"Temporary" Venting Thread III

[Nautipus]

Yeah, I know the feeling. Right now I have to write two big papers for one class and the due dates overlap.

Back in highschool I had an English teacher, who, even if you answered every question correctly, would only give you a 90 because, and I quote, "Nobody's perfect".

She can go **** herself for all I care.

She also thought LotR was non-fiction, because she wouldnt let my friend do a fiction book report on it, saying that it wasnt fiction.

We got us a winner here.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by Mari

I disagree. Killing animals to eat them is the same no matter what animal it is.
And the fact that it is easier to "produce" some new chickens after killing and eating the old ones than "producing" new whales, is to me not a valid argument.

I won't pretend to be a vegetarian allthough I hardly eat meat and can't eat seafood at all, but to me the killing is the same.
However, the way in which these whales are slaughtered is truly appaling. It's easier to live with the idea that they fell asleep because of gas first then with the knowledge that someone shot them and that they struggled and suffered a great deal before finally dying.

Do you think animals slaughtered for meat are anesthetised, first? Because they aren't.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

I hear you about the teachers. When you still had to type papers, I had a multi-page paper kicked back for a margin on page 6 that wasn't perfectly centered.

I hated that man's ruler.

[Jonathan]

Silly me, I managed to food poison myself last night. Didn't get many hours of sleep after that.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Mari

Well, as I said I'm not pro-whaling.

I never said you were, I was just trying to show you can indeed build a case against whaling.

but on the other hand I wonder why the international community can't seriously do something about it.

For many it's not important enough to take action against Japan. And the treaty itself doesn't seem to have punishments for violations stipulated. Add to that that such conflicts are difficult to bring before a judge, which court will you go to? Which laws or treaties are applied? It's bit of a mess.

I hear from all sides comments that the Japanese counting of whales is wrong and that they don't use the right numbers, but no one seems to be able to tell us what exactly the right numbers are.

There are feasable estimates and they say most whale numbers have not replenished enough yet. But whales are a tough species to count, some whale-species look alike and where would you start looking? The ocean's a very big place. I'm thinking it also doesn't help trying to do estimates of a population when some nations happily go about killing vast numbers of them at the same time.

Non-commited organizations are also trying to research whales, without killing them, but sofar they don't have the same amount of info as the Japanese have gathered.

I highly doubt that. But how many independant organisations would have the same funding as the Japanese whaling fleet? It won't be that many.

Originally Posted by Mari

And the fact that it is easier to "produce" some new chickens after killing and eating the old ones than "producing" new whales, is to me not a valid argument.

It can depend on the circumstances. Chickens, being domesticated and bred animals will not die out so easily. No eco-system depends on farm-chickens. Whereas whales, not being an animal you can easily breed, can be wiped out by unsustainable hunting. Without the whales the eco-systems they're a part of, can be seriously messed up.

Originally Posted by Mari

My teacher wrote us all an email last Tuesday saying that all our papers were so bad that she would give a lecture on how to write papers today.

I disliked teachers like that. If one of the errors she's so hung up about is a mere point in a footnote, then they really can't have been so aweful. Of course, I suppose I'm a bit biased, I'm still sore, 8 years after date, about that one teacher giving me only a 5/10 on a paper for 2 verb-errors (I so detest the omg!-importance of dt-errors) but didn't even comment on what I had written. I still maintain she was too dumb to understand my arguments and therefore ignored the text and focussed on writing errors.

[hectorberlioz]

I'm against whaling as well.

I'm not an anti-hunting guy, but whaling is uneccesary for anyone. The aleutians killed a whale last year/ earlier this year that was over 100 years old. They found an old spearhead in the whale, and they dated it....

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Silly me, I managed to food poison myself last night. Didn't get many hours of sleep after that.

Ugh! That is truly yucky (to use the technical word).

Hope you're feeling better today! I imagine you're pretty tired, though.

[Nautipus]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Silly me, I managed to food poison myself last night. Didn't get many hours of sleep after that.

Yuck. I got that from a restuarant three times at three different places.

[Nerdanel]

Not sure if this is a vent or not, but..

Tomorrow I have an important presentation where I'm going to talk about my master's thesis. It's actually only a rehearsal for a presentation I have next week on a conference in Tartu, Estonia. The whole research group will be listening tomorrow, including my professor and some other great scientists, and this makes me horribly nervous. X) It's funny how I have to constantly remind myself that I'm supposed to make mistakes and learn.. *shakes head* It's silly how nervous I am.

Anyways, off to bed.. It'll be nice when tomorrow is over.. X)

[Mari]

How did it go? Could you control the nerves? Hope you could!

[Nerdanel]

It actually went really well! I somehow managed to change my attitude and realized that this was a rehearsal where I was supposed to get suggestions on how to make it even better - and I did, I got some nice, constructive feed-back. So, perhaps even the "real" presentation will go well.. We'll see.

Thanks for asking!

[Mari]

Nice, very nice. And of course your real presentation will go just fine!
You know what you're writing right? So no matter what the question, I'm sure you're able to answer it somehow. And if it's your master thesis you must have some passion for the subject. Showing your passion and knowledge can earn you a lot of points, hehe.

[Nerdanel]

Oh, yes: there is no lack of passion! I'm working on the presentation now, at 2.30am, when I should sleep. XD But yes, the rehearsal made me a bit more confident.

[Mari]

Confidence is good.
So, what's your thesis about?

[Mari]

Too much schoolwork... Need sleep badly...

[Nerdanel]

Originally Posted by Mari

Confidence is good.
So, what's your thesis about?

it's about immunity in a social insect quite enjoy it.

[Mari]

umm, okay... immunity and social bring me to think it has something to do with psychology or something, but the same immunity with the insect make me think of biology. Which one is it?

[Nerdanel]

hehe, biology. my major is in ecology and evolutionary biology.

[Nautipus]

Originally Posted by Nerdanel

hehe, biology. my major is in ecology and evolutionary biology.

Really? I'm doing behavioral biology and photography. (underwater photography, really, but you have to get all those other classes out of the way )

[Nerdanel]

i figured that you did biology of some sort, from your posts. how many years have you studied that?