Shoot the Wall (A.K.A. The Rant Thread)

[Pseudonym]

Just spend five hours tweaking an assignment trying to get the word counts right, think I can scrape by on the others but I'm still over a 100 words short in one section. I'm not good at waffling, I give my argument, give my facts to support it, explain why, and move on. I have nothing more to say! And that section is on a particularly dry article, so I really have nothing more to say. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

You could try un-Readers-Digesting it.  Like instead of saying simply "a red car," you could say "a car that has been painted red in color."

[Van Buren Supernova]

2 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

You could try un-Readers-Digesting it.  Like instead of saying simply "a red car," you could say "a car that has been painted red in color."

A car that has been painted red in color, with smooth shellac shinning look, that reminds me of the tale when my grandmother was seventeen and was offered a ride by my grandpa (insert grandma origin story), and finally brings me to the story of how we obtain shellac from female lac bug, found in India and Thailand, that formally known as Siam... (insert story about Thailand)..

Back then I used to fatten my assignment with examples, and the words would add up sometimes way too much.

 

Anyway, I think my neighbor is addicted to having construction. 

Before they moved in probably less than two years ago, the house was put in renovation for ONE YEAR. ONE EFFING YEAR. Imagine the strangers, the noise, the dust, the building materials that got in our way. There were only three houses occupied from ten back then, and I remember my pregnant next door neighbor (husband was away oversea) was frightened by the way the workers looked at her, that she waited for me to come back from work one day and I had to give her my phone number to contact just in case. The workers were alright, they were just, liked to stare for a long time. But having them knowing your daily schedule and how many occupants in the house (after a while any idiots can see) was of course, not preferable. 

So, after it was done, the family moved in, and along the way, there were tinkering here and there, but then starting last month, they are doing major renovation again. What for? To freaking switching the carport.

So the width of the house is perfectly nice to occupy two cars. They have their access and car porch on the left side of the house, now they want to switch it to the right. That means hacking of walls, fence, column apparently, planter box, porch roof and landscape (where plants have been growing nicely), floor just to switch the side for the car.

I mean, good god!!! I waited for years to finally done the floor of one of the room that had been eaten by termites, I waited for month to fix the finish of my exterior wall that had been coming down (literally), and there are still tons of things needed to be done, and these people, purposely waste time and money for this? Grrrr.. okay, that is their problem. But with construction, the set of problem that comes with it reappears. And now with added touch; their family car, that has to be parked outside in the narrow-just nice communal street, and their house is opposite mine. So now, everytime I drive I have to be wary about maneuvering. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

19 minutes ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

Back then I used to fatten my assignment with examples, and the words would add up sometimes way too much.

VBS, you are the champ of excess verbiage!

21 minutes ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

They have their access and car porch on the left side of the house, now they want to switch it to the right.

[Artemis]

7 hours ago, Pseudonym said:

Just spend five hours tweaking an assignment trying to get the word counts right, think I can scrape by on the others but I'm still over a 100 words short in one section. I'm not good at waffling, I give my argument, give my facts to support it, explain why, and move on. I have nothing more to say! And that section is on a particularly dry article, so I really have nothing more to say.

I used to have this problem too.  I made a habit of verbosity (a habit I still haven't totally broken), until eventually I stopped caring and just relied on the quality of my writing to make up for the word count.  It depends on the assignment though.  If the assigned word count was 500 and I only turned in 400, it would look a bit sparse and I'd probably get docked a grade.  Trying to pull out more to say when I'd already said everything I wanted was tough, and ate up a lot of my time.

On a semi-related note, there were some assignments where I had no idea what to say at all, beyond one paragraph.  In a college art class I was assigned a 10-page paper analyzing this Jackson Pollock painting:

Writing that paper hurt my brain.  I had no idea how to fill 10 pages when all I had to say was, "There are lots of colors and swirls."  I don't remember how I got it done, but I do remember getting a C-, lol.  Guess I'm not an art analyst.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Looks like a pizza to me.  

[Pseudonym]

I'm already fed up of it being pitch black first thing in the morning and the clocks haven't even gone back yet.

Another thing I'm struggling with is writing an email to a doctor at the local uni (not that type of doctor) in the hope she'll let me volunteer on her project. I need to somehow sound professional, but enthusiastic, eager but not desperate, friendly but not overly familiar...

[Carol the Dabbler]

When do your clocks go back?

[Pseudonym]

This weekend. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Ours used to go back about now, but a few years ago it was changed to the first Sunday in November.  I suspect that may have been intended to give the young trick-or-treaters an extra hour of daylight, for safety.

[Artemis]

I actually prefer it to be dark outside in the morning.  I have an easier time waking up for the day when it's dark, and then I have more energy for the rest of the day.  I don't like darkness at 4pm though, blah.

 

[Pseudonym]

I like it being dark if I don't have to go anywhere. Getting to work in the dark though makes it feel like it's the middle of the night and makes me want to still be asleep (even more than I already do).

[Artemis]

7 minutes ago, Pseudonym said:

I like it being dark if I don't have to go anywhere. Getting to work in the dark though makes it feel like it's the middle of the night and makes me want to still be asleep (even more than I already do).

Same here, I feel that way in the evening, and going home from work.  But not the morning, for some reason.  Sunlight makes me extra tired in the morning, I find it draining.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

1 hour ago, Pseudonym said:

I'm already fed up of it being pitch black first thing in the morning and the clocks haven't even gone back yet.

Then you'll be happy next Monday, when the sun will magically come up an hour earlier!

[Pseudonym]

Very, very briefly. Then it'll be pitch black again. 

[Pseudonym]

ARGH, people! "When will my order be delivered?" When I've had a bloody chance to bloody make it. 

[Van Buren Supernova]

21 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

VBS, you are the champ of excess verbiage!

Hey....  but examples are actually crucial for my assignment, although sometimes I give more than it asked. The good thing is, those verbiage actually earned me good marks.

21 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

They have their access and car porch on the left side of the house, now they want to switch it to the right.

 

21 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

You may be pleased to hear the latest development. They are so obsessed with their house being white, bright and clean, .. they painted their facade white... over expensive natural light beige stone finish. Just because it has some moldy stain, that could easily be polished and re-coat. 

Are they........... stupid?

[Van Buren Supernova]

16 hours ago, Pseudonym said:

ARGH, people! "When will my order be delivered?" When I've had a bloody chance to bloody make it. 

Aw come on!!!  When I order something, I would hope that you bloody make it. 

 

God knows how many time I send email to ask about my Sherlock's Abominable Bride figurine, it's been two years. This is bollocks!! Wait.. is that you?

[Carol the Dabbler]

3 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

They are so obsessed with their house being white, bright and clean, .. they painted their facade white... over expensive natural light beige stone finish. Just because it has some moldy stain, that could be easily be polished and recoat.

Are they.......stupid?

They are........different, for sure!

Please refresh my memory -- these are the same people who built (or extensively remodeled) this house just a few years ago?  So *they* chose that stone finish?

At the risk of repeating myself, 

[Van Buren Supernova]

22 minutes ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

Please refresh my memory -- these are the same people who built (or extensively remodeled) this house just a few years ago?  So *they* chose that stone finish?

Just a year plus to be exact.

To their defense (NOT) the stone finish is one of the very few things thing they retained from the original developer, all the ten houses have it, and that is the best feature, because the other wall material are falling down (and almost every house had to replace it otherwise you'll be left with blank unfinished wall that is susceptible to weather). Two of the houses (now one) have unsightly molds on them, so there are black patches and spots. Mine used to have it, but I had it re-polished and recoat (and since then it remains nice) as added work when I repaired my other wall.

To add to the , so they actually liked the stone finish because they replaced the material of the other wall with the same stone finish, and to be fair, the facade looks nice with those stone. So maybe in the frustration that my stone wall, the messy and poor neighbor, is stainless while theirs is ugly now, they decided to just paint it. Let is what will become of the paint!

Ah, and this is the same owner who allegedly gave their driver the order to cut my plants bald to 'tidy it up', that seriously sent me into coffin destroying mood. The plant I grew for two and half year, it's been one year now, it hasn't restored to a quarter of what it used to be. But the new driver is actually very nice and the owner also being very nice to me since then. It's just... I don't get the way they do things.

[Pseudonym]

Maybe they're covering up the fact they're really building a torture cellar. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

2 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

this is the same owner who allegedly gave their driver the order to cut my plants bald to 'tidy it up'

Oh, THOSE people!   

[HerlockSholmes]

On 10/23/2018 at 5:56 AM, Artemis said:

I used to have this problem too.  I made a habit of verbosity (a habit I still haven't totally broken), until eventually I stopped caring and just relied on the quality of my writing to make up for the word count.  It depends on the assignment though.  If the assigned word count was 500 and I only turned in 400, it would look a bit sparse and I'd probably get docked a grade.  Trying to pull out more to say when I'd already said everything I wanted was tough, and ate up a lot of my time.

On a semi-related note, there were some assignments where I had no idea what to say at all, beyond one paragraph.  In a college art class I was assigned a 10-page paper analyzing this Jackson Pollock painting:

Writing that paper hurt my brain.  I had no idea how to fill 10 pages when all I had to say was, "There are lots of colors and swirls."  I don't remember how I got it done, but I do remember getting a C-, lol.  Guess I'm not an art analyst.

 

I’d have filled 10 pages with completely random and unconnected words and said “well if Pollock can do it with paint?”👍

[Artemis]

4 minutes ago, HerlockSholmes said:

I’d have filled 10 pages with completely random and unconnected words and said “well if Pollock can do it with paint?”👍

That is awesome, lol.    I wish I'd been that clever and brave.

 

[Arcadia]

On ‎10‎/‎23‎/‎2018 at 12:56 AM, Artemis said:

I used to have this problem too.  I made a habit of verbosity (a habit I still haven't totally broken), until eventually I stopped caring and just relied on the quality of my writing to make up for the word count.  It depends on the assignment though.  If the assigned word count was 500 and I only turned in 400, it would look a bit sparse and I'd probably get docked a grade.  Trying to pull out more to say when I'd already said everything I wanted was tough, and ate up a lot of my time.

On a semi-related note, there were some assignments where I had no idea what to say at all, beyond one paragraph.  In a college art class I was assigned a 10-page paper analyzing this Jackson Pollock painting:

Writing that paper hurt my brain.  I had no idea how to fill 10 pages when all I had to say was, "There are lots of colors and swirls."  I don't remember how I got it done, but I do remember getting a C-, lol.  Guess I'm not an art analyst.

 

TEN pages???? How many people were in this class? When did the instructor plan to read all these pages?