#6.036blogging

[gender-trash]

CAN’T emphasize enough that TAs don’t, like, know things.  we’re just sleepy and jaded.  incredibly funny that i’m supposed to monitor piazza for questions about the lecture when i’ve never in my life successfully paid attention to a lecture.  like how did this happen??  who decided i was qualified for this???

#the trashcan speaks #if you ask me a question in office hours and i'm like 'what do you think' #i AM trying to figure out what you know so i can explain at the right level #but i am ALSO stalling for time as i try to remember wtf the homework problem was #6.036blogging #finest hell on earth #i'm refreshing piazza and nothing is happening so you get stream-of-consciousness Poasts instead

[gender-trash]

honestly i think TAing has done more for my public speaking skills (and, like, talking-to-people skills generally) than anything else, even public speaking practice.  like in the past when i’d give a presentation i’d do just an ungodly amount of prep work and 6.UAT tried but could not actually stop me from doing all that, but if i’m discussing a checkoff with someone or talking about a problem in office hours some improv is necessary even if i’ve reviewed the lab and pset beforehand, right?  so i’ve gotten a lot better at just... saying things without needing a whole script beforehand.  which let me tell you is REALLY helpful when you get to the Q&A part of a presentation

(it’s also made me comfortable saying “i’m not sure but i can look into it and get back to you” or “oh, let me check” or w/e)

#the trashcan speaks #this fuckin... guy in my crypto class was like dragging my team over the coals when we gave our presentation yesterday #for choices that were made in the paper we were just trying to IMPLEMENT #and i think without a lot of practice with students asking me questions in office hours i would have lost my shit #even the professors were like CALM DOWN DUDE LETS GIVE SOME OTHER STUDENTS A CHANCE TO ASK QUESTIONS #'why would you compress an encrypted image anyway?? >:(' WHY NOT #JUST GO WITH IT ITS OUR WHOLE PREMISE #finest hell on earth #6.036blogging

[gender-trash]

today during 6.036 lecture which starts at 9:30 im supposed to be monitoring piazza for good questions and then send them to the professor via slack. so the first problem here is getting up early, because i normally don’t have to finish breakfast and get dressed until like... 11. and i was pretty worried about accidentally sleeping through class when i went to bed last night (not that big a problem as a student, depending on the class, but 100x worse when you’re the TA)

of course, i had a dream about waking up at 10, scrambling over to my computer to check piazza in my pajamas, and apologizing profusely to everyone else in the slack channel, and it stressed me out enough that i woke up at 7:50 in real life and went “god DAMN it” when i realized i had to actually do the whole thing again but for real this time

#the trashcan speaks #hate it when i dream about doing something and then wake up and i have to do the thing AGAIN #finest hell on earth #6.036blogging

[gender-trash]

biked around to six different houses in boston/cambridge/somerville today to deliver silly hats to other 6.036 staff! i haven't done anything resembling an Exercise in probably 8 thousand years at this point so now my legs are jello

#if you saw me makin my way downtown (actually from harvard sq to davis sq) at a snail's pace #im sorry ok #my quads are unused to such exertions... #the trashcan speaks #6.036blogging #also!! i went back and saw campus and it was so beautiful... ;-;

[gender-trash]

being a ta is much better than being an la in exactly one (1) way: i only have one office hours shift AND during that shift i am the authority figure that’s supposed to bug my la underlings to claim people off the help queue. which means that when i am just utterly goddamn exhausted nobody bugs ME to claim people off the help queue

#the trashcan speaks #is this technically what i am supposed to be doing? no #however. have u consider i am very tired? #6.036blogging #finest hell on earth

[gender-trash]

extremely homophobic that i have to learn about video codecs for ta job...

#i am stupid!!! #the trashcan speaks #im in charge of the new effort to have all the course staff make video explanations for our homework questions #which is DEEPLY funny because i HATE videos and prefer written explanations if at ALL possible #anyway quicktime is just a bitch. vlc stans only in this house #6.036blogging

[gender-trash]

pleased to announce that i’m now the official TA in charge of silly hats for 6.036 this semester

#the trashcan speaks #Did You Know zoom has silly hat filters? #finest hell on earth #6.036blogging

[gender-trash]

this semester i’m LAing 6.036 and we had our first staff meeting yesterday and i’ve already forgotten everything because a 3-hour-long meeting is the WORST possible way to communicate information to me.  rip to everyone in pod D in the 1pm thursday lab; i’m sorry in advance

new this semester: to make people feel more connected to course staff & better able to ask for help, everyone has been divided into “MLyPods” (yeah i know.  it’s pronounced millipod).  each la gets assigned to exactly one pod; each ta gets four pods (one per lab section).  what this means for ME is that i only get to staff one lab (the thing that i’m kinda OK at) and i have to staff 2 sections of office hours (the thing that i fucking suck at).  in theory the office hours will be less horribly isolating and anxiety-inducing than 6.002 office hours were, since all the OH staff will be vibing in a zoom call together instead of hanging out in separate zoom rooms, but we’ll see.  also the TIMES i’m staffing are monday 7-9pm (immediately after the staff meeting, and i don’t know why i thought that was a good idea) and sunday 5-7pm (rip to my day off).  

also all the payroll features in my atlas account have been deactivated for some reason so i submitted a support request to get THAT enabled.  heres hoping i can get paid at some point!!

OH YEAH and i don’t have access to the staff gdrive with all the checkoff rubrics and stuff on it.  allegedly any mit gsuites account should have access but i just made an mit gsuites account and i DON’T, so in conclusion, fuck this

#the trashcan speaks #6.036blogging #trash studyblr