Okay.

This has been the worst term conceivable.

Nothing is working out at all.

This is going to be the biggest fucking rant in the history of rants, because I am so full of fury right now I would seriously like to punch a fucking hole in the stomach of some kid here at the school. This is so fucking annoying, I can’t take it anymore.

Click the “jump” or whatever it is called to read on.

I FUCKING HATE MISSISSAUGA

There is not a single redeeming quality about this town. I don’t know anyone here. The school is located in the ghetto, as far as I can tell. Far enough from the Lake not to be cool, and far enough from Square One not to be civilized. It is as if the city of Mississauga expanded into this area, and then decided it was like the ass of the entire city. And, since no one is ever going to visit the ass for any reason, why should they make it a decent place to live?

So, here I am. Living in a tiny room in a tiny residence in a tiny school in the ass crack of Mississauga. And there is nothing to do around here. The closest stores of any real merit are all in Square One, which is a substantial 50 minute walk or an incredibly infuriating 20 minute drive.

This town is boring, and I have no life outside of this school building. In fact, I rarely even step outdoors. One of the disadvantages of living where you work and get your food. I have absolutely no reason to go outside. In fact, my car could get stolen from the parking lot and I wouldn’t notice for a week because of how little I see of the outdoors.

I FUCKING HATE GOOGLE MAPS

I’m going to start off by saying that Binks is right. Binks has - in fact - always been right. I am sure he is going to enjoy the fact that I have said this, and he is going to insist I say it more often.

In the past, I have always found fault in his drive to techify everything in his life. But he has been right on the mark for this little beauty: behold!

And, let me explain.

First of all, Rachel (from Zellers) and I have been planning on going to Canada’s Wonderland for the past few weeks. We haven’t seen each other since Zellers, and since she is now at York University (a stone’s throw from Canada’s Wonderland) and she says she has never been, I figured she needed to go.

So, I started planning things. I used Google Maps to plan my trip there and back (they would be two separate routes because one would take me to a Mac’s Convenience Store to get the tickets, while another would not). So, I printed the maps. Had them set up in a fashion that would allow me to check them easily while driving in the event that I forgot where I was going (although the directions weren’t too bad).

I set off. The Mac’s Convenience - I am told - is on Burnhamthorpe Road in Mississauga, before Central Parkway. Here is the map I was given.

Okay. Well, it looks like the Mac’s Convenience Store is on the left.

Look even closer.

Yep. Definitely on the left. Except the actual FUCKING store is on the right, where the X is marked. So, I’m sitting in the left turn lane as I approach the intersection, and as I get near the lights, I see the damn thing over on the right. So I’m thinking to myself, “What the fuck? This is the second time in two days (a similar ordeal happened when I tried to locate a Chapters near Square One, which turned out to be across the street from Square One, contrary to Google Maps).”

So, I have to turn left. I’m in a left turn lane at an intersection of a street with eight lanes (four in each direction). I can’t exactly cross over most of those lanes to the right turn lane without killing myself and others. So, I turn to the left, pull into a mall parking lot, pull out, turn around, drive back.

When I finally get to the Mac’s Convenience, they tell me that they cannot print the tickets there. Something is wrong with their machine. But there is another store on Something Ave. and Something St. Well, just fucking great. I am not from Mississauga. I have no idea where this place is. In order to find it, I’d have to go home and search on Google Maps again, hope that THAT map is more accurate, and try once more.

So I said fuck it. Came home. Talked to Rachel on MSN. Canceled the trip. All because Google Maps fucking sucks. This is the third time it has been canceled. We were going to go last Saturday, but it got bumped to Sunday, and then it was bumped to this weekend. I’m thinking we should just call the whole thing off.

Also, I FUCKING HATE Google Maps…and I really wish I had one of those GPS deals. It would have helped me locate a new Mac’s Convenience without coming home, and would have saved me a good 30 minutes of wasted driving.

I FUCKING HATE THIS SCHOOL

Perhaps I am overexagerating on this one. I don’t hate everything about it. For example, on Thursday I was working during the Mandatory Study Session (7-9, but it actually went 7-10) and I was helping a kid with solving systems of linear equations. And when he finally understood how to make two equations from a word problem, he had this incredible smile of understanding and accomplishment on his face. It made me very happy.

However, the school has made me very unhappy.

Basically, the Vice Principal guy has told me (twice now) that there will never be a situation where we are thrown in a classroom and required to teach. Any classroom experience we receive will be the equivalent of babysitting. We will hand out an assignment or pop in a DVD while we sit back and feel our asses swell. And he told me this as if it should be a relief to me, or a positive comment regarding our jobs here.

I cannot believe this crap. I’m here to teach. I was told that I would be given the opportunity to teach at least one unit. Even the two weeks of math that I was supposed to be teaching have been taken away from me and given to some other substitute.

So, during the job interview, they said that they’d give me as much in class exposure as I was comfortable with. In the first week, they said that they would put me in the classroom as much as I wanted if I was interested, and I stopped that conversation to make it incredibly clear that I was very interested in teaching as much as possible. Extremely interested. I said I couldn’t stress that enough.

But apparently I could have stressed it more.

So, in this “teaching” job, I will be getting no teaching experience whatsoever. They practically told me that. So, yeah. This term sucks.

I FUCKING HATE THE UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO

Still no resolution from the University of Waterloo about that Physics course notes thing.

Here is a brief overview of the situation as I’ve stated it so far:

For PHYS 222 DE, they sent me a nice little CD full of the audio lectures, and I was given instructions to buy the textbook with the solution manual. So, I did all that.

I start listening to the lectures today, and the professor is making reference to some course notes. So, I go back to Book Look and start fishing around to see where these course notes are made available from. There is no information about them whatsoever. So, he is making all these references to things that I CANNOT SEE, rendering the audio lectures entirely useless.

After that, I e-mailed the instructor of the course, he replied by saying:

The course notes are on the CD you were sent. They are a .pdf file

Of course, this was not the case. The only thing present on the CD was a course outline and syllabus…hardly useful information. This course outline - however - only made me realize further that the course notes were missing, as the course outline expressly stated that there were 70 examples on how to solve specific problems available in the course notes.

So, these course notes must exist in some form.

The only .pdf file on the CD is entitled outline_assigns.pdf. However, this is just a course outline.

The notes are referred to by the audio lectures seem to be much grander in scope and in the depth of their information.

Would it be possible to put the course notes under the Lessons Tab on UW-ACE so that I can download them?

So, the situation was explained more thoroughly, and I offered what would have been a perfectly suitable way to rectify the problem, requiring very little effort for either party.

His response,

Have another look. I’m pretty sure the notes are on the CD. I don’t have an electronic copy to put on UW-Ace.

Have another look? It is a CD. I can examine the whole directory with ease. It isn’t like the course notes are hiding under a rock or in some filing cabinet that I forgot to search. They are not there.

To prove my point, I wrote up a list of all the files on the CD. Names. Extensions. Everything.

I e-mailed that to him, saying that it wasn’t there.

I e-mailed him a follow up three days later.

Still no response.

So, I contacted the people in the Distance Education office, asking them if whoever made the CDs might have an electronic copy of the Course Notes available.

Their response:

You must follow the instructions on the inside cover of the CD case. All of the information can be found under the index.html file. I have attached a copy of the outline.

Wow. Another copy of the fucking course outline. Thanks. That was incredibly useful. I already have that. In fact, it is because of the course outline that I know the course notes are missing. Unbelievable.

Perhaps the professor was just wrong. He said that the course notes were on the CD, but maybe I need to buy them on campus and no one has said where they will be available. Maybe there is some sort of room, under the Physics building, and the course notes are there, guarded by a Sasquatch, and I have to answer three riddles before I get into the Room of 1000 Trials which grants me access to the Sasquatch Lair.

WHY CAN’T ANYONE AT THE FUCKING UNIVERSITY GIVE ME A STRAIGHT ANSWER? IT IS A SIMPLE FUCKING REQUEST!

I’m thinking I’ll have to drive to Waterloo and go ballistic.

I am so fucking angry right now.

The End.