Back on Track

Today was fair. It wasn't too hard for a Monday and I realized in the middle of English that my discussion for political science was cancelled which gave me more time to fool around.

Just kidding, I did the readings for tomorrow's lecture and then I took the quiz for the readings. 

But in English we had peer workshops today and I wondered if people really cared. Sometimes people come off as nonchalant (though I'm not saying that as a blanket statement) which can be off putting. I don't want some person to edit my essay if they aren't serious. 

My essay gets work-shopped Wednesday. My essay needs a lot of work so I'm hoping they come in with good suggestions for me.

Aside from that, I think I can get back to blogging every day. 

Thanksgiving

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving and a great Black Friday. I couldn't have asked for more.

Hey Madeline

I have a bad cough. I'm not letting it bother me -- well, trying, anyway -- but it's hard not to notice the fits, the soreness in my chest, and the growing pain in my throat. 

In any case, I am actually feeling physically fine. I don't feel sick; I can still go about my daily activities (schoolwork, studying, etc.) but it's not exactly a blessing. For instance, I'm still eating whatever I want even though I should be sticking to the immune-system-boosting food groups like fruits and veggies. But who can say no to chocolate chip pancakes? Not I, madam.

I'm going home on Wednesday morning. I'll be in Chicago by Wednesday afternoon but I'm not sure if I'll be able to see you guys because Thanksgiving is a big holiday in my family. But, I miss you guys and if you make time to see me I will make sure that will happen. 

I took my second calc test, and it didn't go well. at all. yeah. let's not talk about that shit.

BUT 

I'm somewhat certain that I did well on my biology test. I finished with 15 minutes left unlike last time, when I finished at the end of the hour. 

I also have to start deciding my classes for next semester. I'm thinking:

-Bio 172/173 (molecular biology)

-Political Science 140 (Comparative Politics)

-Foreign Language (Russian, French, Italian, Spanish, Mandarin)

OR

-Chem 215/216 (organic chem)

-Econ 101

-Foreign Language (Russian, French, Italian, Spanish, Mandarin)

OR

-Chem 125/126 (gen chem)

-Econ 101
-Foreign Language (Russian, French, Italian, Spanish, Mandarin)

My dilemma with chem is that orgy chem is hard but I like econ and foreign language. I might add another class if I find one...I'm not exactly sure what else to take.

Coughing and Abs

Does coughing count as an ab exercise? Where I'm coming from is sort of the way laughing is an ab exercise, you know? I'm not really sick, but I am coughing to the point of distraction.

Like today, I was making a point about a writer's transition and I started coughing violently and I forgot what I was saying so I kind of just closed what I was saying with ,"so yeah." I hope I didn't come off as rude.

I've also been noticing that many of my classmates are coughing as well. I wonder, am I noticing they are coughing because I am coughing too, or have they had this cough before and passed it on to me? I'm thinking it's someone from the Blue Apple (the Blue Apple is basically what White Hen/7-11 is...but more so White Hen) because I didn't start studying there until this weekend and all of a sudden I can't stop coughing.

In any case, if coughing is a form of ab exercise...let's hope I'm not going to have a six pack by next week. (Or let's. you know. whatever).

11/11

I used to make wishes on 11:11. Probably because I was reminded to. I met a few people today while I was at Hillel, which is a place on campus for Jewish people to worship. Religion captures my interest but I'm currently not affiliated with anything. I learned that they worship in Hebrew, but I don't know if that's true for all Jews.

They also have free dinners every Friday after worship. I went today because my friend is Jewish, and she took me and my roommate to Hillel. After we finished eating, my roommate and I headed back to our dorm but, upon passing East Quad, we decided to visit a friend. We chatted for about ten minutes before heading back. Nothing too eventful--though way more eventful than sitting around doing nothing.

Genuine

I'm 18 years old and I am more insightful than I should be. I over-think. I take simple gestures, actions, and/or behaviors in my every day life and I tear them apart.

I don't try to be, though. I know it hurts me more than it helps me and my over analysis is something I tend to analyze as well. I'm confused by it, and probably will continue to be confused by it because I don't have any answers. Even though I don't have all the answers, I do have some guesses for my behavior.

Perhaps my raison d'etre is to analyze; it's to bring things onto a microscopic level as a way of "finding out." Maybe this is my answer to, "What's the meaning of life?"

Atypical

I got my first A on my second paper in college. I think I am more relieved than anything else. To know that I am capable of getting an A in on of my classes is a huge sigh of relief. It's kind of like when a tennis player goes a long time without winning tournaments -- it's a huge blow to your confidence. 

But I'm going to work even harder on my 3rd paper. It's going to be a cultural analysis/argument and the topic I'm going to write about is plastic surgery. It's one of the smaller contentious issues around, but I wanted something that was personal to me in a way that I won't end up writing about myself.

The last thing I want to say is after November 16th, I will do post everyday again. Right now I'm extremely stressed; I have two tests and two papers coming up (a cultural analysis and a research paper for bio) and I don't know what I'm going to do. I've never had to do this much work before in such short time (maybe I shouldn't have taken 16 credit hours...Lesson Learned).

I also will be turning in a political science paper tomorrow. I have been working hard on it and I hope it does better than my last one. I've revised it 4 times now since I completed it, and upon my last revision, I deleted last paragraph and conclusion...which you may think is counter-intuitive but I think my last paragraph and conclusion doesn't do anything to help my paper. I just hope I will be able to finish it.

Tennis and Priority

This weekend was a good balance of work and fun. I don't feel stressed at all, and I'm glad to say I'm on top of most my work. I'm really worried about my political science paper because it's worth 30% of my grade, but at the same time I'm not that worried because I have power ups I can use to bring up my grade just in case I completely mess up.

But I spent a long time researching about the articles I used, and I felt really passionate about the topic (it was about identity).

And then I played tennis with my friend. She's really good and I'm really rusty. We didn't complete our set but I was up 5-3 when we stopped. I'm afraid to put a lot of mustard on my shots because I'm afraid they will fly long. Hopefully I will get better.

It was good talking to a few of my friends from Chicago too. Knowing that they are also struggling makes me feel better about myself. NOT in the sense that I'm glad their struggling, but knowing that I'm not the only one makes me feel a lot better.

Oh and one of my best friends officially became part of a sorority. I'm really proud of her because this was something she's always wanted.

Absence of Entries

I forgot to blog 2 days in a row. I don't even remember forgetting to do them. Anyway, I have to write a lot of essays and I don't feel like writing for here because of how much writing I'm doing. I'm definitely taking it easier next semester by taking classes with busy work instead of work that requires thinking.

I'm currently debating on what language to take. French sounds good to revisit, but Spanish might be more useful. I'm fascinated by Russian but I feel like I need to pay more respect to my native tongue.

I want to continue with the sciences for sure. I'm not ready to give up on math. English is definitely a goner.

Tennis, Elmo Impressions and Ryan Gosling

Today, I went to play tennis with my friend from biology and it was fun. I also ran into one of my other friends there and I'm supposed to play with her tomorrow. Should be good.

Before I went to tennis I saw this gif of Ryan Gosling talking about how he gets confused for Ryan Reynolds and I watched Crazy, Stupid Love with my friends and the entire time I couldn't stop thinking about the gif b/c the girls kept calling him Ryan Reynolds. The movie was what you would expect from a chick flick but it was pretty clever.

And before we went to go see the movie I met this guy who was doing an Elmo impression and kept saying "Shut the FUCK up" and now I don't think I'll ever look at Elmo the same way again but that's fine because I think that's how life should be.

Passion for Inaction

Today, a lot of work was done but I don't really feel like any work was done to be honest because NONE OF THE WORK COUNTS TOWARDS ANYTHING IMPORTANT.

There's a level of autonomy that one actually needs and none of the tests I have taken has actually measured that. I think the system used to see who is qualified to go to college is a little broken. My French teacher loved talking about Europe and I remember one time she told me that there is one test to be taken to see if you can go to college and sometimes people don't pass it and when they don't pass it they kill themselves. They kill themselves! Can you believe that? I can't.

I'm not sure if that's true, but apparently you need to pass the test to make it onto University. We don't have anything like that here. In fact, anyone can go to college if you have the dinero. I think that's the problem, our weed out system isn't strong enough. I don't know if I'm ready for college now that I'm in college. And that's tragic.

I'm not assured: my decision making is rushed, my focus waivers, my grades are subpar, my overall reaction is apathy. But at the same time I'm confident that when I get to the end of semester, I will say to myself, wow all that hard work really paid off.

It's just a matter of sitting and wallowing or doing something about it while I can.