Side tracked

My assignment is finally getting somewhere where I’m not too embarrassed about it (Still a little embarrassed, but it’s getting there). It has, so far, taken me a solid five days of sitting on the couch, leafing back and forth between different articles, writing, editing, drinking coffee and listening to weird ass music on a set of head phones.

Is it good? Good is relative. Is it good enough? Compared to what? I’d like to get a nine for it. That’s the approximate equivalent of a solid A in the states. Maybe even an A+ (they don’t give 10s in Holland. It’s odd, they do have them in the grading system, but they are a true rarity).

I’m not sure if a nine is really within reach. I really like the professor who will be doing the grading, but unfortunately I can’t quite understand what she wants from me. Assignments that I imagine are fantastically don’t even qualify for an eight, while those that I rattle off with a headache end up getting nines.

I’ve invested a huge amount of effort into this paper, but unfortunately that doesn’t mean terribly much. Grading in psychology is ultimately rather arbitrary. Research isn’t, of course (that’s where the science part enters the psychology), but it is ultimately a matter of liking and not liking.

Most of university seems to be.

Actually most of life seems to be. It’s the human curse. We claim objectivity, while missing it by a mile. When we first meet a new person within seconds we’ve decided whether we like them or not and then spend the rest of the encounter trying to justify our initial impression.

And we might only dislike somebody because their faces remind us of our first teacher, who made us cry.

I’m sorry, but you aren’t the person we’re looking for, you just don’t fit in our company. Good luck with your job hunt, though!

I feel sorry for those people that believe that objectivity will get them there, in the end. I mean, don’t get me wrong, good work is important. If the inside is empty eventually people will notice. But if you don’t wrap it in a nice box, with a bow tie and pretty paper, you’re not going to get terribly far.

Research has shown that if you put ice cream in a round container rather than a square one, people will think it tastes better.