college

Backward and Forward

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This morning, I went to bed about 2 AM, planning on waking up around 8 for my counseling appointment at 9 AM. This was slightly delayed by my browsing the Internet via my phone until about 2:30, but I had set my alarm clock and a timer on my phone for 8 AM.

For the third time, that didn’t happen. I woke up at 8, but I turned off my phone’s alarm, rolled over, and went back to sleep until 8:50. I decided to go ahead and go, started getting ready to drive to campus, and then, about 8:55, I realized that if I left my apartment about 9, I would make it to campus at 9:15 and then it’d be a few more minutes to walk to the counseling center. I decided this didn’t seem worth it, so I went ahead and called the counseling center, talked for a few minutes to the counselor I’ve been meeting with, and for the third time we rescheduled for the same time next week (even though we haven’t actually met since April 9).

Needless to say, this was frustrating. This general mood wasn’t helped by going to campus anyway to meet my brother for lunch. While walking around campus and eating in the student union, I felt like I was enjoying people watching too much. The good news on that front, at least, is that taking classes this summer and fall should mean that I’ll have some potential for being around people that isn’t while at work. At one point I also started wondering what it would be like if I could either start college all over again, with a blank transcript, or at least have followed a more “traditional” path by going to one school, finding something I wanted to major in, and then staying at that school until graduation (4-6+ years, finances depending), as opposed to my college experience to date of going to a university I liked, majoring in something I didn’t like after the first week, leaving that school after a year, taking two years off in the work force, and then taking classes at one school before transferring to yet another university. Third time’s the charm?

I distinctly remember, the first semester of my freshman year, deciding I didn’t enjoy being a computer science major. In retrospect, I really should have talked to someone about it, instead of continuing to attend classes I disliked and, in general, not being the most diligent student. It would be nice if I had been more motivated and interested freshman year (particularly second semester – my worst semester to date), but it seems like half of college, if not young adult life in general, is learning how to navigate bureaucracy, or at least large, impersonal structures. Even if you don’t go to college, and instead go to the military or the workforce, there’s probably some element of that involved.

Anyway, it could be worse. My current Business Applications class, as I’ve written here before, is easy, and aside from two quizzes I’ve taken recently my current grade is almost 99%. I’m not too concerned. In contrast to the spring 2010 semester, where I stopped attending most of my classes by mid-February and was a mess at the end of the semester (if not earlier), this semester has been okay, disagreeable writing class and my own failings excepted. Once I take the writing class this summer, my GPA will improve, and next fall German and Accounting should, hopefully, be more interesting (or at least easy).

Non-academically, the last few weeks at work have been a bit rough between people quitting or leaving, so we’ve been short-handed. New people have been hired, though, so aside from training them (which I thankfully haven’t had to do recently) it sounds like being short-handed might be less of a problem. Tomorrow’s pay day, which will be nice until my paycheck promptly vanishes to pay rent and bills. C’est la vie. I believe I have the next couple days off, though, so that’ll be nice.

I’m not a huge fan of summer, due to not enjoying warm weather, insects, and sunlight, but the weather recently has been pleasant, even if I prefer autumn or winter. In general, it could be worse- for example, I don’t live in Nepal, Syria, or the territory claimed by the self-styled “Islamic State”, and (unlike the characters of Revolution, which I’ve started watching again) I have access to the Internet and modern conveniences.

Writing this makes me feel like I need a “mental health” or “venting” tag. “Life” suddenly seems way too broad as a category and tag.

clouds lifting

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I just dropped the writing class that I’ve had issues with this semester (and my freshman year and last summer, but I digress). My semester is looking much better, if only because I enjoy how easy my business applications class is. Doing the week’s assignments in an hour on campus? Sure, it seems futile and absurd to expect Excel and Access 2013 to apply whenever I manage to get a job that actually involves using “productivity” software (as opposed to cooking utensils, like my current job), but who knows, maybe after I graduate I’ll have an IT job with a company that’s still using a ten-year-old Microsoft Office version.

Of course, before that happens, I still have like another 60-odd hours left before I graduate.

(laugh track)

Considering the vital place the aforementioned writing class holds in the requirements and curriculum, I’m currently thinking about trying to take it this summer, or at least during a future semester (next spring?) in a “traditional” classroom setting. Continue reading →

writing about my problems

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Mid-term grades came out today, and there were no surprises. There have been previous semesters where I don’t really know how I’m doing until I’m pleasantly (or unpleasantly) surprised by my mid-term grade (I’ve never really been an academic perfectionist, and this has been particularly true in college), but this semester, I was pretty sure that my grades would reflect the effort I’ve been putting into my classes. Being able to do my business applications assignments for the week in about an hour at the library works a lot better for my underdeveloped study skills and inconsistent motivation than the much more open-ended assignments for my writing class (which I believe I’ve written about here before). Now I don’t know why I didn’t just suck it up and do most of the assignments for the first half of the semester, but a very consistent theme in my education, since at least kindergarten, is that I have a low opinion of and interest in anything that seems stupid, which is effectively synonymous with anything I’ve already learned. Continue reading →

frustration

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As anyone who has paid attention to my various social media accounts is probably aware, and as I’ve probably already said multiple times here, I really don’t like the writing class I’m taking this semester. On the one hand, I like talking about myself (or my problems, as appropriate), but on the other hand I also don’t like feeling like I whine too much, which is probably why I’ve almost exclusively limited my complaints to social media, my parents, and other mostly textual media. I could make whiny posts on Facebook every day, but I don’t, because I see enough boring/stupid/mundane posts (on a side note, I might be a slight Facebook addict) every day, and my posts that seem to most consistently get “likes” and other interaction generally seem to be puns, humor, and other relatively innocuous fare. At work, if anyone asks me how I’m doing or what’s going on, I generally reply with something vague and uninformative like “nothing much”, because I’d rather not extensively talk about my problems, nobody cares (or so I’m convinced), and it’s innocent small talk.

Getting back on topic, some reading about motivation and study habits has given me a few ideas for potential solutions, or at least things to try. One thing I read recently suggested having separate areas for “work” and recreation, which I think merits investigation. I know I’m easily distracted (as is evidenced by habitually keeping many browser tabs open, among other things), and when working from my desk in my room it’s all too easy to open a new tab and check Facebook (for example) if I get bored (which, with this writing class, is frequently). I seem to remember hearing this suggestion from at least one (and probably both, realistically) of my parents during my freshman year of university, though I don’t remember doing so. I do seem to remember visiting the library at least once, but I think I usually tried to just do my homework in my dorm room (and we can see how well that turned out).

Another solution I’ve been considering that I’ve read (and also probably been told before) is scheduling time to work on classes. There may be people who are disciplined enough to do their online classes right after waking up at sunrise, get everything done at once, and then enjoy their day, but realistically speaking I am not one of them (and not just because I’m a night owl who dislikes having to sleep at all). Time management, organization, and a few other things are, historically speaking, among my weaknesses. (See also social interaction, empathy, and non-verbal communication, but I digress)

I thought there were a few other things I wanted to try, but between my counseling appointment this morning (which mostly seemed to focus on being involved on campus, and not so much my recent lack of interest in my boring classes) and now, writing a blog entry some fifteen hours later (almost two hours after I got off work), I seem to have forgotten them. Making to-do lists was something discussed this morning, I can remember at least that much. I know I’ve tried it before, but my problem is generally that I then proceed to ignore the to-do list after making it, as if I’ve achieved something simply by writing it down, and writing it down will make it happen. Sadly, I’m afraid that works better for fiction than to-do lists.

I’ve also been thinking lately that I spend too much time on Facebook, or at least look at it too frequently – if I only looked at it once a day, or even less, it would no doubt be more interesting than my current practice of looking at it at least a few times a day, if not at least once every couple of hours or so.

I remember being frustrated at work tonight while I was thinking about my frustration with myself and how every class I’ve taken at my current university has been easy, but (for the most part) I haven’t really been applying myself. Of course, as I may have written here before, I’ve noticed there’s a very strong correlation between my grade in a class and my interest in a class (easy and/or interesting? A! Relatively easy, but requiring lots of study and memorization? B or C, maybe). One of these days (if not this semester), I’m going to exhaust the gen eds and start taking upper-level courses, which will, maybe hopefully eventually, be more interesting.

I’m beginning to run out of things to say, and it is, after all, 2 in the morning, so I should probably go get ready for bed. This week I’ve been fighting a cold, and after being congested today I’m hoping that it’s on its last legs. Maybe tomorrow, or the next day, I’ll wake up and this rhinovirus will have been defeated.

Tedium

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Hindsight, as the saying goes, is 20/20. This, among other reasons, is probably why I’m increasingly convinced that I should have talked to someone about my academic problems during my freshman year of college, instead of continuing to take computer science classes that I disliked and, eventually, losing interest in most of my classes.

At the time (has it really been five years?), I believe I wanted to keep a nice scholarship that involved being a computer science major, but in retrospect it wouldn’t have been the end of the world to try living off-campus and (much as I’ve been doing recently) work while only taking classes as I can afford to pay for them.

I distinctly remember, during the first week of class my freshman year, in the computer science class I was taking the professor was talking about Boolean logic, among other things (conversion to and from binary? I don’t remember what else now), and at one point I decided I didn’t like being a computer science major.

Again, in retrospect, I should have gone to the counseling center, or mentioned it to my parents, or talked to a friend, or done almost anything other than what I actually did – continue going to class, not apply myself, eventually get a tutor, and I think I ended the class somewhere in the C range. Lack of study skills aside, at least in the first two weeks or whatever I could have, relatively painlessly, switched to being a chemistry major, or a biology major, or even an undecided major.

Instead, I continued going to classes I disliked, not applying myself, and shortly after the start of the second semester I completely stopped going to most of my classes, because freshman writing, trigonometry, and another programming class failed to interest me. I only went to the first day of the writing class (and another day much later in the semester), and I seem to remember attending trigonometry and the Java class until at least mid-February, after which I believe I stopped attending those classes.

I’m mainly writing and thinking about this right now because the alternative is working on my current writing class, which just seems completely pointless and boring. Maybe it’d be different if I were taking it in a classroom with an interesting teacher, but it’s really hard for me to be interested in anything I find boring (like, for example, freshman writing).

I need to figure out a way to weaken the very strong correlation between my interest in a class and my eventual grade in that class, and if nothing else it’s hard for everything to always be interesting and exciting (as my current job proves).

Tonight I get to work the cash register at work for a full shift. I’m very introverted, and immensely dislike being a cashier to begin with, but Mondays usually aren’t too busy, and as I learned last night I’ll have more help than I originally thought I would. Thankfully, tomorrow I’m back in the kitchen for a short shift, and then I have Wednesday and Friday off, if I remember correctly.

Still it moves

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I am indeed still alive. I’m not entirely sure why I’d forgotten about this blog, but a friend recently posting an entry about her two-week hiatus from Facebook to her WordPress blog reminded me that I too have a WordPress blog. After skimming my previous entries, I realized I hadn’t written anything here for almost six months.

In early August 2014, I moved with my roommate to a new apartment, and about a week after we moved my brother moved to the same city I’ve been living in for a year and a half now (!) to attend university. In contrast to my half-time academic status, he’s a full-time student and, if I remember correctly, his goal is going into sports medicine (or physical therapy or something like that).

I’m having trouble thinking of any major events from the last six months, but I guess there doesn’t always have to be something exciting. (Below the cut: What I’ve been doing since July 2014) Continue reading →

Long Time, No See

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I had pretty much forgotten I had this blog until one day recently, when I saw an e-mail in my inbox, with the subject line saying something about the impending expiration of the domain name.

A lot has happened in the almost five months since I’ve last written anything here, and I’m not quite sure where to begin.
Right now, the spring semester is beginning to wind down, and I have my last tests of the semester (before finals) this week, I think. There are two weeks left in my semester, plus a few days until my final exams. I haven’t worked as hard as I should this semester, and at this point I’m ready for the semester to be over and done with so I can focus on starting (and succeeding in) new classes.

In addition to my lackluster academic performance, I’ve also been working about 32 hours a week for the last couple of months, and I’ve had a couple of car accidents. Thankfully, nobody was injured, but I’m sure the wrecks are (or have been, or will be) reflected in my car insurance costs somehow.

Briefly:
The first weekend of February, I took a brief road trip to see some college friends. After staying up late Saturday night, and meeting them for brunch Sunday morning, I started driving home early Sunday afternoon. As I drove south, I encountered snow as I drove into a large city, and after navigating traffic in said city, and other wrecks, I was probably driving too fast, and while trying to change lanes and pass someone (I think), I went off the road and hit the median barrier in the middle of the highway shortly after leaving said city. I was physically unhurt, mentally shaken, nobody else was involved, and cursing my own stupidity. Other than a couple of state troopers who checked to make sure I was okay and a guy in an army uniform who offered me a drink or a cigarette, I think I spent about an hour in my car on the side of the road before a guy roughly my age (early-mid 20s) with a pickup truck and chain offered to pull me back onto the road for $20. He pulled me back onto the road without too much trouble, and I managed to drive a little bit further before I had to pull over. My car wouldn’t travel any further, because (as it turned out) my transmission line had been broken, and my front bumper had been torn off. I called a tow truck, who pulled my car to a local body shop and (after I made a couple phone calls and made arrangements) dropped me off at a friend’s apartment, where I spent Sunday night and most of Monday before my roommate came and picked me up after he got off work Monday evening. I hated feeling like I was imposing on my friend’s hospitality, but I didn’t mind watching the Olympics and talking to her, so that could have been worse. According to the car shop, it was going to cost $3000 something to fix the car, and since it was a 1999 Ford Taurus with 136 thousand miles on it (and therefore worth maybe about $1000), it wouldn’t have been worth fixing all of the damage.
Going a week without a car wasn’t fun, but eventually my parents brought another car down for me.

Just over a month later, on St. Patrick’s Day, I was in a hurry and worried about running late on the first day back from spring break, so I didn’t clean enough of the frost off my windshield and ended up hitting another car at the stoplight right outside my apartment complex’s parking lot. My airbag deployed, and again, luckily nobody was injured (other than the car I was driving getting a dented hood, and the Ford Mustang in front of me), but then I was worried about having to go to traffic court (once the police officer gave me a ticket). After that, I had no interest in continuing with my day as scheduled, so I returned to my apartment.
I drove that car around for a couple more weeks until (about a month ago) my parents brought down another car and the car I had been driving was taken away because the insurance company decided to total it out. (2006 Chevrolet HHR, worth about $7000, estimated about $5000 to fix, plus whatever needed fixed under the hood)

Basically, I’ve been sort of in the used car market for almost two months now, though I’ve really only gotten semi-serious about thinking what I want in roughly the last week. As with the current state of the semester, at this point (and I’ve been here for a while) I’m ready to find a car and start making payments so I don’t have to worry about deciding what I want or trying not to wreck the car I’m driving now. Since it’s spring, though, I shouldn’t have to worry about snow, ice, frost, or anything worse than wind, rain, or hail. Even then, driving in rain is different than driving through snow, ice, or any other form of frozen water.

That seems as good of a place as any to leave this entry. I have a couple of tests I should probably go study for, even if I’d rather play Crusader Kings II all night.