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Showing posts with label ethics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ethics. Show all posts

Monday, April 21, 2008

Happy, but a bit frustrated

As previously mentioned, I passed the theoretical examination last thursday.

No surprises there. As predicted, it was pathetic. The only question (out of thirty) I missed concerned knowing by heart the seriousness of "not updating the register of vehicle or driver's license". Honestly, how would that be useful in traffic?

Certainly it's desirable to know of such things, but I don't think it's essential to becoming a good driver. Actually, I think that, being quite permissive, I can count on the fingers of one hand how many questions on that examination in fact evaluated anything.

But that's not what scares me the most. What really freaks me out is the driver of the van that took us to the Transit Department committing countless infractions (including overloading the vehicle). It's a guy who's only taking the time to go through the habilitation process because he needs the license to get a job (he's been driving a motorbike for more than six months). It's a guy who hopes "this time he's gonna get through" (and who apparently has never seen a woman before). Being aware that people like that are going eventually to be on the streets (if they aren't already) is what freaks me out, because that means that, even if I'm careful enough, they certainly won't be, and they will cause trouble (perhaps that's why traffic is so chaotic around here).

Anyway, now I'm having driving classes - the real ones. For starters, I can say I like driving. Which is good and bad at the same time. On one hand, driving can be a pleasant experience. On the other hand, however, I have frustrating times ahead of me, because I'm switching from not-driving-because-I-don't-have-a-license to I-have-a-license-but-I-can't-drive-anyway.

But I don't think that really matters anyway. Eventually I will get a car and will be subject to the stressful activity of driving (?) in the increasingly problematic traffic jams that so well characterize the city of São Paulo.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Serious people are rare around here.

Today's distance: 0 meters.
Yesterday's distance: 0 meters.

Yesterday the heavens fell apart, and it rained all the day. It wasn't even nearly possible to swim, so I didn't go.

Today, with an awful lot of stuff to do, I didn't go either. Although I'm thinking about going later, since my work for the day is done, I'll post 0 meters now since I have the tendency to postpone everything.

A piece of advice to you kids: never depend on people you don't trust if you want to work near the holidays. Especially around here, where everyone goes to incredible lengths to avoid working. I was supposed to still have a lot of work to do today, but I'll have to do it tomorrow because someone decided it was a good moment to party.

Parties are strange things around here. With all the bickering that goes on between the six departments on the Institute, each one traditionally decides to make its own end-of-the-year party - the direction of the institute, of course, obliviously arranges for a general party as well. As a result, everyone attends two parties: one on each department and another for the whole Institute.

The serious people keep working. But, I'm sad to say, they are few.

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Copy-Pasta.

Now that I'm done with one of the crappiest courses I've ever had, I can even begin to think about studying classical electrodynamics for real. It is a very interesting subject, after all, despite the ugly math involved.

In other news, I can never cease to be amazed by the lack of ethics of some people. The director of the Physics Institute, where I study, has been accused of plagiarism. Regardless of his and his colleages' ethically questionable attitude, what really pissed me off is the fact that this case is most likely going to be left behind, with no punishment and, even worse, no memory of what happened. This seems to be the greatest problem around here: people seem to have no long term memory. In fact, most people seem not even to care.

I wonder what happened to these people to make them so unethical. Of all the reasons I can think of, not a single one seems reasonable.

Sometimes it's very difficult to like the place where I've studied for the last 8 years...

My only hope is that these people are just a minor portion of the whole.