My goodness how the time has flewn...
It is overwhelmingly clear that my freshman year of college is coming to a close. This is, quite frankly, ridiculous, for multiple reasons. The most pressing is the fact that teaching establishments have decided that compressing examinations of my learning for the semester into a minimum amount of time is the best way to do so. I appreciate the necessity (or near-necessity) of this system, but that does not make it more reasonable. Next week will be like this: Monday: Bio test (not a final, per se, but a test) Tuesday: Final lab report, Final lab test, HTML project due (all for chemistry) Wednesday: Constant studying Thursday: Statistics final (worth either 80% or 0% of my grade, depending on if I do better on this or on the previous tests averaged (they choose the better of the two) Friday: Chemistry class test. The HTML project is a writeup of a particular reaction from a journal communication. Tonight I spent many an hour learning how best to create an animated mechanism of our reaction. I hope the inequality of the workload is taken into account in considering my animation as opposed to another group which has a 1-step reaction. Ours covers 2 pages. Theirs does not. I spent 5+ hours on it tonight. (which is frankly pretty crazy considering how little I got done). But I now know what I'm doing more clearly than before and the rate of productivity will increase dramatically tomorrow. I then have a lab report which i assume will take a sickeningly long time, despite my having done a preliminary write-up. The short story is I feel guilty every second I'm not actively studying something or working on one of my projects. The good news is my spanish test was moved from this monday to the next! I'm not too concerned for that, though this means I actually get to study for it, instead of barely studying for it and hoping for the best, which is what I probably would have done if it had been the same day as Bio and preceeding my chem tests.
The vaguer, and more interesting reasons that my freshman year ending is ridiculous is that this means that I have spent an entire school year here at college, and that I am actually a college student. Once more, as with every landmark in life, there has been no epiphany, no drastic change that all of a sudden signals "You are a college student now" "you are an adult" "you can drive"(ok that one was somewhat discrete in the change) "you are mature, now." In place of the epiphany has been gradual change. At the beginning of the school year I learned how easy highschool had actually been and how refreshing it is to have an unprecedented amount of freedom. Now I have been shown a new degree to which college can be difficult, and how much I can want to go/visit home. ... I don't know how to continue this paragraph, exactly, so I'll start a new one.
I just need to be home. You forget, living in the residence halls, what silence is like, because it is never silent. You don't realize untill you're writing a lab report for the 10th hour that your back is not particularly thrilled by the beds. You can never be alone. My bike seat has been tipped slightly forward for so long, and I always fail to change it. Sigh. I'm just getting sick of too many things, and stressed by... stuff. Class scheduling, homework, studying.
I look forward to sitting on the deck under the kiwi vine and reading whatever I want for hours and hours, watching the finale of Battlestar Galactica, visiting NFHS, consistent nice weather that I have the freedom to enjoy.
This spring term I'm taking bio 173, the introductory biology laboratory, which is prerequisite to the biochem I'm taking in the fall, and also to the physiology lab I am on a waitlist for for the fall.
I will be in: MCDB 310 (Biochemistry), Biology 225(animal physiology), PSYCH 230(biopsychology), UROP, and ASIAN 260 (introduction to chinese civilization). If I get a spot in bio 226 I will drop the asian 260 and take it or another race and ethnicity some other time. That would mean a 12 credit semester, not counting UROP. That sounds nice.
I realized wednesday night that I missed an advising appointment I had earlier that day. I realized tonight I missed something else. Awesome.
Summary: I'm busy. I'd like to go home. I look forward to the relative freedom of summer.
The vaguer, and more interesting reasons that my freshman year ending is ridiculous is that this means that I have spent an entire school year here at college, and that I am actually a college student. Once more, as with every landmark in life, there has been no epiphany, no drastic change that all of a sudden signals "You are a college student now" "you are an adult" "you can drive"(ok that one was somewhat discrete in the change) "you are mature, now." In place of the epiphany has been gradual change. At the beginning of the school year I learned how easy highschool had actually been and how refreshing it is to have an unprecedented amount of freedom. Now I have been shown a new degree to which college can be difficult, and how much I can want to go/visit home. ... I don't know how to continue this paragraph, exactly, so I'll start a new one.
I just need to be home. You forget, living in the residence halls, what silence is like, because it is never silent. You don't realize untill you're writing a lab report for the 10th hour that your back is not particularly thrilled by the beds. You can never be alone. My bike seat has been tipped slightly forward for so long, and I always fail to change it. Sigh. I'm just getting sick of too many things, and stressed by... stuff. Class scheduling, homework, studying.
I look forward to sitting on the deck under the kiwi vine and reading whatever I want for hours and hours, watching the finale of Battlestar Galactica, visiting NFHS, consistent nice weather that I have the freedom to enjoy.
This spring term I'm taking bio 173, the introductory biology laboratory, which is prerequisite to the biochem I'm taking in the fall, and also to the physiology lab I am on a waitlist for for the fall.
I will be in: MCDB 310 (Biochemistry), Biology 225(animal physiology), PSYCH 230(biopsychology), UROP, and ASIAN 260 (introduction to chinese civilization). If I get a spot in bio 226 I will drop the asian 260 and take it or another race and ethnicity some other time. That would mean a 12 credit semester, not counting UROP. That sounds nice.
I realized wednesday night that I missed an advising appointment I had earlier that day. I realized tonight I missed something else. Awesome.
Summary: I'm busy. I'd like to go home. I look forward to the relative freedom of summer.