Week 1
The first week of school is now done. How is it going? Bizarre, I'm not going to lie. It's a good thing, going to school, but really strange after working retail for almost 10 years, you know? I really felt like I was drowning at first. I was panic attacking on Tuesday because I felt like I was already behind, had started out behind, and I wasn't really sure what to do about it besides metaphorically curl up in a ball and cry. I'm still totally overwhelmed, but feeling a little bit better about it now (though we'll see what happens on Tuesday when I get the results of my first math test that I had Friday, eeeeeep)- I know it's an adjustment period, but it's just a matter of getting THROUGH that period, at this point. Also, how is it Sunday already? D:
I've consciously been wearing a chain all week that has both the butterfly I purchased in remembrance of my grandmother and the Celtic sister's pendant. That way, I can sort of have them with me, at least in my head. I need the support, at least to begin with. It's been a long time and I'm just a little bit freaked out. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming... breathe and attack one thing at a time. And don't let "breaks" go too long. :P
Also, as a general note on clubs- Psychology club meets for the first time at some point in September, I have a note about it somewhere, though I don't know if you're supposed to have a specific major for that one. There IS a GSA, but haven't heard anything about meeting times/days. There is also a book club, which I would've been happy to join, but it meets during one of my classes. :(
Other note: I haven't made any friends yet really- those kinds of things are hard for me- but I have actually spoken to people. So that's a start. Also I know one person to avoid. XD (She's in my Short Story class- I ended up sitting next to her one day. She's ESL, which is fine, but she was CONSTANTLY asking me to explain things to her and I'm like... dude. I have my own work to do, which I'm not going to get done if I keep stopping every five seconds to help you. I don't mind answering a question or two, I'm not that much of a bitch, but... I am not the teacher. I need to do the assignment too, and you're making it so I can't. Maybe you shouldn't be in a literature class if you don't understand written English? (...okay, maybe I -am- that much of a bitch. XD) Soooo need to make sure I don't sit next to her if I can help it.
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Class First Impressions:
Art History: The professor is very, very scatterbrained. That may be a problem in regards to note-taking, not to mention what I'm even supposed to do for the assignments. >_< Also, there's a lot of online work, which kind of pisses me of, actually. If I wanted to take an online class, I would've taken an online class. I don't follow that format well. I just. Ungh. On the upside, the professor does seem to put notes up online, so considering that the quality of my in-class notes isn't going to be very good, that's a good thing. To a point. To another point, he says that we should be printing out the notes. One problem with that- the college has a 250 b/w page print limit each semester and once you hit that, you start having to pay for everything you print. Just the first chapter notes ALONE are 20 pages- they're not even dense, he did it originally as a freaking powerpoint. Really, dude? >_< As far as the class itself? What the hell was I even thinking? I thought, hey, I love art, I love history, sounds like fun! .....clearly I need my head examined. Apparently, art history isn't just straight up history, you're trying to figure out WHY things were created and what significance they have. Uhhhh. *blank stare* How the hell am I supposed to know? I think my only saving grace here is that it's only a semester. Not like in high school where I probably would've had to take it the whole year. Though it's like I was telling Sherri yesterday- the class ends right before the Renaissance. If they're going to make me study prehistoric "art", they could at least reward me with DaVinci. JUST SAYIN'. (On the other hand, that also means that we cover Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece/Rome, and the Medieval period, which are all things that interest me, so. Not all bad, here.) That also means that my favorite art- I'm thinking of pretty much everything Monet minus the Haystacks series (because seriously, wtf), Van Gogh (I chose "Starry Night" as the picture for my credit card when given the option. ^_^), View of Toledo by El Greco (I have a print-out of that one on my wall, no lie. One of these days I will buy the artwork I love as legit prints, and that nearly tops the list.)- all of that is covered in Art History II. Apparently, I should've taken Art History II. However, I really, really hate Picasso and the abstract art movement, so maybe it's just as well that I didn't. (No offense to anyone who likes it, I just find it really, really ugly most of the time. There are exceptions to the rule, but the rule exists for a reason.)
Short Story: This one was a mixed bag. It's apparently a discussion based class, which as a very quiet person, this doesn't exactly thrill me. The teacher was friendly and at times funny- it should be entertaining, at least- but the first day, after going on a bit of a rant about cell phones, she proceeded to say something like, "I'm really afraid that you young people will never get married." You know, because everyone these days is constantly interacting with their phones/devices instead of each other. Then we got, "Your future husband or wife is probably on this campus, and you'd never know!" and "There's 14,000 beautiful people on this campus. Really, look around sometime. There are some really beautiful people walking around here." Also apparently if you don't get married all kinds of awful things will happen to you and you'll end up lonely, so you shouldn't let that happen to you unless you choose it. Uhhhhhh... okay? O_o There was a lot of weird silences and awkward laughter in that section of the first class. So like I said, a mixed bag. Strange, but it should be entertaining, at least. And while there's a lot of reading, because they're short stories, it'll be broken up into reasonable chunks. Not to mention, probably more interesting than some dry technical text. I hope. ^_^;
Math: I'm not sure about this one yet. I ended up in her office on the second day I had that class, almost in tears. I just. Ungh. We had a test Friday, and I'm really not sure how it went. It IS better than it was, though, where the whole thing might as well have been written in Greek. It's coming back to me a little. I have a feeling I'm going to be in her office A LOT for this one. I'm able to actually make her office hours three times a week if I need it, so that's at least a good thing. I'm very likely going to need it.
College Forum- This is a bird course (for anyone that doesn't know, definition here, much better than I could ever explain it. Definition starts at 3:51, so skip ahead), but the teacher seems like a nice guy. Very friendly. On the other hand, this is apparently a very social class, which... ugh. Like. I have an assignment this week to talk to someone on campus who is totally different, someone I would normally never talk to. All I can think of (besides "eeep!") is that "people I would never talk to" pretty much involves everyone, whether they're like me or not. I don't really care what they look like or seem like or whatever- the reason I'm not talking to people isn't because they're different from me, it's because they're new people and I'm an introvert with some degree of social phobia.
Sociology- Somehow I ended up with a lot of "social" classes, which is basically my worst nightmare, but at least for Sociology I was expecting it. It is, after all, the study of human interaction. Duh. On the upside, the teacher seems weird in a good way. Also very friendly, down to earth for the most part, funny, isn't big on tests or giving a lot of homework. (The way he put it: "You guys have enough going on with your other classes." And on long papers: "You don't want to write them, I don't want to read them." So even though it has the social aspect that freaks me out, I think it's probably going to be one of my favorite classes this semester, and one of the easier ones. Sociology. Go figure.
English Comp 1- we'll see when I get there, I don't start that until Tuesday. ^_^
SO GLAD the weekend is here, though, I can't even tell you. Feeling so overwhelmed has had me feeling like I shouldn't really be doing things like watching shows or playing games or whatever (though I have read a couple of chapters of a for fun book, at least)... which I know is stupid, but there it is. So even though I have some reading to do at some point, the weekend gives me some time to just chill out a little bit. Especially with Labor Day making it a three day weekend. :3 I DON'T HAVE ART HISTORY AGAIN UNTIL NEXT FRIDAY, YAY! I spent yesterday chilling out and watching episodes of Saiyuki. Also my body decided it wanted to be a girl yesterday, so I'm doubly glad that I didn't have to go anywhere and that I was planning on not doing anything anyway, since I felt like crap.
There's also one aspect of school going so far that I haven't mentioned yet, and that's food. Which could be going well or poorly, depending on how you look at it. See, here's the thing. I respond to stress in one of two ways, which are the total opposite of each other, and I can never predict which is going to happen in any particular instance. In the weeks leading up to school, I was overeating. Now that I'm at school, it's the opposite. Well. I'm EATING, but generally only when I make myself, and I'm not even eating for the first time until around noon to one, when I've been up since 5:30-6:00 most days (I can sleep in till 7 on Mondays, wee!). To a point, I know I need to eat more than I have been, but to another point, I can't bring myself to care for two reasons. One: Maybe I'll lose those 20ish pounds I gained recently. And two: Eating less means less money spent on food, which is good. Especially since I'm living completely off my savings until about mid-October, and I'm still going to need some of that money over the course of the year, so I can't blow through that. Though if it makes anybody feel any better, I definitely ate more this weekend, mostly because I felt I probably should. So I'm not going to starve anytime soon, I promise. Not that there's any danger of that anyway with all the fat my body has stocked up in case of emergencies, but that's beside the point. XD
Also, thought it was worth sharing: there's some mental health screenings on the school website- obviously not meant as a diagnosis by any means, just an "if you score highly on this, you miiiight want to come into the counseling center" thing. I got: "Your screening results are consistent with symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder." *dies laughing* YOU THINK? And that doesn't even have anything to do with the social anxiety. I'm just a mess, apparently. XD People surprised at this: 0. I should probably do something about that...
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This has been crossposted to my DW account. You are free to comment either here or there, if you'd like to comment. Preferably here, but it doesn't really matter. Whichever one works for you. :D
I've consciously been wearing a chain all week that has both the butterfly I purchased in remembrance of my grandmother and the Celtic sister's pendant. That way, I can sort of have them with me, at least in my head. I need the support, at least to begin with. It's been a long time and I'm just a little bit freaked out. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming... breathe and attack one thing at a time. And don't let "breaks" go too long. :P
Also, as a general note on clubs- Psychology club meets for the first time at some point in September, I have a note about it somewhere, though I don't know if you're supposed to have a specific major for that one. There IS a GSA, but haven't heard anything about meeting times/days. There is also a book club, which I would've been happy to join, but it meets during one of my classes. :(
Other note: I haven't made any friends yet really- those kinds of things are hard for me- but I have actually spoken to people. So that's a start. Also I know one person to avoid. XD (She's in my Short Story class- I ended up sitting next to her one day. She's ESL, which is fine, but she was CONSTANTLY asking me to explain things to her and I'm like... dude. I have my own work to do, which I'm not going to get done if I keep stopping every five seconds to help you. I don't mind answering a question or two, I'm not that much of a bitch, but... I am not the teacher. I need to do the assignment too, and you're making it so I can't. Maybe you shouldn't be in a literature class if you don't understand written English? (...okay, maybe I -am- that much of a bitch. XD) Soooo need to make sure I don't sit next to her if I can help it.
----
Class First Impressions:
Art History: The professor is very, very scatterbrained. That may be a problem in regards to note-taking, not to mention what I'm even supposed to do for the assignments. >_< Also, there's a lot of online work, which kind of pisses me of, actually. If I wanted to take an online class, I would've taken an online class. I don't follow that format well. I just. Ungh. On the upside, the professor does seem to put notes up online, so considering that the quality of my in-class notes isn't going to be very good, that's a good thing. To a point. To another point, he says that we should be printing out the notes. One problem with that- the college has a 250 b/w page print limit each semester and once you hit that, you start having to pay for everything you print. Just the first chapter notes ALONE are 20 pages- they're not even dense, he did it originally as a freaking powerpoint. Really, dude? >_< As far as the class itself? What the hell was I even thinking? I thought, hey, I love art, I love history, sounds like fun! .....clearly I need my head examined. Apparently, art history isn't just straight up history, you're trying to figure out WHY things were created and what significance they have. Uhhhh. *blank stare* How the hell am I supposed to know? I think my only saving grace here is that it's only a semester. Not like in high school where I probably would've had to take it the whole year. Though it's like I was telling Sherri yesterday- the class ends right before the Renaissance. If they're going to make me study prehistoric "art", they could at least reward me with DaVinci. JUST SAYIN'. (On the other hand, that also means that we cover Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece/Rome, and the Medieval period, which are all things that interest me, so. Not all bad, here.) That also means that my favorite art- I'm thinking of pretty much everything Monet minus the Haystacks series (because seriously, wtf), Van Gogh (I chose "Starry Night" as the picture for my credit card when given the option. ^_^), View of Toledo by El Greco (I have a print-out of that one on my wall, no lie. One of these days I will buy the artwork I love as legit prints, and that nearly tops the list.)- all of that is covered in Art History II. Apparently, I should've taken Art History II. However, I really, really hate Picasso and the abstract art movement, so maybe it's just as well that I didn't. (No offense to anyone who likes it, I just find it really, really ugly most of the time. There are exceptions to the rule, but the rule exists for a reason.)
Short Story: This one was a mixed bag. It's apparently a discussion based class, which as a very quiet person, this doesn't exactly thrill me. The teacher was friendly and at times funny- it should be entertaining, at least- but the first day, after going on a bit of a rant about cell phones, she proceeded to say something like, "I'm really afraid that you young people will never get married." You know, because everyone these days is constantly interacting with their phones/devices instead of each other. Then we got, "Your future husband or wife is probably on this campus, and you'd never know!" and "There's 14,000 beautiful people on this campus. Really, look around sometime. There are some really beautiful people walking around here." Also apparently if you don't get married all kinds of awful things will happen to you and you'll end up lonely, so you shouldn't let that happen to you unless you choose it. Uhhhhhh... okay? O_o There was a lot of weird silences and awkward laughter in that section of the first class. So like I said, a mixed bag. Strange, but it should be entertaining, at least. And while there's a lot of reading, because they're short stories, it'll be broken up into reasonable chunks. Not to mention, probably more interesting than some dry technical text. I hope. ^_^;
Math: I'm not sure about this one yet. I ended up in her office on the second day I had that class, almost in tears. I just. Ungh. We had a test Friday, and I'm really not sure how it went. It IS better than it was, though, where the whole thing might as well have been written in Greek. It's coming back to me a little. I have a feeling I'm going to be in her office A LOT for this one. I'm able to actually make her office hours three times a week if I need it, so that's at least a good thing. I'm very likely going to need it.
College Forum- This is a bird course (for anyone that doesn't know, definition here, much better than I could ever explain it. Definition starts at 3:51, so skip ahead), but the teacher seems like a nice guy. Very friendly. On the other hand, this is apparently a very social class, which... ugh. Like. I have an assignment this week to talk to someone on campus who is totally different, someone I would normally never talk to. All I can think of (besides "eeep!") is that "people I would never talk to" pretty much involves everyone, whether they're like me or not. I don't really care what they look like or seem like or whatever- the reason I'm not talking to people isn't because they're different from me, it's because they're new people and I'm an introvert with some degree of social phobia.
Sociology- Somehow I ended up with a lot of "social" classes, which is basically my worst nightmare, but at least for Sociology I was expecting it. It is, after all, the study of human interaction. Duh. On the upside, the teacher seems weird in a good way. Also very friendly, down to earth for the most part, funny, isn't big on tests or giving a lot of homework. (The way he put it: "You guys have enough going on with your other classes." And on long papers: "You don't want to write them, I don't want to read them." So even though it has the social aspect that freaks me out, I think it's probably going to be one of my favorite classes this semester, and one of the easier ones. Sociology. Go figure.
English Comp 1- we'll see when I get there, I don't start that until Tuesday. ^_^
SO GLAD the weekend is here, though, I can't even tell you. Feeling so overwhelmed has had me feeling like I shouldn't really be doing things like watching shows or playing games or whatever (though I have read a couple of chapters of a for fun book, at least)... which I know is stupid, but there it is. So even though I have some reading to do at some point, the weekend gives me some time to just chill out a little bit. Especially with Labor Day making it a three day weekend. :3 I DON'T HAVE ART HISTORY AGAIN UNTIL NEXT FRIDAY, YAY! I spent yesterday chilling out and watching episodes of Saiyuki. Also my body decided it wanted to be a girl yesterday, so I'm doubly glad that I didn't have to go anywhere and that I was planning on not doing anything anyway, since I felt like crap.
There's also one aspect of school going so far that I haven't mentioned yet, and that's food. Which could be going well or poorly, depending on how you look at it. See, here's the thing. I respond to stress in one of two ways, which are the total opposite of each other, and I can never predict which is going to happen in any particular instance. In the weeks leading up to school, I was overeating. Now that I'm at school, it's the opposite. Well. I'm EATING, but generally only when I make myself, and I'm not even eating for the first time until around noon to one, when I've been up since 5:30-6:00 most days (I can sleep in till 7 on Mondays, wee!). To a point, I know I need to eat more than I have been, but to another point, I can't bring myself to care for two reasons. One: Maybe I'll lose those 20ish pounds I gained recently. And two: Eating less means less money spent on food, which is good. Especially since I'm living completely off my savings until about mid-October, and I'm still going to need some of that money over the course of the year, so I can't blow through that. Though if it makes anybody feel any better, I definitely ate more this weekend, mostly because I felt I probably should. So I'm not going to starve anytime soon, I promise. Not that there's any danger of that anyway with all the fat my body has stocked up in case of emergencies, but that's beside the point. XD
Also, thought it was worth sharing: there's some mental health screenings on the school website- obviously not meant as a diagnosis by any means, just an "if you score highly on this, you miiiight want to come into the counseling center" thing. I got: "Your screening results are consistent with symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder." *dies laughing* YOU THINK? And that doesn't even have anything to do with the social anxiety. I'm just a mess, apparently. XD People surprised at this: 0. I should probably do something about that...
---
This has been crossposted to my DW account. You are free to comment either here or there, if you'd like to comment. Preferably here, but it doesn't really matter. Whichever one works for you. :D