If it's not one thing, it's another

[geminigirl]

I'm amazed at the cost of text books. I'm taking two business classes this summer, and I paid over $300 for two text books. Text books have always been expensive, but this just seems to be outrageous. Had I not decided so late to take summer classes, I could have probably purchased them for less, but that was not to be this term. Perhaps if I'm taking more classes in the fall it will be possible.

Then again, it also amazes me that a professor needs to include the following in his syllabus:

• Never end your sentence with a preposition like ‘to, from, by, with, between, before, after or during’. (e.g. The company could not have anticipated where the threat came from.)
• Always use italics for the name of a source (magazine, book or newspaper title) e.g. Wall St. Journal
• Know the difference between ‘there’ (indicating destination like “I’m not going there.”) and ‘their’ (indicating possession like “That is their problem.”)
• Always capitalize the first letter of proper names.

If that weren't enough irritation for one day, we may not get the H1B extention approved or the Advance Parole approved in time to reasonably plan to travel this summer. If we don't get it approved, we can still travel within the US, and perhaps we'll do so, but the summer travel plans were rather specific in timing to allow us to attend a wedding in Hamilton, as well as see my family. I realize that the immigration process itself is time consuming, but I'm frustrated that Advanced Parole takes three months or more to approve.

Homework and supper ahead. Cranky behind. I hope.

Comments

[also-huey.livejournal.com]

The company could not have anticipated where the threat came from, ...ASSHOLE.

[icelore.livejournal.com]

The cost of text books seems to just keep going up. :/ Last semester I payed $345 for one damned book! My schools like to update to new editions as soon as they can so that all the students have to buy new books. Not being able to get used really drains the pocket. :(

And of course, after you've bought the books and paid out the nose for courses, you have to deal with professors that arrange their classes to teach high schoolers. It's amazing.

[geminigirl]

One class had no used copies available. The other had a single used copy available, but it was in such poor condition that I didn't feel like it was a good purchase. I had the $20 available to purchase the new copy over the used edition, the used edition was missing the supplementary software (not required, but sometimes useful) and was rather seriously damaged-the binding was split, and swollen, as if it had been dipped in water, and taped back together.

I admit, when I can afford it, I prefer new textbooks. I like to highlight and take notes in the book, and that's much harder to do with someone else's notes and markings already in there. Hopefully, I'll be able to sell the ones I don't feel like keeping at half.com or something after I'm done.

[icelore.livejournal.com]

That's understandable. If the new book doesn't cost that much more over used, I will pick it up too. But as I'm in a technical field, the difference between new and used books is sometimes as much as 90 bucks, so... That and the fact that I've never been one to note take in my books. My schools are real asses when it comes to buy-back time with highlighted books too.

*grumblemutter* Money hungry asshats....

[tactisle.livejournal.com]

Do you mean to tell me they're still prescribing that moldy old fossil of a preposition placement law, upon whose petard generations of authoritarian English teachers have rendered their students' prose as lugubrious and dessicate as their own pinched souls?

Bah.

[geminigirl]

I admit, it's been a few years since I was a student, but not that long. And yet, beyond grade school, no instructor has felt it necessary to prescribe, in the syllabus, that papers be submitted with correct grammar. It's always been, I suppose, an assumed part of doing the work. I have not been instructed in the placement of prepositions in English (though I have in several foreign languages) since oh, about grade 5, but apparently, that is what they're teaching.

[tactisle.livejournal.com]

I've seen the rules of grammar outlined before, in courses directed at adults who've been out in the workplace for a while. Some of the rules are easy to forget if your job doesn't involve a lot of academic-style paperwork.

Sorry about the preposition thing; it's kind of a favorite nit of mine, alongside the old saw about splitting infinitives. The Dictionary of Modern English Usage debunked these grammatical myths in 1926, for crying out loud. One would hope that at least Churchill's famous zinger, "an impertinence up with which I shall not put," would have put the kibosh on the damn thing, but oh no...

*giggle*

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

I'm a pedant, and I don't mind ending a sentence with a preposition when it sounds better that way. George Orwell did, now and then, and he was no language slouch.

[wait.livejournal.com]

Its even worse when the professor wrote the textbook used for the class. :)