  It is a rarity when people write a clear sentence.  These are my complaint just on syntax and grammar alone.

It seems that most people think that "I like it" or "That's good" or "I agree with you" should count as their participation in class.  Granted, with the amount of discussion postings we are expected to contribute, we are doing far more work than people in the classroom situation.  If everyone in the class were expected to speak as much as we are expected to type, class would be 10 hours long including lecture.  It can be hard to come up with substantial posts each and every time, but with some thought and effort you can keep contributing to the discussion.

We're on week 3 and I am still the only student actually critiquing the other students' work.  I was glad to see that the things I have been saying are being considered by my fellow students, but it is important that they develop the ability to look at artwork critically and thoughtfully.  "I like it" and "You did a great job" don't really imply that they are looking at the work critically.  The instructors usually have started cracking down on critiques by this point, but it seems as though they don't care this semester.  Weird.

I at least remembered to take photos at my figure sculpting class.  I'm really starting to enjoy this class, which is a first for any class I've taken at the Academy.  Here are a few pictures from class.

We have started working on typography in my graphic design class this week.  We had some fun with "making words move" and here are my results.

I also tried out the school's shuttle bus system this week (after last week's disaster of $32 parking AND almost 2 hours to drive 3.5 miles across town to go home).  Getting there was great.  I picked up the bus a few blocks from my house.  The buses are clean and comfortable AND there was a TV on the one I caught.  They were showing Iron Man 2.  I got to class on time and relaxed.  Let's just say getting home was NOT that easy.  I stayed behind to take pictures of my model, so I missed the bus by 1 minute.  Not so bad, I thought considering there was another bus in 1/2 an hour.  Well, that bus never showed up.  Finally an hour later the next bus showed up and I hopped on.  Well, the "next" bus was a different route and it was taking so long I hopped off by the dorms and walked the rest of the way home.  I probably could have walked across town faster than my trip home took, but once I caught the next shuttle, I wasn't entirely certain where I was.