Life as a Teaching Assistant

As I've mentioned previously, I'm the new teaching assistant for the CHum 250 web design class here at BYU. The job is pretty low key so far as we haven't gotten to anything that really needs to be graded or reviewed yet.

The funny thing about this job is that they pay me (quite well) to sit around and do just about nothing most of the time. I go to class and am on hand for questions during the lecture, of which there are only a handful on any given day, and then I have office hours twice a week for a couple of hours.

What is so interesting about that is that I have yet to have anyone come to the office hours for help. I'm not all that surprised as when I was taking these classes very few people ever showed up to office hours for extra help. I did though, I figured why not, it was worth it. I got at least 20 hours of one on one time with my TA when I was in CHum 250 and learned all sorts of new stuff that wasn't covered in class. I also did extremely well on all of the assignments.

When I was in Russell's class I went to his office hours once every week with very few exceptions to ask questions, get clarification, and learn something new. Most of the time there was nobody there but me and I got all sorts of extra info crammed into my skull. I guess that is why I did alright in his class in the end even when I thought I was never going to remember anything.

In the end, I can't complain too much because I'm getting paid to be here in this lab right now just in case someone shows up and I can get all sorts of my own work done if nobody does. It's sort of a win-win situation I suppose.

ChaCha Rejection

Well, I guess it wasn't really a rejection to be honest, but it was sort of funny. Hunter Anderson, who works over in the Humanities Copy Center next door to my office told me about this company called ChaCha which answers questions via text messages. Apparently if you sign up to be a "guide" you can earn 10 cents for each answer that you give out.

It's a pretty simple job really, they have a site you log into and answer questions as they hand them out to you. No obligation for hours, no set number you have to meet, you just sort of make a few extra bucks whenever you feel like it.

After learning a little more about it I figured there was no harm in going through the short training because if it worked out I could make a little cash to help offset costs of having a new baby and such, and Holly could have done it too if she had wanted. Anyways, I went through the little training program and did my "test questions" to see if I was ready. Then all I had to do was wait for an email from ChaCha saying if I was approved or not.

Well, I didn't get approved, which made me laugh a little bit because the test questions weren't hard at all, and I know I had the right answers. After talking to Hunter about it this morning he thinks it is because they are restructuring a lot of things and how they do them and because of that they aren't hiring new guides at the moment. He says he thinks I'll get an email later on asking if I'm still interested or not.

If that happens, I'll probably take them up on it. Convenient money made in my free time is always a good thing I suppose.

Banking Errors

Sooner or later all of us are going to realize that we've made a small error with balancing our checkbook, recording a charge, or some other such thing regarding the money that flows in and out of our pockets. Well, for the past two weeks I've been racking my brain to figure out why the month of June was so damn expensive for Holly and I because it seemed like our checking account was getting drained like nobody's business.

I knew it was an expensive month due to health insurance premiums being due for the summer term and that we had done a lot of driving to and from Salt Lake City, so gas had been more expensive than normal for us, but I still though something strange was happening.

Well, as it turns out I discovered today after a chat with the lady at Wells Fargo that I actually had $600 more in my account than my checkbook told me because I accidentally forgot to record the deposit after I made it.

Let's hope I don't scare myself like that again.