Sweet Catastrophe

So I’ve finally been to all my classes and I have to say I’m really satisfied with everything this semester. I’m even happy with the schedule as a whole. First classes are at 9 and 9:30, which I don’t really mind. Of course I’d love to sleep later, but I’m okay with it. On Tues and Thurs I only have one class and on Friday only two. Those days are set up perfectly for me to be able to get other stuff done, and I love that.

My only gripes are as follows:
Getting there…. I live too close to bother driving anywhere, but just far enough away that it pushes past being a comfortable walk. It’s not a big deal in the cooler weather, but this is South Georgia and we just don’t have a lot of that here. I think half the time I don’t want to go to class is because of the walk. Argh.

Hunger– On Mondays, I’m in class from 9-9:50, 10-11:50, 12-12:50 and 2-3:15. Some mornings I’ll be up early enough to eat breakfast, most mornings I won’t. This means no food until 1pm and that’s only if I have money to eat on campus, or if I’ve gotten up early enough to pack a sandwich or something to take with me….which adds to the multitude of crap I have to carry on my long walk. Wed and Fri, I don’t have the 10-11:50 Lab, so I could walk home then to have lunch, but then I have to walk back. Really, at that point we’re reaching the warmer part of the day and it’s just not ideal! Tues, Thurs and Fri aren’t really a problem. TR, my class is 9:30-10:45 so I’m good to go, and Friday I’m completely done at 1pm. I’m hoping to work out a good routine this semester that doesn’t mirror previous semesters that found me just dealing with being hungry. That’s just no good!

Bio Notes– Wow….the volume of notes in that class is just ridiculous, and unfortunately, he doesn’t exactly allow for enough time to copy them. He said on Monday that he recommends abbreviating….the problem there is that his notes are already abbreviated–including words that shouldn’t be abbreviated and are almost hard to understand! From what I’ve seen so far, there’s just not much room for summarizing. Since it doesn’t appear that he has any intention of posting his notes online, I’ve emailed to ask him if he’d consider allowing me to copy his notes to a jump drive whenever is convenient for him. I haven’t heard back yet. I really hope he allows it, or starts posting online.

Otherwise, everything is great! I’m especially pleased with my Spanish class. I had a terrible experience with my French class; it was enough to push me to switch languages altogether. Luckily, this teacher has a much more realistic idea of how a foreign language should be taught in a college course. None of my courses require class participation and I really think that’s how a college course should be. You’re paying to go. You should get out of it what you want, not what they ‘expect’ of you. If being involved is what it takes for you to get enough out of a course, then eventually you’ll realize it. I don’t think it does anyone any good to force them to participate in a course. People aren’t going to be there for the rest of your life forcing you to get the most out of everything. You’ve got to have the drive to do that for yourself. For me, having a forced participation is just that much more discouragement when I’m not feeling like being in class. I’ve even faked laryngitis before to get out of participating in classes. It’s just ridiculous. I’m paying to be here, not the other way around.

Anyway, sorry for the mini-rant. I’ve got a great teacher for Astronomy, She’s a really smart lady and knows what she’s talking about, and definitely keeps things interesting. She even referenced the old sketch comedy Kids in the Hall today. I was quite pleased.

I’m making more of an effort to be social this year. It’s a tedious process easing into it, but I’m getting there. It’s just so much easier to sit at the computer and chill! My computer doesn’t require me to look decent; it’s very accepting of me however I want to be. I’ll get there though. College is definitely working towards making me more comfortable in my own skin, for the most part. I still have my days though. I think we all do.

I think that about covers it. I need to go see if Josh is ready for some Wii time.