Are We There Yet?
Blogging, I need you.
I've been asking people since Monday, "Is it really the second week? I feel like I'm like eight* weeks in..." The general consensus seems to agree with me.
I've averaged four hours of sleep a night since Monday. Don't get me wrong, most of this is because I didn't do shit on Saturday and didn't do too much on Sunday either. A lot of my problems come from me failing to do work on weekends, but it's not like I used to do all this work on weekends beforehand. So what has changed? What's stressing me out this year in particular?
I don't think my general amount of work has increased...
Intermediate Russian - fewer people, a little harder because English is very rarely spoken, but the teacher is still nice, and the level of daily coursework is very doable.
A Century of Russian Film - I get to watch movies on Mondays! There's usually a chapter of reading and a two-page response paper due after that. The course is pretty straight forward. However, it's an evening class, so it's kinda helter-skeltering my schedule.
Russian History: From the First to the Last Tsar - It's a history class. We have readings due basically every day, then we recap on them during lectures. History isn't my favorite thing, but the professor seems pleasant and passionate.
Language and Thought - Basically an intro course to psycho- and sociolinguistics, despite it being a 400 level. I really like the professor (who is incidentally my boss). However, the class is a tad on the abstract sie. There's a reading every class, and a 3-4 page paper every couple of classes.
Second Langauge Acquisition - This class has six people. Four of the are grad students. Dear Science, I'm scared to death. However, there are a lot of linguistics concepts, and none of the grad students were linguistics students (they're psychology or English and stuff), so I actually have a pretty good head start. It's a lot less theoretical than I thought, but intense on participation. We are expected to lead a few discussions, recap past classes a few times, write a term paper, and write a separate SLA-topics research paper. Oh, and we read everyday. I'm afraid I'll forget an assignment. However, the teacher claims it's an easy A course if you put forth effort, so we'll see...
C@CM: Crocheting at Carnegie Mellon - Hehe. Yarn. Actually we do have projects, so that's kinda scary, but it's fun to just keep in my bag and work on during lectures or between classes. Keeps me awake, too!
Actually, there is a fair amount of reading. I've never been a good reader. I'm slow, it bores me to sleep, I don't retain a lot... but I'm really striving to get these things done. And, while being able to get really good grades would be awesome, it's not like it would be hugely amazing in the long run--I think the highest QPA I can attain is a 3.3, and that's if I never get below an A. Chances are I won't break a 3.0. And, although AXO has a 2.5 QPA policy, I don't think even that is the main thing driving my sudden work ethic.
I can't pinpoint it. All I know is suddenly I value finishing an assignment over sleeping, which wasn't always the case before. On the one hand, I don't feel defeated when I go to sleep finished instead of part-way done. On the other hand, I used to be the type of person who really put my personal happiness and health before most things.
Hopefully I haven't jumped to the other end of the spectrum.
On a better note: the Activities Fair was today. It was hot as hell and I was extremely fatigued after it all, but it was a lot of fun and I expect an awesome turn out for the Undeground Tour and KGB in general.
However, I am concerned for readme. Nobody new came today. Of course, it was the day after the Activities Fair, so I didn't expect to get many. But... we really need to advertise more than just getting the readme out there. There are seven of us. The editor in chief and photoshop chair are going to graduate, along with one of our best writers/idea generators. That leaves four of us, one of whom only really generates ideas and doesn't write much. Of the four of us remaining, I'm the most likely to get editor in chief which terrifies me because I don't really want it. On the one hand, I don't want to have all the responsibility of being at Sunday/Monday night offices from 9-midnight, going to AB meetings, ordering pizza, printing the readmes, and delegating distribution/writing/photoshopping tasks to people. On the other hand, I don't want to see readme die... I'm at an impasse. I'm hoping if we just up distribution so that people really know what readme is, they'll want to join.
*I realized recently that 8/80/800 is my go-to number for hyperbole. What's yours?
I've been asking people since Monday, "Is it really the second week? I feel like I'm like eight* weeks in..." The general consensus seems to agree with me.
I've averaged four hours of sleep a night since Monday. Don't get me wrong, most of this is because I didn't do shit on Saturday and didn't do too much on Sunday either. A lot of my problems come from me failing to do work on weekends, but it's not like I used to do all this work on weekends beforehand. So what has changed? What's stressing me out this year in particular?
I don't think my general amount of work has increased...
Intermediate Russian - fewer people, a little harder because English is very rarely spoken, but the teacher is still nice, and the level of daily coursework is very doable.
A Century of Russian Film - I get to watch movies on Mondays! There's usually a chapter of reading and a two-page response paper due after that. The course is pretty straight forward. However, it's an evening class, so it's kinda helter-skeltering my schedule.
Russian History: From the First to the Last Tsar - It's a history class. We have readings due basically every day, then we recap on them during lectures. History isn't my favorite thing, but the professor seems pleasant and passionate.
Language and Thought - Basically an intro course to psycho- and sociolinguistics, despite it being a 400 level. I really like the professor (who is incidentally my boss). However, the class is a tad on the abstract sie. There's a reading every class, and a 3-4 page paper every couple of classes.
Second Langauge Acquisition - This class has six people. Four of the are grad students. Dear Science, I'm scared to death. However, there are a lot of linguistics concepts, and none of the grad students were linguistics students (they're psychology or English and stuff), so I actually have a pretty good head start. It's a lot less theoretical than I thought, but intense on participation. We are expected to lead a few discussions, recap past classes a few times, write a term paper, and write a separate SLA-topics research paper. Oh, and we read everyday. I'm afraid I'll forget an assignment. However, the teacher claims it's an easy A course if you put forth effort, so we'll see...
C@CM: Crocheting at Carnegie Mellon - Hehe. Yarn. Actually we do have projects, so that's kinda scary, but it's fun to just keep in my bag and work on during lectures or between classes. Keeps me awake, too!
Actually, there is a fair amount of reading. I've never been a good reader. I'm slow, it bores me to sleep, I don't retain a lot... but I'm really striving to get these things done. And, while being able to get really good grades would be awesome, it's not like it would be hugely amazing in the long run--I think the highest QPA I can attain is a 3.3, and that's if I never get below an A. Chances are I won't break a 3.0. And, although AXO has a 2.5 QPA policy, I don't think even that is the main thing driving my sudden work ethic.
I can't pinpoint it. All I know is suddenly I value finishing an assignment over sleeping, which wasn't always the case before. On the one hand, I don't feel defeated when I go to sleep finished instead of part-way done. On the other hand, I used to be the type of person who really put my personal happiness and health before most things.
Hopefully I haven't jumped to the other end of the spectrum.
On a better note: the Activities Fair was today. It was hot as hell and I was extremely fatigued after it all, but it was a lot of fun and I expect an awesome turn out for the Undeground Tour and KGB in general.
However, I am concerned for readme. Nobody new came today. Of course, it was the day after the Activities Fair, so I didn't expect to get many. But... we really need to advertise more than just getting the readme out there. There are seven of us. The editor in chief and photoshop chair are going to graduate, along with one of our best writers/idea generators. That leaves four of us, one of whom only really generates ideas and doesn't write much. Of the four of us remaining, I'm the most likely to get editor in chief which terrifies me because I don't really want it. On the one hand, I don't want to have all the responsibility of being at Sunday/Monday night offices from 9-midnight, going to AB meetings, ordering pizza, printing the readmes, and delegating distribution/writing/photoshopping tasks to people. On the other hand, I don't want to see readme die... I'm at an impasse. I'm hoping if we just up distribution so that people really know what readme is, they'll want to join.
*I realized recently that 8/80/800 is my go-to number for hyperbole. What's yours?