Shallow Thinker

…is so that I can be like Uncle Rico:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/26/nintendo-kirfs-nerf-with-soft-football-patent-attempt/

Wiimote football controller

I have been absent from the blogging world for a few days, but I have a good excuse.  For more than a month, my house has become the central location for a battle that mankind has never seen.  We’re fighting a scourge of the mighty flea.  (I’m referring to the small insect and not the bassist from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.)

When we bought our house in 2002, I noticed that I kept getting bitten on the legs.  It took a couple of weeks, but we finally realized that the previous owners left more than just some drapes behind.  We had a professional company come and spray the place and the little buggers we no more.

Since we have owned our dogs, we have used Frontline to protect them from scourge of these atrocious pests.  It worked great.  Until this summer.  Our poor dogs have been covered in fleas worse than anything I’ve seen before.  Merry, our female, has had an awful bout of it.  We called the vet and he came over.  He said that Merry’s case was the worst he’d ever seen.

So, we started the battle.  Meds for the dogs and treatment for the yard.  No change.  More meds for the dogs, more treatment for the yard.  No change.  We (Kelley) have vacuumed the house about 437 times (slight exaggeration).  I’ve used flea bombs in the garage 3 times (no garage), we’ve medicated the dogs, and treated the yard.  We even spent an evening vacuuming the garage and the cars and yet these foul pests persist. Poor Ladybug and I seem to be a favorite treat, so we’re covered in bites.  The house seems to have only a few floating around, but they multiply fast.  The back yard and garage are so infested that we haven’t been into either one for a while.

On Wednesday, I finally gave in and called the professionals.  Today marks the beginning of our final stand.  Kelley is working on the house today.  When I get home tonight, I’ll join in the vacuuming and cleaning.  Tomorrow morning, she’ll take the girls out of the house and I’ll take the dogs to the vet.  While at the vet, the dogs will be treated and hopefully have all of the fleas removed from them.  In the meantime, a company will come spray harmful chemical all over our house and yard.  I don’t like the idea of this stuff being all over our house where our family resides, but it’s the only solution that we can find that seems to work.  The over-the-counter sprays have done nothing but cost money and spot treatment is not an effective option.

If we don’t succeed in this battle, our options become even more limited.  I’m thinking napalm…

Kelley is a word smith, I am not.  This became glaringly obvious last night as she hacked away at some literary works.  As I posted earlier, our church is putting together a small devotion book for some kind of upcoming random thing that they’re doing.  Kelley helped to edit all of the submissions and went over mine again last night.  We discussed what, if any, changes needed to be made to my entry.  Here is the path that our discussion took.

• Kelley said that my submission needs a last sentence to tie everything together.
• I wanted to leave it more open so that the reader can get the message without me over-simplifying.
• It could give the impression that I’m referring to those outside of the church as children and simplistic.
• My writing is more centered on the actions of those in the church.  And besides, no analogy is perfect.  If we extrapolate any analogy, we can find absurdities.
• Kelley suggested a closing line.
• I said that the last line is the “take-away” of the submission and that hers cut out too much of what I intended.  I also didn’t like that it was borderline cliche.
• She said, fine, we’ll leave it the way it is.
• I said no, if it needs a closing line, that’s fine, but I want to make sure that it focuses on the intended message.
• We put in a line and discussed it.  This discussion centered around perceived positive connotations of some words and negative connotations of others.  Also, we discussed some words with double-meanings and how the phrase could be misinterpreted.
• We removed the line.
• We added in another line.  We discussed it well beyond reason.

Finally, after 30 minutes, a walk through a thesaurus, and some more discussion on the intended message versus the perceived message and the importance of word choice in a couple of places, we came up with the following closing line.  I can’t tell if Kelley is happy with it or just tired of discussing the matter with me.  Either way, she signed-off.  I’ve included the entire last paragraph for reference:

While I expect my children to obey me, I understand that there are some concepts their young minds and energetic bodies cannot grasp. In those moments, I find it easiest to engage them on their level in a setting where they are free to be children. Not only do they begin to learn, but I savor the experience as well.  Similarly, if we shelter our faith within the church, we miss the opportunities, the experience, and the point.

There are two possible morals to this story:
(1) Our perfectionists natures, over-analysis, and ability to work with each other lead to a better work in the end.
(2) It’s a miracle that we can actually carry on a conversation.

An old friend of mine (we haven’t been friends for a really long time, he’s just old) posted a devotional to his blog yesterday.  Our church is putting together a booklet with submissions from different members.  ?I thought that since most people I know have learned that I have nothing valuable to say, I’ll send something in.  I normally wouldn’t post something like this, but I figure that mine probably won’t make the cut, so this is about the only way that I’ll get published.  Feel free to dissect, debate, or discuss it as you see fit.  You won’t hurt my feelings…much.

.                                                                 .

As we reached the doorway of the couple’s house, I knelt down beside my girls and instructed them that they were to be very quiet. Such hushed reverence is required on two occasions: at funerals and in the presence a newborn. Fortunately, we were there for the latter. We congratulated the new parents, and Kelley held the tiny baby. My girls remained quiet, calm, and model examples of sweet little angels…for thirty seconds. Why waste such a beautiful afternoon by sitting and being good? When their little bodies could sit no more, I escorted them outside to run around and act like the monkeys that they are.

Sometimes I wonder how many spiritual children are within our congregation. (Given my failure to remain serious on any subject, I probably qualify.) On Sunday morning, some are whispering instead of turning their “hearts and minds to Jesus.” On Wednesday night, their prayer requests aren’t as eloquent or as important as ours. During the week, they visit establishments that no good Baptist would frequent. Don’t you wish they would grow up? I have observed that many church members take a similar approach to helping these spiritually ignorant people reach maturity. We give them a stern glare and avoid the possibility of having a conversation with them. They know what they’ve done wrong, and if they repent, I might talk to them again.

As I read about the life of Christ, I am amazed at the way he interacted with those who did not follow the proper rituals. He invited himself to their houses for meals. He started conversations with them in public. He wrote in the sand and sent their accusers away. As a matter of fact, it was the religious that often received his most stern warnings. The gospel is not something that is to be isolated to a pulpit on Sunday mornings, nor is it something relegated to those who are worthy of hearing. The gospel is a message that is intended to be lived outside of our church walls and beyond our small groups.

While I expect my children to obey me, I understand that there are some concepts their young minds and energetic bodies cannot grasp. In those moments, I find it easiest to engage them on their level in a setting where they are free to be children. Not only do they begin to learn, but I savor the experience as well.

Quick background - My employer pays for a portion of my graduate school, but only if I make a B or higher in the courses that I take.  The process is that I take the classes, get my grades, show them to my HR rep, and the company writes me a check.  The university normally requires students to pay before the semester starts, though.  Fortunately, they offer a deferred payment option.  I request this option at the beginning of the semester, pay a small fee, and I’m good to go.  By the time the bill comes due, I’ve already gotten my grades and the check from my employer.  It’s a pretty cool system.

Now the story - On August 3rd, all of my assignments for the summer semester were due.  August 4th was the deadline for my professors to submit grades for the summer semester.  Yesterday, I received a letter in the mail from this same academic institution.  It was dated August 5th.  The letter told me that my request for deferred payment for the summer semester was received.  And approved!  I reread the letter to make sure….yep, it said “summer semester.”  I looked at the date again….”August 5, 2009.”

So, the day after the summer semester was over, the school told me that it was OK for me to wait and pay my balance until after the semester was over.  I’m glad I was approved, and I’m thankful for them working with me, but it makes me wonder.  What am I supposed to do if my application is denied and I don’t find out until after the semester?  Do I go back and untake the classes or to I make the payment two months ago?

While my escapades into the mind of a plagiarist were fun, they do distract slightly from the overall arch of this academic year.  On August 19th of last year, I started the graduate program.  Since then, I have completed five of the ten courses required for the degree.  I have looked through my course requirements and talked with the various department heads and, if all goes according to plan, I’ll take two courses this semester, two in the spring, and then have one last class in the summer.  I’ll finish with the following degree:

Masters of Science in Engineering in Engineering Management with a minor in Technical Communications

They might have to give me two degrees in order to fit the whole name on there.  Basically, the MSE is offered in things like Electrical Engineering or Mechanical Engineering, but all of that doesn’t really relate to the part of my job that I enjoy doing.  The Engineering Management curriculum is more focused on the work that I do and the things that interest me.  It is a step out of my comfort zone to try for the minor in Technical Communications.  The classes typically require more time, work, and research, but I have found that they are very beneficial.  For instance, if it weren’t for the course that I took this past semester, you guys wouldn’t have had that fun plagiarism story to read.  See, we all win.

At the halfway point, I must admit that this has been a challenging experience.  I haven’t been overwhelmed by the difficulty of the work, I’ve just been much more stressed because of the time commitment that has been required.  Some nights require me to be at school, so I try to make sure that I’m at home with the girls the other nights.  I’ve given up reading (alright, video games) after the girls go to sleep in order to work on work and assignments.  And, I’ve had to devote the better part of a few weekends for some projects and some papers.  Through it all, Kelley has been very supportive and just plain amazing.  Thanks, Babe!  At the end of it all, I should reward you with something cool.  I have some ideas, but most of them involve building a statue of you from cheese.  I’ll keep working on it.

And, you have my word that this is the last time I do something like this.  Until we decide that I need a PhD, but after that, definitely no more degrees.  Now, I might try to become a licensed engineer and have to take the PE exam which would require a lot of studying.  But other than those two things, that’s it.  Unless I find a cool, new hobby.  But other than that…

Since Alana and Kelley enjoy taking moral dilemmas and questions of ethics and reducing them to tests of grammar, I figured we might as well continue along our journey and see how far down the rabbit hole this goes.

Within 30 minutes of sending the response that I posted (click here to refresh your memory), I received an e-mail in response.  The wise thing to do in this case would be to simply ignore it and wash my hands of the whole ordeal.  But I have a sneaking suspicion that you know me better than that:

John,

I appreciated your comment on my paper, but what i dont appreciate is you go around my back and make comment to prof. [REDACTED] about my paper without letting me know. Prof [REDACTED] tell me you wrote him an email about my paper. If you email him about my paper you need to let me know, because those paper is not finalize yet.  If there is anything i need to fix you need to inform me on the review. But instead you go around me and email prof. [REDACTED] without my knowledge. What you try to do? what is your intenstion?
What you doing is inappropriate.

Two things should be obvious to you by now. 
(1) This guy does not have the best grasp of the English language.  (Granted, Kelley and Alana would argue that I do not possess this grasp either, but this is my story so we will assume that I am a pillar of academic and moral excellence.)
(2) He’s not happy with me.  Of course, his words seem to indicate that he doesn’t like the fact that I corresponded with the professor.  I’m not a psychologist, but I would venture to guess that his anger is displaced to something that is beyond his control instead of the obvious things that he could have done to prevent the situation.

As I said earlier, the wise thing to do is to let all this pass and to just ignore it.  But have you checked the web address of my blog recently?  It certainly ain’t “smartboy.com.”

[REDACTED],

My correspondence with Dr. [REDACTED] was to determine what actions I should take and how best to proceed with the peer review.  This is the same advice that I gave to you.  If you’re not sure of the assignment requirements, contact the professor and make sure that things are clear.  My communications with Dr. [REDACTED] were neither inappropriate nor out of scope.  The notion that anything I do needs to go through you is just silly.

Once again, if you think that I have done something inappropriate, then please feel free to notify Dr. [REDACTED], or if warranted, contact the department chair, Dr. [REDACTED].  My suspicion, however, is that you are not so much concerned with my asking for guidance on the assignment.  I would suspect that you are probably upset that I easily identified your sources and that I did not keep quiet about it.  There is only one person that determined the outcome of this situation.  Your actions forced me to seek guidance when your report was simply a compilation of internet sources.  Your actions determined whatever final standing you have with the class.  If you are going to be upset about how this has turned out, your anger should not be directed at me.

Again, I encourage you to speak with the proper authorities if you feel that my actions are inappropriate or that I have perpetrated some type of academic misconduct.  Until I hear from a formal review board, I will consider this matter closed.

john

Will I get another response?  It’s tough to tell.  When you try to handle things tactfully, you run the risk of the other person not completely understanding the gravity of the situation or the intensity that you wish to convey.  I have opted to run that risk and refrain from just replying “You are a stupid cheater, you cheating McStupidHead!”

There is one other piece to this puzzle that you may interest you.  My employer, as well as the employer of the person in question, offers tuition reimbursement for graduate programs.  The caveat is that you have to make an A or a B in the course in order to be reimbursed.  I don’t know what this guy’s final grade was in this course, but I’m going to guess that it didn’t warrant getting a check from his employer.  If that is indeed the case, this was a $2,000 mistake that he made.  A mistake that I warned him about twice.

Moral of the story:  If at first you don’t succeed, try again.  If you don’t succeed the second time, find someone involved and blame them because, clearly, your plagiarism was of good quality and deserved a better grade than the 0ne you received.

Now, if you’ll pardon me, I’m off to crush some more hopes of academic success!

Remember our saga with The Plagiarist?  You don’t?  Well, let me refresh your memory….click here.

This afternoon, I checked the school’s website and our grades were posted.  Apparently, I wasn’t the only one.  This evening, I received an e-mail from the “alleged” copy-cat.  I thought that you might enjoy what he said to me.  I have only removed the professor’s name.  The rest is exactly as it was written in the e-mail.

John,

Why u going around my back make comment to prof [REDACTED] without let me know. U r task to do peer review, any comment u have on my paper o need to before I have it finalize for him. Why u have write him and make comments without my keying me know, ur job is to comment on the and so I cam improve, ur job is not to around me and talk prof [REDACTED] on my paper.

Now do you see how I was able to easily identify what portions he had written and what portions were copied from the internet?  I had several ideas for responses, but I couldn’t come to a definitive conclusion that would make an impact.  I kept coming back to the fact that if this guy was mad at me because he got busted for plagiarizing, even when I warned him twice, then the use of logic probable wouldn’t help.  A lecture on ethics or integrity was out of the question, as well.  I even thought a few moments about turning it around and saying something like “Me?  You want to talk about what my duties were on this assignment?  How about you actually try to write a paper instead of copying whatever Google gives to you and then come lecture me.”  But, again, based on my dealings thus far, I figured it wouldn’t have the impact that I’d hope for.

[REDACTED],

My initial thought was to dismiss your e-mail, but I think that you deserve some response.

I copied Dr. [REDACTED] on all communications between you and me.  If you’d like to look over the instructions that were provided for the peer review, I believe that you will see that it was a requirement of the peer review assignment.  If you think that I have not performed my assigned task adequately, then I fully encourage you to bring that to Dr. [REDACTED]’s attention.

If your concern is that Dr. [REDACTED] was made aware of something that you were not, I believe that your are mistaken.  My review of both of your submissions indicated a sever lack of citations and some problematic use of text from internet sources.  Those comments are included on the documents that I returned to you.

Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance,
john