School is Boring

So it's only the 4th week of school and I'm already bored with my classes, and school in general. Maybe I'm just having an apathetic week but it just all seems so blah. I'm only taking 4 classes, so while it's manageable, it's not nearly enough to keep me all that busy. I only have to do homework 3 nights a week to keep up, and that's with multitasking. If I were doing homework and nothing else, I would probably only need 2 nights. My classes are all easy, and the homework is essentially busy work. Thus the issue.

I'm the type of person where if I'm not being challenged, I get bored...really quickly. If something doesn't challenge me, and doesn't keep my interest, I have little to no motivation to actually do it. Example: my spanish class. It's a retake, becuase I got so bored with the busy work last semester that I didn't do half of it. The problem was that said busy work was 35% of our grade and not doing it led to a bad grade, despite getting A's on my tests.

I like my classes, it's just a matter of them being able to challenge me enough. Breakdown:
>>Poli 360: Comparative Political Thought/Theory. The material we read outside of class is interesting, and I enjoy reading it. The professor simply restates the reading in class in simpler terms and his lecture style leaves me fighting to stay awake....at 130 in the afternoon. His tangents about his life are more interesting than his lectures. We have to write a 2 page paper every week based on the readings, then later in the week we're given a classmate's paper to critique. BORING! 2 pages?! I thought this was a 300 level class! This reminds me of high school...and considering my high school wasn't exactly the epitome of academic challenge that's pretty bad.

>>Span 301: Advanced Intermediate Spanish. Again, ridiculously easy for a 300 level class. Maybe it's just me and the ability God's given me to be stupidly good at Spanish, but as previously stated, all the homework is busy work. Answer a few BS questions based on some simple readings. Do some grammar exercises practicing stuff we learned in Spanish 1. The one good point is that the prof only speaks Spanish in class, and makes us do the same. Not that this is hard for me, but it's something that should start being enforced at the 201 level. If we're taking a language beyond the level required for university credit, we obviously want to use it somehow in our future, and we have to learn how to speak it, not just understand it.

>>Econ 102: Introduction to Macroeconomics. Your standard lecture class with the occasional online quiz and problem set thrown in. Reeeealllly simple, and most of it's common sense. Granted that's to be expected since it's a 100 level class. The prof isn't horribly interesting, but not boring either. He likes to relate everything back to Milky Way bars. Take notes, plan my week, make occasional sarcastic comments to my friends Cynthia and Stan who are in the class with me.

>>History 303: The Second World War. My favourite class by far. Dr. Laurie is god of the History department. Definitely one of the best, if not the best prof I've taken here. His lectures are entertaining and educational at the same time. His exams are challenging but not overly difficult if you've payed attention in class. Doing the readings isn't necessary but it's helpful. His papers are not overly long, generally 3-5 pages, but you have to write well for them and you have to actually do the work behind them, which is usually reading a whole bunch of stuff on a topic of your choice related to the class. My only issue with this class is that we don't have much to do outside of it reguarly. I look forward to the class; it's the highlight of my tuesdays and thursdays.

So there's my little rant for the week. Not to worry, I'm still doing my hw and keeping up with my classes, they're just annoying. It's troublesome to me when I have to actually try to find motivation to do school. Well seeing as it's going on 4am I should probably do that thing they call sleeping. Not that it matters since I don't have to wake up before 11 any day of the week. Gotta love that! I'm looking forward to the weekend (which essentially starts tomorrow at 7pm). Hopefully it'll snap me out of the apathetic fog I've been in this week.

Peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson: Always have a couple rolls of toilet paper stocked in your room, so when your dorm (or campus in general as it would appear) FAILS AT LIFE BY RUNNING OUT OF TOILET PAPER you're not stuck using tissues. Reasons we love UMBC...

Busy Busy

For only having four classes, I've been decently busy over these first few weeks of school. Thankfully it's manageable and nothing terribly difficult. I'm supposed to be writing up my critique of a classmate's paper from Poli 360, and Billy would scold me if he knew I was getting distracted yet again but I finished all the grammar stuff and muddling my way through the horrific phraseology of the paper. I don't understand how whoever wrote it (we all have numbers instead of names, I guess to promote more objective critiques?) can butcher their phrasing and grammar so much. The only excuse is if they are one of the students who doesn't speak English as a first language. Otherwise, I have to wonder how in the world they passed 8th grade English. Not trying to sound overly judgemental here, but these people seriously need to learn how to write academically. Starting sentences with "But" or "And"...not cool. Using two "but" clauses in the same sentence...really folks? It's not that difficult. You don't have to be an amazing writer, just write with some sense and clarity! Also, when the prof says 2 pages, he means TWO PAGES! Not 3, not 2.5, but 2. ugh. at least it gets me something to rant on in the critique.

On a related note, I got a text book at the UMBC bookstore for a reasonable price...shocking! $26 for my Poli text book, which was the only reason I actually bought it from here versus online or sharing Alethea's. Spanish book was close around $100...yeah not buying that one. Hooray for the library, same with History, cuz Heaven knows we don't actually read all 14 books. Since we can't do the papers on any of them it makes more sense to just get them from the library as theyre needed.

Speaking of the library, I'm still kinda ticked they turned the 7th floor study lounge into a computer lab, but in all fairness, it has been helpful. I went over to the library to print out a paper today, and I was amazed at technology. The paper was saved to my flash drive, and as I look at it, I'm amazed at how I can type something up on my computer, put a little stick in the side of my computer, and with a few clicks, my 2 page paper is now on this little tiny rectangular thingydo. It's pretty nifty, and extremely convenient. What's not convenient is that I had to walk to the library to print said paper, because of course my printer is STILL on the fritz...gotta get that checked out this weekend. I don't go to a nerd school for nothing, so time to find one of my tech savvy friends and get them to fix it. Also need to make a trip to walmart this weekend and buy ink, seeing as the ink I need is of course the ONE KIND THE BOOKSTORE DOESN'T SELL. gaaaahhhh.

So now that I've sorted out some thoughts, time to get back to that critique so I can sleep.

peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the Week: Don't wear heels to a basketball game when you know you're gonna be on your feet cheering the whole time. I am so smart sometimes...(/sarcasm)

2.5.09 <3

Thrilled to pieces doesn't even begin to cover how happy I am :)

I'm fluctuating between amused and slightly disturbed that all our friends predicted it, or at the very least are not surprised. So everyone except me is getting really good at predicting my life. WTF?!

No matter, I'm way too happy to let it stress me out. The sunshine is perfect for this amazing day, and an optimistic sign for what's to come in the months ahead.

peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson for the week: When your printer is generally unreliable, print your assignments the night before the class, to give you flexibility when it acts up. Actually, it's probably a good idea to do the assignment the night before it's due instead of the morning of...yeahhhh.

Just a quick note...

So my life has a way of turning itself upside down and inside out when I least expect it. There's a pattern I've noticed--when school is going nuts, my social life is all good. Once I get school figured out, my social life kicks into high gear and tends to do all in its power to throw me for a loop. This pattern has continued over the past week. I've only been back to school a week but it feels like it's been at least two weeks because so much has been happening.

The week started out with scheduling and classes doing all in their power to frustrate me and then some. Monday and Tuesday were very very long. By the end of the day Wednesday I had most of that figured out, so it would figure that
my social life would choose then to start flipping itself all over every which way. For once I'm not unhappy about it. There's alot to still be decided and discussed but I'm becoming more sure every day, that no matter what comes of this, everything will work out for the best. :)

Also: umbc fails at snow and ice removal.

Peace y'all.

P.S. Common Sense Life Lesson: Heels and ice are not a good combination. Then again, since when am I the one to choose practicality over style?