Update time!
Ok so I made it through finals and did not perish in the process. I did have to use my one time withdrawl on O-Chem 2... which sucked but at the same time I'm glad that I still have my scholarship, which would not have been the case had I taken the final.
As far as TA-ing goes, I really have even less clue as to what is going on now then I did at the last blog post. For a while I had the econ TA job for sure, but due to some changes in class times I had to switch into a class that I was most likely going to be TA-ing in, so yeah. I have no clue as to whether I'll still be elligible to TA or not. The other two I still have no clue about and haven't heard about at all.
After about a month and a half of intensive job hunting, I managed to get a job for the summer and assuming I don't royally screw up, or get laid off, for the rest of the summers and J-terms. I'm a custodian at the school district, it pays better than I expected, I can return to it next summer and over J-term, it's full time, and it's hard-but-an-awesome-work-out type work that I both hate and love. Woot no more job hunting for me!! (Job hunting is my second most hated thing to do, the first being selling things door to door)
That's just about it for now... Cheerio! (I honestly don't know why I decided to do that, but once the thought occured to me I could not deny it)
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Stress fractures
Life does not look bright at the moment... Finals are approaching, next year's classes are already causing me stress, and this semester's are far from done with their stress hold on my life. Just off the top of my head I have a paper and 3 tests coming up, as well as a choir audition, a choir concert, a sign language concert and 3 potential TA positions for next year to worry about.
This isn't even the half of it though, because that's only the school aspect of my life. My personal life is all sorts of conflicts, indecision, and over thinking. It's to the point where I found myself using game theory to try and help me to decide... and it actually helped a little bit. Whether this use of what I've been studying here in college is a good thing or not I don't know, but one thing is certain. I'm a huge nerd.
Getting back to classes... O-chem is the cause of the majority of my stress lately. I love and hate that class at the same time. I love how much that class makes me think and teaches me. I hate the fact that I can't get a decent grade to save my life in that class. The teacher is great and gets the information into my head, but on tests I have a tendency to not remember anything and basically spend the first 30 minutes of every test or quiz getting my mental gears turning in the right direction. By the end of the allotted time I am flying through mechanisms I know and trudging through the ones that I'm not so confident in. Which would be fine, except I'm still only half way done with the test and the time is up.
Another cause of my abhorrent grade in O-chem is the fact that no one is there to stop me if I start to go down the wrong path. In class assignments are easy for me, I throw out mechanisms and possible synthesises and people around me can stop me if I go down the wrong road. On tests I don't have this nifty little safety net. So instead of finishing easily I find myself with a brick wall between me and the desired product. I think that's enough O-chem rant for now...
Next semester I won't be able to be in u-choir because of my schedule. I kind of knew it would happen eventually, but it still sucks. Given this lack of u-choir I've determined that I am going to try out for the concert choir. This audition is making me very worried. For one, the audition itself is not something I will enjoy. I hate preforming in front of people. This is the reason I've never and probably will never do a solo. The thought of me singing just by myself in front of people... it just doesn't agree with me. I could sing in front of my choir without a problem, but when there are people who don't hear me sing on a daily basis present I suddenly have issues.
The other thing about the audition that scares me is the concert choir's inherent stuck-up-ness. Whether I am worried more by the possible rejection of these would be peers, or the possibility that I would become one of them, I don't know. And of course none of this even matters if I don't get into the choir in the first place.
As mentioned earlier, I am thinking of being a TA next year. Where I do the TAing is one question, and the other is if I will get paid or not. I am choosing between ASL, biology and economics. I basically know that if I do ASL I won't get paid for it, since that program is having a hard enough time paying the professor much less the optional TAs. In biology I could probably get paid since the sciences are huge here in Morris. Economics is pretty much a toss-up. I was asked to TA this semester, but said no when I found out I wouldn't be paid. So if I get a job as an economics TA it would mean that I wouldn't necessarily be paid.
Well, I think that's it for this post. I'm stressed out in case you can't tell, and sleep sounds like a really good idea. Also I may be coming down with a cold, so sleep would help that too. To sum up: O-chem blows, girls confuse me, and jobs that don't pay kind of suck.
This isn't even the half of it though, because that's only the school aspect of my life. My personal life is all sorts of conflicts, indecision, and over thinking. It's to the point where I found myself using game theory to try and help me to decide... and it actually helped a little bit. Whether this use of what I've been studying here in college is a good thing or not I don't know, but one thing is certain. I'm a huge nerd.
Getting back to classes... O-chem is the cause of the majority of my stress lately. I love and hate that class at the same time. I love how much that class makes me think and teaches me. I hate the fact that I can't get a decent grade to save my life in that class. The teacher is great and gets the information into my head, but on tests I have a tendency to not remember anything and basically spend the first 30 minutes of every test or quiz getting my mental gears turning in the right direction. By the end of the allotted time I am flying through mechanisms I know and trudging through the ones that I'm not so confident in. Which would be fine, except I'm still only half way done with the test and the time is up.
Another cause of my abhorrent grade in O-chem is the fact that no one is there to stop me if I start to go down the wrong path. In class assignments are easy for me, I throw out mechanisms and possible synthesises and people around me can stop me if I go down the wrong road. On tests I don't have this nifty little safety net. So instead of finishing easily I find myself with a brick wall between me and the desired product. I think that's enough O-chem rant for now...
Next semester I won't be able to be in u-choir because of my schedule. I kind of knew it would happen eventually, but it still sucks. Given this lack of u-choir I've determined that I am going to try out for the concert choir. This audition is making me very worried. For one, the audition itself is not something I will enjoy. I hate preforming in front of people. This is the reason I've never and probably will never do a solo. The thought of me singing just by myself in front of people... it just doesn't agree with me. I could sing in front of my choir without a problem, but when there are people who don't hear me sing on a daily basis present I suddenly have issues.
The other thing about the audition that scares me is the concert choir's inherent stuck-up-ness. Whether I am worried more by the possible rejection of these would be peers, or the possibility that I would become one of them, I don't know. And of course none of this even matters if I don't get into the choir in the first place.
As mentioned earlier, I am thinking of being a TA next year. Where I do the TAing is one question, and the other is if I will get paid or not. I am choosing between ASL, biology and economics. I basically know that if I do ASL I won't get paid for it, since that program is having a hard enough time paying the professor much less the optional TAs. In biology I could probably get paid since the sciences are huge here in Morris. Economics is pretty much a toss-up. I was asked to TA this semester, but said no when I found out I wouldn't be paid. So if I get a job as an economics TA it would mean that I wouldn't necessarily be paid.
Well, I think that's it for this post. I'm stressed out in case you can't tell, and sleep sounds like a really good idea. Also I may be coming down with a cold, so sleep would help that too. To sum up: O-chem blows, girls confuse me, and jobs that don't pay kind of suck.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Cycles, and not the motor kind.
Last night I realized something about myself. I change a lot. In elementary school I was a pretty popular kid. Being huge into football at the time certainly helped, but I was also just more social. I knew and was friends with just about everyone in my grade as well as a few people outside of my grade.
When I moved to middle school, I became much less social, and only had a small group of very close friends. I still knew just about everyone, but I wouldn't consider them friends. Looking back I know part of that is due to the fact that I was the new kid, but even after that wore off I still wasn't very popular.
In high school I was quickly made popular again. By the end of my senior year I was once again able to say that I knew and was at least casual friends with just about everyone in my grade. This is a much greater claim than that of elementary school, since my graduating class in high school was basically was 10x that of elementary school.
Now that I am in college, I can see myself starting to pull back into the less social, closer group of friends mode that was predominant in middle school. I'm not sure whether this is a good or bad thing though.
There is the glamour aspect of popularity that makes everyone strive to be more popular. And though it's cliched, at least in my experience, when I was popular I didn't actually have many friends. Well at least not good ones anyway. How many of the hundreds of people from high school that I considered friends at the time do I still talk to? How many do I still hangout with? How many of them were there for me when I needed them? Maybe a handful.
I guess the moral of the story is that, even though it's politically correct to say it, don't worry about being popular. It only ends up messing you up and screwing with you.
Ironically I started writing this blog as sort of call to action for myself. I was going to point out that in both high school and elementary school I was very involved in extra curriculars, while when I was in middle school and college I only did curriculars. This link, I was going to claim, is the reason I needed to become more involved in my school's extra curriculars.
However, as I write these words, I've come to realize that popularity isn't something I want all that much. While popularity does offer some nifty perks: it was easier to get dates, a big friend list etc. I don't want those types of things anymore, at least not if I have to pay the price of losing actual friends to attain it.
I'm not saying do or don't be involved in extra curriculars, but chose them carefully. Don't overextend yourself, because one: you'll get worn out and two: those people that you consider to be your friends today may not be there tomorrow if you don't put in the effort to grow the relationship.
So in closing, pick your friends and, by extension, your extra curriculars carefully. Well that's it for me, I'm off to Quidditch practice.
When I moved to middle school, I became much less social, and only had a small group of very close friends. I still knew just about everyone, but I wouldn't consider them friends. Looking back I know part of that is due to the fact that I was the new kid, but even after that wore off I still wasn't very popular.
In high school I was quickly made popular again. By the end of my senior year I was once again able to say that I knew and was at least casual friends with just about everyone in my grade. This is a much greater claim than that of elementary school, since my graduating class in high school was basically was 10x that of elementary school.
Now that I am in college, I can see myself starting to pull back into the less social, closer group of friends mode that was predominant in middle school. I'm not sure whether this is a good or bad thing though.
There is the glamour aspect of popularity that makes everyone strive to be more popular. And though it's cliched, at least in my experience, when I was popular I didn't actually have many friends. Well at least not good ones anyway. How many of the hundreds of people from high school that I considered friends at the time do I still talk to? How many do I still hangout with? How many of them were there for me when I needed them? Maybe a handful.
I guess the moral of the story is that, even though it's politically correct to say it, don't worry about being popular. It only ends up messing you up and screwing with you.
Ironically I started writing this blog as sort of call to action for myself. I was going to point out that in both high school and elementary school I was very involved in extra curriculars, while when I was in middle school and college I only did curriculars. This link, I was going to claim, is the reason I needed to become more involved in my school's extra curriculars.
However, as I write these words, I've come to realize that popularity isn't something I want all that much. While popularity does offer some nifty perks: it was easier to get dates, a big friend list etc. I don't want those types of things anymore, at least not if I have to pay the price of losing actual friends to attain it.
I'm not saying do or don't be involved in extra curriculars, but chose them carefully. Don't overextend yourself, because one: you'll get worn out and two: those people that you consider to be your friends today may not be there tomorrow if you don't put in the effort to grow the relationship.
So in closing, pick your friends and, by extension, your extra curriculars carefully. Well that's it for me, I'm off to Quidditch practice.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Long days and short nights
Finals time is drawing nearer, and I can tell. I've been semi-sick/semi-allergy-attacked for the past week or so. Classes are reaching the point where they cram more curriculum into each day, and more assignments into each week. All of this leads to one thing: extreme tiredness.
Last night I only managed 4 hours of sleep, since I was working on a biology paper until 2am and had an O-chem test at 7:30 this morning. I'm sure the rest of the semester will mimic last night. It always does.
Finals week never used to bother me. In high school I would just coast by on what I knew. I didn't have to try and jam new information in with the old. That is one of the defining aspects of college in my experience. In high school the week leading up to finals was nothing but review. For that matter that was true for almost all of the chapter tests as well. Now that I am in college, we're lucky to get even a day for review before the test. Instead, we frantically cram new information into our brains.
This leads me to address any professors out there: is it really that hard to shift stuff around and thus make time for some review? I mean come on, it's not like the new information couldn't have found it's way into lectures over the past 4 months!
Rant aside, I haven't been doing too much outside of school in my life lately. The one exception: Ground Quidditch. It is epic.
Last night I only managed 4 hours of sleep, since I was working on a biology paper until 2am and had an O-chem test at 7:30 this morning. I'm sure the rest of the semester will mimic last night. It always does.
Finals week never used to bother me. In high school I would just coast by on what I knew. I didn't have to try and jam new information in with the old. That is one of the defining aspects of college in my experience. In high school the week leading up to finals was nothing but review. For that matter that was true for almost all of the chapter tests as well. Now that I am in college, we're lucky to get even a day for review before the test. Instead, we frantically cram new information into our brains.
This leads me to address any professors out there: is it really that hard to shift stuff around and thus make time for some review? I mean come on, it's not like the new information couldn't have found it's way into lectures over the past 4 months!
Rant aside, I haven't been doing too much outside of school in my life lately. The one exception: Ground Quidditch. It is epic.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Blog purging
I'm removing some of the old posts that seemed out of place. I can't figure out how to delete them all together, but I can delete the text, the comments and any links. You'll never know what was written there muhahaha.
Mainly things were deleted because I was stupid when I wrote them, or they were pointless.
Mainly things were deleted because I was stupid when I wrote them, or they were pointless.
Friday, March 19, 2010
The Fairer Sex
So my grandma passed away recently and this last weekend was the funeral. I feel horrible, because I don't feel horrible... not that makes an ounce of sense... It's not like I didn't love my grandma because I did and still do. She was an amazing woman who was ALWAYS there for me. She died peacefully, and without pain and I'm sure that if anyone is getting to heaven it's her. So, I don't really feel all that bad about her passing, and yet, when I see other people (cousins, aunts and so forth) grieve I feel horrible because I don't have the need to cry, and mourn...
Anyway, Spring break is here, and much better scheduled than last year, I actually had friends that I could hangout with this time. Last year Morris had a wierd break that did not collude with that of any of my friends. So yeah, this year was much better.
I've gotten to hangout with two friends and go bowling, help another friend with his Eagle Scout Project, and today I went back to high school and got to revisit ASL Club. My old ASL teacher even tried to set me up with one of the members, as her date to prom... which I said no to. Prom is just bad memories to me. Also I can't really dance all that well. As I was leaving the high school though, I did rethink it. The girl in question is quite attractive to me. She's got a lot of things in common with me and she has a great personality and sense of humor... The only problem was, keep in mind that I was driving home at the time and couldn't ask someone covertly, I could not for the life of me remember her name >.<
I've never been good with names, especially names belonging to members of the fairer sex. I think this is because they are all one of like 10 names just with different spellings and nicknames. Anyway, I searched frantically for 3 hours pouring over my yearbook to try and find her picture and thus learn her name. Sadly, I could not find her. I did, however, find two of her friends, and tried to use their facebook profiles to learn her name. Again lady luck avoided me.
Eventually I gave up the pursuit and chalked it up to fate. (I had met her last summer and had the same problem, though I was not as hung up about it then) I went downstairs to watch movies with my family and tried to forget about the loss of the potential relationship.
After the family time I returned to my room and within seconds found her in the yearbook. It just so happens that I left it open to the right page, and happened to glance at it. I don't know what's gonna happen, but if nothing else it made me believe in God even more.
That also happens to be one of the things we both have in common. We're both Catholic, so coming full circle, my grandma would approve.
Anyway, Spring break is here, and much better scheduled than last year, I actually had friends that I could hangout with this time. Last year Morris had a wierd break that did not collude with that of any of my friends. So yeah, this year was much better.
I've gotten to hangout with two friends and go bowling, help another friend with his Eagle Scout Project, and today I went back to high school and got to revisit ASL Club. My old ASL teacher even tried to set me up with one of the members, as her date to prom... which I said no to. Prom is just bad memories to me. Also I can't really dance all that well. As I was leaving the high school though, I did rethink it. The girl in question is quite attractive to me. She's got a lot of things in common with me and she has a great personality and sense of humor... The only problem was, keep in mind that I was driving home at the time and couldn't ask someone covertly, I could not for the life of me remember her name >.<
I've never been good with names, especially names belonging to members of the fairer sex. I think this is because they are all one of like 10 names just with different spellings and nicknames. Anyway, I searched frantically for 3 hours pouring over my yearbook to try and find her picture and thus learn her name. Sadly, I could not find her. I did, however, find two of her friends, and tried to use their facebook profiles to learn her name. Again lady luck avoided me.
Eventually I gave up the pursuit and chalked it up to fate. (I had met her last summer and had the same problem, though I was not as hung up about it then) I went downstairs to watch movies with my family and tried to forget about the loss of the potential relationship.
After the family time I returned to my room and within seconds found her in the yearbook. It just so happens that I left it open to the right page, and happened to glance at it. I don't know what's gonna happen, but if nothing else it made me believe in God even more.
That also happens to be one of the things we both have in common. We're both Catholic, so coming full circle, my grandma would approve.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Drama: not just for your mama anymore
So it's the time of year here in Morris when people have to figure out where and with who they are living next year. I've been privy to the scandalous behavior of my friends as the go behind other people's backs, and try to find housing with different people, or try to leave someone they've been stuck with all year out. I didn't envy them.
I hate confrontations, and this year has already had a few because of one of my additional roommates. Long story short, he smells and never picks up after himself. And that is saying a lot when you take into account the fact that my original roommate and I have always enjoyed a good bout of flatulation. I mean our first real male bonding experience was playing fart tennis.
Anyways, back to the scheming and plotting. My roommate and I have been screwed over by ORL (the office of residential life) two years in a row now. Last year they added two additional roommates to our apartment, one of which was the roommate from hell, and the other is actually a pretty cool guy. This year ORL decided to make 2 person apartments illegal, and 3 person apartments are discouraged.
We've decided that despite the risk of getting another person thrown into our apartment we're going to attempt to get a 3 person apartment. Herein lies the scheming. Trying to contact the other roommate without also getting the attention of the roommate from hell. We finally managed to get together for a group plotting session. Humorously the key to discreteness was found to be facebook chat.
Having been part of this makes me feel both like incredibly sneaky and kind of traitorous. Not exactly things I would normally have prided myself. Yet, when you combine those things you get a ninja so I'm ok with that.
I hate confrontations, and this year has already had a few because of one of my additional roommates. Long story short, he smells and never picks up after himself. And that is saying a lot when you take into account the fact that my original roommate and I have always enjoyed a good bout of flatulation. I mean our first real male bonding experience was playing fart tennis.
Anyways, back to the scheming and plotting. My roommate and I have been screwed over by ORL (the office of residential life) two years in a row now. Last year they added two additional roommates to our apartment, one of which was the roommate from hell, and the other is actually a pretty cool guy. This year ORL decided to make 2 person apartments illegal, and 3 person apartments are discouraged.
We've decided that despite the risk of getting another person thrown into our apartment we're going to attempt to get a 3 person apartment. Herein lies the scheming. Trying to contact the other roommate without also getting the attention of the roommate from hell. We finally managed to get together for a group plotting session. Humorously the key to discreteness was found to be facebook chat.
Having been part of this makes me feel both like incredibly sneaky and kind of traitorous. Not exactly things I would normally have prided myself. Yet, when you combine those things you get a ninja so I'm ok with that.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
I have been changed for good.
I've been watching Glee and that makes me wonder how different my life would have been in high school and after if I'd been in choir from my freshman year. Also in choir we are singing For Good from Wicked, which makes me think about my friends and how my life would be different if I hadn't met them. So yeah, lately I've been reflecting on my life a lot.
The things I regret most were the things I didn't get to do, like not joining choir and ASL club sooner. Those two activities were a huge part of my senior year, and they were both things that I enjoyed immensely. They also changed my outlook on life and life itself.
I'll never know how different I would have been had I made different decisions in my life. This saddens me immensely. Maybe if I had joined choir sooner I would be more outgoing or more charismatic. On the other hand, maybe I would've hated it and quit, thus robbing me of my terrific experience in my senior year. I'll never know.
So tonight as I laid in bed pondering these thought, I decided that from now on I'm going to try to be more active here in Morris. They don't have a wrestling team here, and I know that I don't want to play football for anything other than fun. I'm already in University Choir, and have no intention of joining the concert choir (because they are quite frankly stuck up) So what does that leave me?
They do have an ASL club of sorts, but they meet off campus and I never manage to remember when they meet. They also have the Biology club, which is another possibility, but again I can never remember when they meet. Alternatively I could just spend more time with friends and actually interact with them on a consistent basis... I feel as if we've drifted this year.
This blog doesn't really have any kind of deep, profound meaning to it, but not everything in life needs to be deep and profound. Sometimes it's the little things that really don't make that much of a difference at the time that turn out to be huge steps towards a completely new part of your life.
Long story short, choir and ASL club are great ways to go if you're anything like me, and life's too short not to try everything. After all, it's like when you were a little kid. Try just one bite, if you don't like the first taste you can always just spit it out and say "ewww, I'm never eating that again." But if you never taste it how can you know? Exactly, you can't.
Darn, some deep profound meaning managed to sneak in there after all.
The things I regret most were the things I didn't get to do, like not joining choir and ASL club sooner. Those two activities were a huge part of my senior year, and they were both things that I enjoyed immensely. They also changed my outlook on life and life itself.
I'll never know how different I would have been had I made different decisions in my life. This saddens me immensely. Maybe if I had joined choir sooner I would be more outgoing or more charismatic. On the other hand, maybe I would've hated it and quit, thus robbing me of my terrific experience in my senior year. I'll never know.
So tonight as I laid in bed pondering these thought, I decided that from now on I'm going to try to be more active here in Morris. They don't have a wrestling team here, and I know that I don't want to play football for anything other than fun. I'm already in University Choir, and have no intention of joining the concert choir (because they are quite frankly stuck up) So what does that leave me?
They do have an ASL club of sorts, but they meet off campus and I never manage to remember when they meet. They also have the Biology club, which is another possibility, but again I can never remember when they meet. Alternatively I could just spend more time with friends and actually interact with them on a consistent basis... I feel as if we've drifted this year.
This blog doesn't really have any kind of deep, profound meaning to it, but not everything in life needs to be deep and profound. Sometimes it's the little things that really don't make that much of a difference at the time that turn out to be huge steps towards a completely new part of your life.
Long story short, choir and ASL club are great ways to go if you're anything like me, and life's too short not to try everything. After all, it's like when you were a little kid. Try just one bite, if you don't like the first taste you can always just spit it out and say "ewww, I'm never eating that again." But if you never taste it how can you know? Exactly, you can't.
Darn, some deep profound meaning managed to sneak in there after all.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Bond, James Bond
I went to Alexandria last week with one of my friends from college. It's the nearest city to Morris so every now and then people go there to either buy stuff or just get away from the smell of cow that seems to pervade Morris during most of the year. Anyway, we went there to go to Gamestop and sell some games. I had a craptastic Wii game (Counter Force) and my friend had a couple of other older games that we wanted to get rid of. So when we arrived at Gamestop with a stack of about 8 games, we figured that it would be about enough to pay for a new game. It was nowhere near being enough.
Apparently Gamestop decided that Xbox originals weren't selling well enough anymore, so they stopped buying and carrying them. That I can understand, it's simple economics. But the next part is the part that befuddles me. After the Xbox originals were eliminated we still had 4 games to sell his 3 360 titles and my Wii title. We were offered a grand total of... $6.00 for the four of them. That was crap.
Frustrated by this, but not willing to let it ruin the Alex trip we said never mind and decided to look at what the Gamestop was selling. While we perused the game racks we came across Call of Duty 3 for 360 which just so happens to be one of the titles my friend was trying to sell. They were selling it for $15.00. Now this just added to the amount of frustration and anger. They marked that game up by a ridiculous amount.
Long story short, Gamestop pissed me off.
After Gamestop we went to Target to see if we could find any good game deals there. We didn't. Target does not have a great selection of titles. Oh well. We then looked at the movie section. I bought the last two Bond movies. This now completes my collection. I am pleased.
We then returned to the all too familiar scent of bovine.
I'll end this with one last thought... O-chem blows.
Apparently Gamestop decided that Xbox originals weren't selling well enough anymore, so they stopped buying and carrying them. That I can understand, it's simple economics. But the next part is the part that befuddles me. After the Xbox originals were eliminated we still had 4 games to sell his 3 360 titles and my Wii title. We were offered a grand total of... $6.00 for the four of them. That was crap.
Frustrated by this, but not willing to let it ruin the Alex trip we said never mind and decided to look at what the Gamestop was selling. While we perused the game racks we came across Call of Duty 3 for 360 which just so happens to be one of the titles my friend was trying to sell. They were selling it for $15.00. Now this just added to the amount of frustration and anger. They marked that game up by a ridiculous amount.
Long story short, Gamestop pissed me off.
After Gamestop we went to Target to see if we could find any good game deals there. We didn't. Target does not have a great selection of titles. Oh well. We then looked at the movie section. I bought the last two Bond movies. This now completes my collection. I am pleased.
We then returned to the all too familiar scent of bovine.
I'll end this with one last thought... O-chem blows.
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