The Venting Thread

[fishbrains]

Fear of dog attacks when I'm outside the city limits has greatly reduced my bicycle riding in the countryside in recent years.  I've never been able to get over my fear of being attacked again since I was seriously injured in a dog attack while bicycling several years ago.  And there aren't many routes outside the city limits where I can ride very far and not run into packs of dogs. 

Not sure if this is anything like your situation, but a$$holes from the city like to bring their unwanted dogs out to our more-rural area and dump them. They help keep the similarly-dumped cat population down to a minimum, but this creates some very hungry and aggressive strays until the coyotes get them (yes, it's just not good to be outdoors and a cat around here). This is also why we favor larger dogs for pets, and why these pets can be very territorial and stick with their pack, so to speak.

I'd never considered that this might be why we have so few road bikers out here. It's easy to see where that could get pretty hairy.

[ab_grp]

I'm so sorry to hear about what you and your dog went through (and are probably still going through), RatGuy.  Thank goodness for your neighbor! How frightening! I hope you both can heal and that you get some justice.  And I'm sorry that you also had to miss your date because of the attack.  It sounded like a fun plan and something to look forward to! I hope you can reschedule when you are feeling better.  Take care.

[RatGuy]

I had to postpone a date tonight because I was attacked by a pitbull while walking my dog. I scooped him up and carried him like a baby, but the pitbull kept snapping at my dog's feet (two nails bitten off). Thankfully he didn't knock me over. A neighbor saw it happening and jumped in his car, drove to my side, and let me in. Drove me to my house. My vet said that I saved my dogs life by scooping him, and that if I'd fallen we'd both be dead.

Neighbor called 911 and animal control was dispatched. I don't know what happened bc I took my dog to the vet. I filed a police report later and they told me that I'd hear back by Friday.

I hope y'all never have to go through that. It's gonna take me a while to recover mentally (luckily I just have bruises on my knees and thighs)

Damn! Glad you're both ok. Was it a neighbor's dog, or a stray?

Neighbor's dog. Last week he broke though his fence, but luckily he was chained to something back there. And there's documentation of that. As of now I don't know the status of the dog or the original 911 report

[apl68]

I had to postpone a date tonight because I was attacked by a pitbull while walking my dog. I scooped him up and carried him like a baby, but the pitbull kept snapping at my dog's feet (two nails bitten off). Thankfully he didn't knock me over. A neighbor saw it happening and jumped in his car, drove to my side, and let me in. Drove me to my house. My vet said that I saved my dogs life by scooping him, and that if I'd fallen we'd both be dead.

Neighbor called 911 and animal control was dispatched. I don't know what happened bc I took my dog to the vet. I filed a police report later and they told me that I'd hear back by Friday.

I hope y'all never have to go through that. It's gonna take me a while to recover mentally (luckily I just have bruises on my knees and thighs)

Damn! Glad you're both ok. Was it a neighbor's dog, or a stray?

Neighbor's dog. Last week he broke though his fence, but luckily he was chained to something back there. And there's documentation of that. As of now I don't know the status of the dog or the original 911 report

I hope that you are able to get some action on this soon.  Meanwhile, glad that you and your dog came through all right.

[RatGuy]

The guy who helped me with the dog situation on Monday came to my house today to shake me down. Says I owe him money for stinking up his car with my dog smell. That's the Christmas spirit

[ab_grp]

The guy who helped me with the dog situation on Monday came to my house today to shake me down. Says I owe him money for stinking up his car with my dog smell. That's the Christmas spirit

WHAT?!?! I'm sorry, that is some absolute shit.  What in the world! If anything, he should go after the neighbor with the pit bull problem.  Just adding even more insult to injury.  Good grief.

[Larimar]

The guy who helped me with the dog situation on Monday came to my house today to shake me down. Says I owe him money for stinking up his car with my dog smell. That's the Christmas spirit

WHAT?!?! I'm sorry, that is some absolute shit.  What in the world! If anything, he should go after the neighbor with the pit bull problem.  Just adding even more insult to injury.  Good grief.

+1 to this.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

The guy who helped me with the dog situation on Monday came to my house today to shake me down. Says I owe him money for stinking up his car with my dog smell. That's the Christmas spirit

WHAT?!?! I'm sorry, that is some absolute shit.  What in the world! If anything, he should go after the neighbor with the pit bull problem.  Just adding even more insult to injury.  Good grief.

+1 to this.

Yeah, this guy sounds like a real schmuck.

[FishProf]

I just got panned in some student evaluations - in ways that are simply impossible.

In a class where EVERYTHING was up on day 1, half the students strongly disagreed with the statement "Course materials were provided in a timely manner."

In a class where everything is instantly graded, the same number of students Strongly Disagreed with "Assignments were graded and returned in a timely manner."

In a class of 23, only 10 responded.  And SIX students utterly failed.  Oddly, that is the same number that responded in the negative above.

Evaluations can be truly meaningless.

[the_geneticist]

I just got panned in some student evaluations - in ways that are simply impossible.

In a class where EVERYTHING was up on day 1, half the students strongly disagreed with the statement "Course materials were provided in a timely manner."

In a class where everything is instantly graded, the same number of students Strongly Disagreed with "Assignments were graded and returned in a timely manner."

In a class of 23, only 10 responded.  And SIX students utterly failed.  Oddly, that is the same number that responded in the negative above.

Evaluations can be truly meaningless.

Ugh!  At least you have clear evidence to document that these evaluations are utter nonsense. 

[secundem_artem]

I have always found it curious that, in a cohort that is well familiar with statistical methods, survey research, and data collection, some faculty and administrators actually believe there is any value in teaching evaluations.  Most often, the data collection instrument has not been validated, little meaningful analysis is done on the data, and the data collection process is highly susceptible to all kinds of bias.  And yet we too often use this "data" to make all kinds of decisions about personnel, salary adjustments, career progression, and other factors.

[FishProf]

A new vent - 3 students have emailed me today, the start of the semester, complaining that the gradebook shows they have a failing  grade.

Yeah, duh.  You haven't done anything yet.  What grade did you think it would show?

[clean]

You haven't done anything yet.  What grade did you think it would show?

100.... you have not taken any points off yet!!

[apl68]

You haven't done anything yet.  What grade did you think it would show?

100.... you have not taken any points off yet!!

In fairness, it's not unlikely that at some time or another many of these students have had teachers who expressed it that way--everybody starts off with a (potentially) perfect score, and must seek not to lose it by failing to complete assignments properly.  It's not hard to see students taking that sort of thing too literally.

[marshwiggle]

You haven't done anything yet.  What grade did you think it would show?

100.... you have not taken any points off yet!!

In fairness, it's not unlikely that at some time or another many of these students have had teachers who expressed it that way--everybody starts off with a (potentially) perfect score, and must seek not to lose it by failing to complete assignments properly.  It's not hard to see students taking that sort of thing too literally.

You're probably right, but that's a horrible way for a teacher to do things. It basically ensures that everyone's scores will go down through the course, which sends the opposite message from what you want pedagogically.