{"id":38046,"date":"2019-03-29T09:28:08","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T13:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/?p=38046"},"modified":"2019-03-29T09:28:08","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T13:28:08","slug":"asking-questions-is-scary-but-biweekly-is-scarier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2019\/03\/29\/asking-questions-is-scary-but-biweekly-is-scarier\/","title":{"rendered":"Asking Questions is Scary, but “Biweekly” is Scarier"},"content":{"rendered":"I\u2019m not a big asker of questions, even in the best situations, and it\u2019s something I\u2019ve come to terms with.\r\n\r\nSo imagine my surprise when, during my interview for this very position, I (somewhat jokingly) asked whether \u201cbiweekly\u201d meant twice a week, or once every two weeks.\r\n\r\nWe settled on using \u201cfortnightly\u201d to indicate every two weeks and moved on.\r\n\r\nLittle did I know that this conversation was foreshadowing the crisis I've been dealing with the past few weeks.\r\n\r\nNow, I interviewed in September, and it is March. You might be wondering what happened to reignite my confusion and frustration regarding the \u201cB\u201d word. Well, I read it in a book and decided to google it.\r\n\r\nNow, before we go any further, what do you think biweekly means?\r\n\r\nBecause guess what, it means twice a week.\"A<\/a>\r\n\r\nAnd once every two weeks.\r\n\r\nIt means both<\/em>.\r\n\r\nGreat idea, right? Somebody out there really thought this one through.\r\n\r\nAnd that\u2019s not even the extent of the problem- the dictionary people know<\/em>. Merriam-Webster actually published an article on the usage of \u2018biweekly\u2019 and \u2018bimonthly\u2019 (yes, bimonthly is a problem too), where they basically tell you to avoid using them.\r\n\r\nOh- but you can use biannually. You want to know why? Because biannual means twice a year, and biennial <\/em>means once every two years.\r\n\r\nDoes this mean that at some point, somebody recognized the problem with the prefix \"bi\", and then only fixed\u00a0some<\/em> of the words?\r\n\r\nThis all has a point beyond anger and frustration, I promise, but one more thing. The following conversation technically makes complete sense. Just mull that over as you read this:\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nPerson 1: \u201cWe will be meeting biweekly for the rest of the year.\u201d\r\n\r\nPerson 2: \u201cWait, what do you mean by \u2018biweekly\u2019?\u201d\r\n\r\nPerson 1: \u201cOh, you know, bimonthly.\u201d\r\n\r\nPerson 2: \u201cAh, that makes perfect sense, thank you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\"A<\/a>\r\n\r\nOkay, I'm done. The (somewhat vague) purpose to my angry rambling:\r\n\r\nExams are nearly upon us, and that means understanding course content is a source of serious stress. Like I mentioned earlier, asking questions has never been my forte, and as a result I\u2019ve dug myself into holes that have kept me awake at night; holes that wouldn\u2019t be there if I\u2019d had the confidence to ask questions.\r\n\r\nI\u2019m sure you\u2019ve heard the saying \u201cthere\u2019s no such thing as a stupid question\u201d, but how many of us actually believe that? Have you ever had an experience where you weren\u2019t clear on something, but didn\u2019t ask because you were convinced you were the only person with the problem?\r\n\r\nI have, many a time.\r\n\r\nAnd this whole \u2018biweekly\u2019 escapade has reminded me of an important lesson about why I don\u2019t have to be as nervous about asking questions:\r\n\r\nI\u2019m terrified of looking like I wasn\u2019t paying attention, and I\u2019m terrified of making another person feel like they haven\u2019t explained something well. But look at it this way, if you don\u2019t understand something it is nobody\u2019s <\/em>fault\u2026 Understanding a situation relies on so many factors; like, for example, whether or not the word has two totally different meanings when used in the same context.\r\n\r\n(Yeah, I\u2019m looking at you, biweekly<\/em>.)\r\n\r\nThis hasn\u2019t stopped me from feeling nervous about asking questions, but it does help me remember that every question is worthwhile. To help make sense of this, I try looking at it this way: how would you feel if somebody asked you the question you would like to ask?\r\n\r\nChances are, you wouldn\u2019t mind.\r\n\r\nAnd if you would, blame the dictionary. After all, the best they <\/em>could do in this situation is \u201csorry, not sorry.\u201d\r\n\r\nNot that I\u2019m bitter.\r\n\r\n\"A<\/a>\r\n\r\n-\r\n\r\nHi,\r\n\r\nSorry that this is up so late! I ended up falling asleep when I meant to post the draft online. I'm working on the interview one, but I'm not sure it's at a place where it can be ready for posting tomorrow. Also, as I was taking the screenshots for this post everything seemed really familiar, and I was wonder if we had realized all of this back in September and I've just forgotten!\r\n\r\nLet me know if you want me to change anything, or write a different post. I have some time on Wednesday if this isn't something that would work!\r\n\r\nThanks,\r\n\r\nTanith","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\nI\u2019m not a big asker of questions, even in the best situations, and it\u2019s something I\u2019ve come to terms with. So imagine my surprise when, during my interview for this very position, I (somewhat jokingly) asked whether \u201cbiweekly\u201d meant twice…\n<\/div>
Continue reading “Asking Questions is Scary, but “Biweekly” is Scarier”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>
Continue reading “Asking Questions is Scary, but “Biweekly” is Scarier”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":38051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1905,25736,25738,25737,11030,9307,85,25506],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38046"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38046"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38053,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38046\/revisions\/38053"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}