Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Perils of a Rookie
Have you ever noticed that after University your mortification barometer gets dangerously high? And not in a yay-lets-celebrate kind of way. I am talking about moments that make you squirm like a worm. It seems that the possibilities for complete embarrassment are endless. What is to blame? Karma (which is a hippy’s favourite reason)? The good old universe? Negative. It is you; the first year. Embarrassment here is caused by what seasoned and crusty Rhodents like to call “rookie errors.”Now for an example. Flashback to the first term. A mate of mine was sitting next to me while we were furiously writing our paragraphs for the next English tut. We were just adding the references when I asked if how one could write a heading of a book in italics when we were writing it out. She said, “Oh, I just write it slanty.” Fair enough. So I followed suit feeling like a twit for asking.After a few weeks of my slanty writing, another second year friend saw what I was up to. “What are you doing?” she said, one vein jutting out at me.I told her about the slanty/italics story. She shook her head sadly. Then laughed for ten minutes until she explained that there was no such thing and the action to take in this case was to underline the heading. I felt like an idiot after being told I was “gun average” (read: first year blunder). Even so, one learns to consult second years to avoid this type of labelling and if all else fails; at least first year is almost over. Soon you will have your own rookies to mentor. That should be a laugh.Labels: education, error, flashback, karma, mortification, rookie
Posted by opinionplease at 2:50 AM