Monday, August 28, 2006

Hangman Phenomenon

Research? Easy. Just Google right? So with all the topics we're studying at school there's always a long recommended reading list of scholarly, bombastic articles. It would be easier of course, in our spoon-fed culture if all the fake Tod's will just give us printed copies of all the required readings, but nooooooo....we have to do our own search and print, but what's the merit of 100 students accessing online library systems at the same time, for the same articles when it's much more efficient for one person to access and then print 100 copies? :P Yah lah yah lah, some people will probably argue that us singaporeans are too used to being spoon-fed, but working and studying at the same time, and where time availability is limited, well, spoon feeding makes more sense, IMO.

Actually I wouldn't be ranting so much, had I not actually end up spending a full workday today just doing research on the upcoming project presentation. Googling is easy right? Except that one needs to know exactly what to google and search for, in order to get the 'right' information. If I had to count the minutes I actually spent doing my work today, well, I'd say I only did 30 mins of office work, and spent the rest of the 7.5hrs surfing the web for school work. Not every efficient. Wait until I get to the part in the later afternoon when I tried to get access to the recommended reading articles that are in the reading list - guess what, that's like looking for a needle in a haystack. Remember the days of RPG games whereby one's RPG character had to venture into the abyss or dungeons and each of these had like, 13 levels of dungeons to navigate and mind boggling mazes and countless ambushes and traps? yeah, searching for a scholarly article is just like that. So you think you have the title, and the author and life is easy thereafter? Forget it. First we had to gain access to the Uni's online portal (enter username and password), and then gain access to e-libraries (another username and password), and then ping! restricted by firewall. Try to get around the problem by alternate gateways? Enter more usernames and passwords, and then finally.....granted access to the golden door. Except one has to trawl through the haystack to look for that ONE article. Took me all of 1hr and mother of all murphy's law, the programme hung. Reload? Try again? After 3 'hangs', I think I'm ready to hang someone instead.

Highlight of the day? Fake Tod's asked us to solve an anagram in class - which I did, with some secret help from by using Atom to google it (of course, no one needs to know that). Claptrap, but I got some applause. Things we do for cheap thrills. Ha ha.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

WAH!! you damn lazy!! surf for info also complain!!
I had to use BOOKS!!! and they only had 2 copies in the uni library, so EVERYONE was queuing up for them!! so much so that they had a restricted borrowing period of 3 days max with another copy living permanently in the library reference section!.. we had to literally camp out at the book DROP or know the librarian (Guess which path i took).. so that we can CHOPE the book first!.. people even stole the book off my desk when i went to the toilet!! imagine that!! now you just stay in your cozy room and click!! wah lau!!..

hey, you are NOT allowed to use atom in class to cheat!!! wahhh!! not shy to take credit!!!shame shame..

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