Y’know, that seems to be how my brain has been working, too! Luckily, the classmate who sits next to me in stats asked me if I could clarify something, and now we meet before each class to review. It’s really helped me out.
From what I’ve seen office hours are for begging for extra marks or special consideration or telling the prof they couldn’t do the readings on reading week because their father took them to France.
I’m tellin’ ya, nothing will get you higher grades than delivering a thermos of gin and juice at 4pm.
It gets better: I was in Documentation.
I worked for Shimadzu Scientific Instruments.
Most of their manuals were written in Japan and then translated, very poorly, into something that mildly resembled English.
We had very little insight into the design and development process and only these vague instructions that we were supposed to clean up into something that was actual English and helpful. Usually we’d grab a chemist and a machine and see if they could explain these things to us.
I was pregnant at the time. Mainly I just pretended to work. Sometimes it’s good to have an easy job.
I used to work in “translation.” The reality of the job was that I had to decipher very poorly worded Japanese language manuals and “translate” them into English. It once took me two hours to figure out that a “fixing screw” was actually a tapping screw.
Saw that one a lot “fixing screw.”
We used to have a whole list of amusing Jinglish translations that we kept on a poster. My two all time favorites were:
(warning against electric shock)
“Beware of thunderbolt, etc.”
(warning against inserting hand into small oven about the size of a hand)
“Do not insert hand or other body part into the oven.”
and finally, my number one favorite thing I saw was in a study done with a gas chromatograph. They thanked “Dr. Something or Another for providing the urine sample.”
… why is her left boob twice the size of her right? Is that a thing that dudes like? Asymmetrical boobs? I thought symmetry was desirable?
Most of my translating was manuals for Toto the Japanese toilet company. My favorite moment was discovering the phrase “sound princess.” It took a little bit for it to sink in that it was not a mistranslation. They actually have a feature called the “sound princess” which masks typical bathroom sounds for the self-conscious. Later when it actually hit the Internet and people discovered Japanese toilets were A Thing, I was already inured to the reality. The manuals were cute though, the user manuals had cartoons, and if I recall correctly there was at least one toilet that seemed awfully happy considering what you were about to do to it.
Now I want a sound princess.
I never once used them, but my girlfriend does a fair amount: basically hammers her homework assignments and reading and then takes in what she can’t figure out. That said, one of her professors was just dismissed for basically teaching an intro class at a graduate+ level, and I think my gf was the only person getting even a quarter of the homework assignments done.
Symmetry? We’re worried about our proximity more than anything else.
So… like this, but with boobs?
Good lord. Change “You’re a kitty!” to “BEWBS R CLOSE!!” and I think you’ve got it.
Only in grad school…
Perspective, the one in the back is further away, hence looks larger… wait, no?
I resemble this remark.
Is it bad that I often call my cat named Charlemagne “Mister Cat”?
And we all know about grad students…
But… I’m a grad student…