Weekend!
It's the weekend!! So nice. I can just hang out and relax today. Filming was cancelled again this weekend, so I have all this time to myself. I am glad I got a head start on my work yesterday, though, because progress checks for dance show are tomorrow and that'll take out a big chunk of my time.
We submitted our housing applications for an apartment (first choice) and townhouse (second choice) yesterday, and since then I've been daydreaming a lot about next year. While a townhouse would be pretty awesome, the ideal living arrangement would be an on-campus apartment. We'd have our own kitchen and common room, and each of the four residents would have their own room. I adore living with Gen, but even with that I can see that during senior year, when all 4 of us will be doing SMPs and senior recitals and applying for graduate school, having our own space will be the best possible thing. Plus, we can all indulge our own little habits that way. I can read out loud as much as I want. Gina (who often writes papers by alternating between sleeping for a few hours and working for a few hours) can set her alarm for random times without worrying about waking anyone up. Florence and Gen can choreograph and play their music without being self-conscious about it. And if anyone wants to have their boyfriend (or any overnight guest, romantic or platonic) over, they won't have to worry about their roommate being there. You can see why this is ideal!
Anyway, I woke up this morning thinking about what the apartment would be like, and I just got very excited about it. Senior year in general is going to be awesome. Whether in an apartment or townhouse, I'm going to be living with my best friends at college. I'll be applying for the MAT, and my professor says applicants from St. Mary's are pretty much guaranteed to get in as long as they have all the prerequisites and good grades, and there's no reason to suspect that they're unfit to work in the schools. I will have three education classes left to take after this semester, which means I'll have to do two in one semester and one in the other. I'm thinking I'll do 2 in the fall and one in the spring. That way I can have as many completed prerequisites on my MAT application as possible when I send it in. Plus, I did two this semester and it isn't that hard- I'm even doing 2 extra hours a week at my placement!
I also still have upper-level English courses to complete. I'm taking one now and one in the summer (the study tour to England counts for upper-level credit), but obviously I'll be taking more English classes in the 08-09 school year. I heard next fall they might be offering the American Gothic Literature class that I wasn't able to get into last time around, so I might do that. I also want to look for a class that will go into more of the classic authors, the really big names. My dad is always referencing the classics that he read as a literature student in college, and we were both shocked to discover that I hadn't really read any of them! I thought I'd be studying these people more too, but I guess I haven't been in the right classes. So I want to study more of the Great Works next year, really get into something that I can think deeply about.
And then there's my SMP. Still trying to come up with topics, but it's slow going. There really isn't any rush- I realize that- but I'm just eager to know what path I'm headed down. Sometime soon I need to really sit down and think about what topics interest me most.
Well, I'm off to the post office to buy stamps and mail some belated Valentine's Day cards to people from home!
Sarah
Edited to add: I forgot to mention something else exciting! Last Friday in my education class we spent the entire period talking about the MAT- what it's like, what the application process entails, and so on and so forth. At one point my professor mentioned that there is an 8-week full time placement in the second semester of the program, and that many students choose to fulfill this placement abroad. I had known about this- a lot of candidates teach in the Gambia, West Africa (where our school has a strong study abroad affiliation), and I have a friend who did a teaching placement in Australia. But my professor said you could do the placement almost anywhere internationally if you wanted to. And for one fleeting moment, I had a thought: Wouldn't it be cool if I did my 8-week full time placement in Ireland?
I don't know if I'd actually be able to. There's the issue of money, for one thing, and the fact that I wouldn't be in the schools there for a whole semester (just a couple months). But it's just so cool! Gen, of course, is for it 100%, and is already trying to convince me to go for it. But we'll see. Until the MAT stuff finally does roll around, it can just be a nice little thought to keep in the back of my mind. :)
We submitted our housing applications for an apartment (first choice) and townhouse (second choice) yesterday, and since then I've been daydreaming a lot about next year. While a townhouse would be pretty awesome, the ideal living arrangement would be an on-campus apartment. We'd have our own kitchen and common room, and each of the four residents would have their own room. I adore living with Gen, but even with that I can see that during senior year, when all 4 of us will be doing SMPs and senior recitals and applying for graduate school, having our own space will be the best possible thing. Plus, we can all indulge our own little habits that way. I can read out loud as much as I want. Gina (who often writes papers by alternating between sleeping for a few hours and working for a few hours) can set her alarm for random times without worrying about waking anyone up. Florence and Gen can choreograph and play their music without being self-conscious about it. And if anyone wants to have their boyfriend (or any overnight guest, romantic or platonic) over, they won't have to worry about their roommate being there. You can see why this is ideal!
Anyway, I woke up this morning thinking about what the apartment would be like, and I just got very excited about it. Senior year in general is going to be awesome. Whether in an apartment or townhouse, I'm going to be living with my best friends at college. I'll be applying for the MAT, and my professor says applicants from St. Mary's are pretty much guaranteed to get in as long as they have all the prerequisites and good grades, and there's no reason to suspect that they're unfit to work in the schools. I will have three education classes left to take after this semester, which means I'll have to do two in one semester and one in the other. I'm thinking I'll do 2 in the fall and one in the spring. That way I can have as many completed prerequisites on my MAT application as possible when I send it in. Plus, I did two this semester and it isn't that hard- I'm even doing 2 extra hours a week at my placement!
I also still have upper-level English courses to complete. I'm taking one now and one in the summer (the study tour to England counts for upper-level credit), but obviously I'll be taking more English classes in the 08-09 school year. I heard next fall they might be offering the American Gothic Literature class that I wasn't able to get into last time around, so I might do that. I also want to look for a class that will go into more of the classic authors, the really big names. My dad is always referencing the classics that he read as a literature student in college, and we were both shocked to discover that I hadn't really read any of them! I thought I'd be studying these people more too, but I guess I haven't been in the right classes. So I want to study more of the Great Works next year, really get into something that I can think deeply about.
And then there's my SMP. Still trying to come up with topics, but it's slow going. There really isn't any rush- I realize that- but I'm just eager to know what path I'm headed down. Sometime soon I need to really sit down and think about what topics interest me most.
Well, I'm off to the post office to buy stamps and mail some belated Valentine's Day cards to people from home!
Sarah
Edited to add: I forgot to mention something else exciting! Last Friday in my education class we spent the entire period talking about the MAT- what it's like, what the application process entails, and so on and so forth. At one point my professor mentioned that there is an 8-week full time placement in the second semester of the program, and that many students choose to fulfill this placement abroad. I had known about this- a lot of candidates teach in the Gambia, West Africa (where our school has a strong study abroad affiliation), and I have a friend who did a teaching placement in Australia. But my professor said you could do the placement almost anywhere internationally if you wanted to. And for one fleeting moment, I had a thought: Wouldn't it be cool if I did my 8-week full time placement in Ireland?
I don't know if I'd actually be able to. There's the issue of money, for one thing, and the fact that I wouldn't be in the schools there for a whole semester (just a couple months). But it's just so cool! Gen, of course, is for it 100%, and is already trying to convince me to go for it. But we'll see. Until the MAT stuff finally does roll around, it can just be a nice little thought to keep in the back of my mind. :)