Plagiarism

We got an announcement in Lit class yesterday. Apparently one of the students plagiarized the first paper.

The first paper of the semester. And apparently it was blatant enough that the instructor didn't have to do much to prove it. That student got an F for the entire class. I don't know who it was, but the instructor mentioned informing a coach, so I would say that it was one of the athletes, who will probably now lose their athletic scholarship, as well.

Why is it that people can't even put forth the effort to jot something down? The instructor told us right off the bat that if we ran into a situation where we didn't have a clue, we could ask. If we still didn't have a clue, jot something, anything down, and we'd get some points for effort.

Better a sucky grade on one paper than an F for the entire course, and a reputation for plagiarism.

If they weren't going to do the work, why did they sign up for the course? I mean seriously, what is it that motivates these people to cheat? Our instructor isn't a demanding one, she's supportive and encouraging, she doesn't freak out over minor grammar errors (I'm horrible with 'it's' and 'its' ') and honestly wants us to have fun with the class.

During a lesson on word choice we were paired up and given a passage in a story, and we were supposed to completely change the main character, by changing a few words. My partner and I made the character a speed freak, which the instructor loved.

It isn't hard to make this instructor happy. Just putting forth the effort to write a paper and try to make it coherent and to the point is enough to get a passing grade. A note at the end of the paper saying "I tried, but I just couldn't come up with any more," will be taken into account.

In brighter news, even though I wasn't happy at all with the paper that I turned in (the entirety of which I changed two days before the due date... I was stuck on the topic that I had originally chosen, and decided to change the whole thing rather than turn in a paper full of B.S.) I got a 95.

And a note at the bottom, that the instructor had never seen such an in-depth look at the story that I chose. (Happy Endings, by Margaret Atwood. I compared and contrasted the characterizations and plot lines of the various endings.)

So, good thing for me. The next paper is an Explication paper, and I've chosen (unless I change my mind and do it on something we discuss in class between now and then) The Raven. It's a nice rich poem that will support the 750-1000 word paper.

And it will be all mine.

Dance

I am fascinated with dance. I don't have the time to study it, although I've always wanted to take some lessons, but I'm fascinated with the way that a person, or two people, can move together to a beat and make something beautiful out of it.

I don't care if it's ballroom, salsa, techno, or hip-hop, or step teams, dance is great. I love to dance, even though my skills are mostly self-taught and lean towards the "if you're having fun, to hell with anyone who thinks it looks dumb" side of things.

Because of my fascination with dance, any movie with dancing as it's focus is something I'm going to watch.

If it has the added bonus of Antonio Banderas in it, well, I'm all over that....

Bad People, Good Horses

There is one kid in my riding class that I honestly think is trying to get kicked out. He's skipped classes entirely, ignores the "no running" and "no riding between the barns" rules, and just acts surly and not at all like he wants to be there all the time.

There's a bet going on amongst some of the rest of us on whether Marylin, our instructor, will kick him out or not.

If he were in JJ's classes, he'd already have been kicked out. Unfortunately, there are a lot of us in Marilyn's classes, and she just can't watch us all at once, and Mr C (the aforementioned student) manages to pull his crap when she's not looking, most of the time.

This is the same young man who insists that what I need is a set of spurs like his for Bubbah, because "A horse misbehaves because they don't respect you."

Maybe your horse misbehaves because she doesn't respect you, but I have a feeling that most of the time she's just pissed off because you're jabbing those pig-sticker spurs into her and then yanking on her head. My horse "misbehaves" these days because he doesn't know what I'm asking of him. When he gets it, he does it happily. Such as yesterday's right side pass. Once he grasped what I was asking of him, he did it beautifully.

He just didn't understand why I wanted him to go both ways.

Your horse, on the other hand, is developing a hard mouth, a leaping start (from those gigantic spurs) and a bad attitude. Mine is getting softer on the bit every day, he's listening to me and he's begun to look forward to our rides, because when he does well, he gets affection, attention, and rewards.

I really do think that Mr C is trying to get himself kicked out. My best guess is that he decided shortly after Marilyn didn't hail him as the pinnacle of horsemanship on the first day that he didn't want to be here, but mommy and daddy won't let him drop out.

Hopefully he doesn't manage to ruin his horse before he manages to get kicked out. The whole class would be better off without him.

You Know You Have A Good Horse When.....

Every other horse in the arena is twitching and jumping at the sound of sirens going by, and yours is looking in the direction of the noise with his ears forward and head up, as if thinking "I wonder if I could outrun them?"

You argue with your horse for ten minutes over the proper lead, give up cuing him and hope, and he picks up the proper lead for the rest of the class.

A nip from another horse is met with a slight jump and a dirty glare, not an all-out screaming fit or fight.

You ask and ask and ask for a left sidepass on the fence, and he just doesn't get what you're wanting, but when you try the gate, just because that's what the rest of the class is doing, he performs perfectly.

Your right rein falls off the bit, in the middle of class, while loping, and upon realizing this, your horse responds to your whoa with a beautiful stop, rather than taking advantage of the fact that you only have half control.




It was a long riding class today.

An Honor... And Probably A Train Wreck

I've been invited to do an interview on Blog Talk Radio. I don't have a date yet, because I want to get the combination allergies/sinus infection under control before I go putting my already bad voice out there. Possibly next week or the week after.

Don't really want to sound like a congested toad, ya know? I'm already nervous about the interview, I've never been interviewed before, no need to add a messed up voice to the mix.

But, many thanks to Mark for asking me, and I hope that I can make a good interview subject!

I promise to post as soon as a final date is settled upon, so that ya'll can listen, call in and make a fool of me, or run as fast as you can in the other direction (I recommend that last one, myself :P )

Answering a Question

knitalot3 said... Have you guys ever met a horse that was just so wild/angry/untrainable that it wasn't worth your time?

Well, Knitalot, I've met horses that are down right nuts. Whether from mishandling, a misfiring in their brain, or just plain old sour personality, it depends on the horse.

My very first horse of my own was purchased for me as a Christmas present. A beautiful little gray Quarter Horse/Welsh Pony mix, from the Arabian side of the Welsh gene pool. She had a dainty little head, expressive eyes, and the smaller stature that I needed at the time. I think I was eight or nine, and small for my age.

I'd been jokingly putting "a horse" or "a pony" at the top of my Christmas List for years, wanting a mount of my own, and my parents hadn't given in on the matter. I didn't really expect that they would, money was tight and I understood that... but I had to try.

This little filly had passed the pre-purchase lookover and test ride that a relative had given her, making sure that she would be appropriate for my level of skill.

A few days before Christmas my whole family loaded up in a couple of cars, saying we were going to a new restaurant. They blindfolded me, feeding me a line about getting a free meal if you were blindfolded on arrival. I didn't buy it for a second, I knew there was a surprise for me in the offing, I just didn't know what it was.

That is, until we pulled to a stop and I heard a whinny.

"You got me a horse?!?"

"Er.. no... you have to um... neigh to get in."

Mamaw has never been good at making up lies on the spot. She'd tell you that it was because she never lied, but the truth is, she just can't think of a good one unless she's got time to plan it. Love you Mamaw.

So, the jig was up, they took off the blindfold and I found myself staring into the eyes of a little gray filly, small enough for me to mount by myself without having to do the monkey climbing act that I usually did with the larger horses. (Knee in stirrup, grip saddle leathers, pull self up, right foot in left stirrup, stand up, left foot in stirrup, remove right foot and swing over.)

She was wearing a hot pink halter, on the end of a matching nylon lunge line. They didn't have my saddle, but I mounted up bare back and Farmmom led me around the open area near the barn at the local fair grounds, where they'd stabled the filly to present her to me.

In the mean time, my brother was screaming his head off and dancing around... I'd gotten my big present early, so he got his early too, a new gaming console that he'd been wanting. He could care less about the horse, he just wanted to go home and start playing games.

Eventually, they pried me off her back and took me home, after promising to bring me, and my saddle, back the next day.

That day I rode her in the arena at the fair grounds, and it was a harbinger of things to come.

That little twit bucked me off right off the bat. No harm done, I didn't get hurt and I got right back on, after which she behaved a little better, but it was a warning sign.

Once we moved her with the other horses, Ginger (that's what I'd named her) picked up every bad habit known to horse kind. She'd kick, she'd bite, she'd buck, back, wheel and rear. I couldn't do any good with her, although I kept trying.

When she started going over backwards with me in the saddle, Farmdad stepped in.

Armed with a three inch thick piece of round rubber about a foot and a half long, he stepped on her. In my saddle. Let me tell you that was an amusing sight, until she reared, and Farmdad hauled off and whacked her between the ears with the rubber.

See... a horse won't rear if they think they're going to hit their heads. A horse with serious rearing problems can be retrained to think that they have something over their head whenever they have a rider on their backs if you simply hit them between the ears every time they do it. I'm not talking about a horse that rears occasionally, or has done it once, but the horses that consistently rear and pose a hazard.

You can't make it a love tap, either. That might work a couple of times, but eventually the horse will figure out that it doesn't hurt that much, and just keep doing it. Some people advocate an egg, or a glass bottle of warm water, for the extreme cases. The sensation of the egg or the bottle breaking, and the warm liquid running down their head, makes the horse think that they've injured themselves. I have never personally come across a horse that needed this, and while I might use the egg tactic, I don't think I could break a glass bottle over a horse's head, near sensitive eyes, nostrils, ears, etc.

So, Farmdad hauled off and whalloped the little filly, and she settled back to all fours, walked a few steps, and when he tried to turn her, she reared again. Another whallop, another few steps, and another rear.

This went on for some time before Farmdad got fed up with it, and with Ginger rearing higher every time, and the next time she reared, he slid off the back of the saddle, keeping the reins in his hand, and hauled her over backwards. She hadn't intended that outcome and wasn't happy with it.

There were several more training sessions like this, and she never would straighten up enough to be a safe horse. She never improved enough to encourage further work, either.

Eventually, we sold her, to a lady who wanted a matched set of grays (she had one already) to train to drive. The lady knew exactly what she was buying and bought her anyway, so we didn't feel guilty about it.

But that little witch was one horse that we just couldn't do anything with. She was vicious towards people, other horses, and anything that got near her, on the wrong day.

So yes, I have run across horses that were simply "bad apples." They're few and far between, in my limited experience, and the truly good ones make up for them in spades, but they do exist. Some have been mistreated to the point that there's nothing you can do to "fix" it, some may have the same kind of miswiring in the brain that makes people do crazy, dangerous things, and some of them simply have that personality.

However, most horses that are dubbed "bad" are just with the wrong rider, I think. Sometimes personalities don't mesh, and of course conflicting personalties are going to create conflict.

That's my take on it, anyway.

Ask Farmgirl 2.0

As Holly has already noticed, I put an email address up on my profile. (Sorry I didn't answer the questionnaire one, Holly, but I've seen sooo many of those they make my brain hurt. The other one was cute, though!)

Since I'm not feeling particularly creative lately, and have been spending a lot of time just talking about my horse and my riding classes, which some of you are loving, and some of you aren't, I've decided to have another Ask Farmgirl session. You can ask me a question in the comments here, or email me at the address on my profile.

Ask me any question you like, and if I get a bunch of them, I'll pick some to answer. If I only get a few, I'll probably answer all of them.

So tell me, what are you just dying to know?