From: liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid   
      
   Don Y  wrote:   
      
   > On 11/30/2025 2:30 AM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:   
   > > Don Y  wrote:   
   > >   
   > >> On 11/29/2025 6:11 AM, albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl wrote:   
   > >>> Compare to Chinese education. The untalented are brutally weeded out,   
   > >>> before they enter the university. OTOH a talent in rural areas seldomly   
   > >>> gets unnoticed.   
   > >>   
   > >> I think this goes to the cultural aspect.   
   > >>   
   > >> I recall a power outage during my first year of school.  I took   
   > >> the opportunity to wander across camps with an oversized balloon   
   > >> full of N2O thinking it the perfect excuse for a party -- to share   
   > >> with friends who lived on the other side of the main campus.   
   > >>   
   > >> Halfway there, I passed through one of the main lobbies and   
   > >> found the adjoining stairwells lined with oriental students   
   > >> sitting under emergency lights working on homework!  Really?   
   > >> How long do you think the outage will be that you need to   
   > >> hoard every possible "study opportunity"?   
   > >>   
   > >> Do their governments/sponsors hold them to some particular   
   > >> standard for the "privilege" of studying abroad?  Or, is this   
   > >> just a normal behavior, regardless of circumstance?   
   > >   
   > > I was a technician at a university, in a lab where students had to   
   > > operate and modify a rig meant to represent an industrial process.  It   
   > > needed an extra hole drilled in the aluminium backplate and the students   
   > > couldn't find the power drill (we only had one).   
   >   
   > The rig needed to be fixed -- your job, not part of the students'   
   > assignment?   
      
   No, it was their project that just happend to be located in the lab I   
   was working in.   
      
   The tools were shared between several labs and a general technicians'   
   workshop, so nobody really owned them* and a lot of time could be wasted   
   tracking them down.  The students just needed a hole made and asked the   
   nearest technician for help.   
      
      
   *   This didn't result in a lot of thefts because most technicians   
   already had a better selection of tools at home than they had at work.   
   It wasn't unknown for me to take a morning off so as to make a part,   
   needed for work, at home on my own lathe - or bring in my own equipment   
   when it was needed in the lab.   
      
      
   --   
   ~ Liz Tuddenham ~   
   (Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)   
   www.poppyrecords.co.uk   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)