To go or not to go...

I spent this morning in a lecture on the history and varieties of the English language. The subject is pretty much central to my course, and it should in theory be really interesting. What actually happened was that the lecturer spent about half an hour faffing around and taking the register, then handed out a question sheet relating to a video he was about to show, read out the entire question sheet to the class, and then put the video on (a Melvyn Bragg thing from ITV several years ago*). While the video was showing, we dutifully wrote down the answers to the questions on the sheet (no analysis or thought required - the questions were all directly answered in the video). Then we had five minutes to "discuss your answers with your neighbour", then another twenty minutes of going through the questions with the whole class, by which time I was ready to bang my head against the wall.

While relating this tale of woe to a lunch table** of colleagues, someone asked "so why do you keep going to the classes?". It really hadn't occured to me not to - I'm a Good Student***, and attending classes is deeply ingrained, even though in this case it's reasonably clear that I could cover more of the subject, and in more detail, with an equivalent amount of time spent sitting at home with some books.

And so, in the time honoured tradition of using LJ to make vitally important life decisions, I present a poll!

( Run my life for me... )

( Footnotes )