Long time gone
Hello there again. It's me. I just remembered that I have a blog on livejournal, so I thought I would post an update. It's always neat to log on here and see my past entries. It really helps to see myself grow as a person. I see the last post I made was from August 18th, my last day of work at MSCR... ah, the days of summer. I do miss them. However, it is now winter break and I guess you could think of it as a short summer intermission between semesters of school. That's a lot of 's' words in that sentence... Today is Sunday and the second day of short lived so-called freedom from school, at least until the Spring semester begins. Its nice to not worry about catching up on readings or worry about what papers are due next week, or what exams I am unprepared to take. Fall semester was really tough. I can't emphasize that enough. My classes were killers, and I totally expected that - I mean economics really isn't my strong point. Sitting through class talking about cost functions and supply lines, and market effects on a competitive monopoly system doesn't really spark my interest. I just don't see how it works. My politics class was easier than I had expected. AS I look back on sitting through class, it wasn't really the fact that I thought the class was dry that bored me to death sometimes, I found that the material was in fact too easy. The teacher herself even said it was a class mainly for freshman, and that she thought it was odd so many upper classmen were enrolled. I tried to read the book but her lectures were based off our readings, so I considered it unproductive to read 100's of pages that she already went over. I guess it was the final exam that really did it for me, that was the point that I realized the class wasn't as hard as it seemed. Our exam was comprehensive, and I was a bit nervous on that end. However, I went to the library about 30 minutes or so before the exam and reviewed my previous tests. This worked wonders because the final was basically a conglomeration of those. I'm pretty sure that I got a B, because I can only remember having difficulty answering 4 or 5 of the questions out of 50, and 3 out of 10 on the identifications. So that class looks promising, at least until grades come out on the 1st of Janurary. Well I've went over both economics and politics. I also took regional geography, which was a lot of fun. I didn't bother to pick up the textbook on the first day of class, which hurt me in the end. Reading would have helped me bring the course together in the end. The class went pretty quickly and there were a lot of new terms, that although weren't hard, took some time to get used to. I did extra credit and all my class work was at about a B level, but my exams were C's and D's. I have no idea what I got on the final exam, most of it was guessing anyhow. I neglected to study because the final was late on Friday, and I had to move rooms on top of packing for break, plus returning textbooks and getting rid of my last meal plans. By the grace of God I hope I get at least a C, even a C- would do because I do'nt want to take the class over again. Another class I took Fall semester was sociology. That was a ton of fun, but also a lot of work. I did about 6 2-page papers during the semester - these were called sociology in the news assignments. We took a topic and connected it to course material, and it took some strong effort to complete it to the standards set by the teacher. I definately improved throughout the course. We also had a 5 page paper on a movie, and a 5 minute report (which for me turned out to be 10 minutes... yes I'm an overachiever) and a few other writing assignments. Our teacher went really quickly through the powerpoints in class so I ended up taking one set of notes in class, which wasn't a lot, and then another set of notes outside of class in which I copied the powerpoints in detail. I loved that class, and I'd take a course with the same teacher anytime. A lot of people didn't like her, and I assume that is because she actually made students work for their grades. Ha, it's hard for me to fathom why people would want to go to college and not study. I guess they think it's an extension of high school, which it's totally not. I hear students all the time say that they never study or they haven't opened a textbook all semester. And I do realize that for some students, or for some majors in general, textbooks are really worthless because they aren't used. For example, the school of education. I never really used a textbook, and tests were a joke because they were all based on opinion. I really believe I wasted my time in those courses... I thrive to learn, not just write opinion papers or learn to 'play'. I wish the education department would actually TEACH theories and test us on development patterns. I guess you could say we were tested but it was open note exams and take home stuff, and I do'nt believe students learn for the long term with that kind of stuff because you could just copy terms right from the text and call it a day... oops I'm going off on a bit of a rant there, sorry. I mean if you're all for that kind of learning then go ahead, but that's not what I want from school. I need to be pressured to learn, I need to read and write and copy things down. If I don't have things do to then I don't feel like I am learning. Anyhow, my last class I took was history. Usually I hate history with a passion. I took World Civ II three times, and that really turned me off to the whole subject in general. However the teacher I had this semester was fantastic. He connected with the students and learned everyones name, even though there were over 100 in his class. He always talked about movies and music which helped bring the course material to my level. Quizzes were each week on Wednesday which kept me studying over the semester, instead of just before each exam. And the tests were based off the quizzes so that was easier to deal with. I was at a D level before going into the final and I studied my butt off in preparation for the exam. Hopefully I got a C.... please please please give me a C so I do'nt have to take it again!!!! Well, that's all my classes for the Fall Semester of my senior year. I hope that gave you, whoever reads this, an eye into what my semester looked like. I would love to write more about other stuff, like my fantastic boyfriend Keyna (we've been together for 8 months next Sunday) or how I've been exercising a lot and getting quite fit, but I'll save that for another entry. Tomorrow is Christmas and I can't wait to watch my family open their gifts. Yay! It will be interest to see what I got because I didn't ask for anything. I bet my Dad got me another Kohls gift card :) We'll see. Talk to you soon. Merry Christmas!