Swamped

This past week has been brutal at school. I had to do an annotated bibliography for Humanities that involved TWELVE SOURCES and between a half page and a page of summary for each entry. On top of that, I've had to read two short stories for American Lit, and do Math homework and Statistics homework. This weekend I have a five page Literature paper to write, Math homework, a Statistics quiz to study for, and I still have two short papers for Humanities that I need to write that were due weeks ago!

The coming week doesn't seem like it will let up much, either. Besides the Statistics quiz, I have an Excel project and quiz for Math, I need to prepare a five minute PowerPoint presentation for Lit class, and I may have jury duty Wednesday, which will just throw everything out of whack. I wouldn't have minded jury duty so much had it come over the summer when I wasn't really busy. But during a semester when I'm struggling to make straight A's, and falling slightly short in a couple classes, it just comes as a bothersome and unnecessary distraction.

I am still hoping to get accepted to State soon, but because it is still hanging in the air whether or not my GPA will be sufficient, I am needing to register soon for another semester at Wake Tech, just in case. I have enough credits for an Associates Degree, or I will after this semester, so I am really out of classes that I want or need. I may sign up for a couple Psychology classes, but beyond that I have no clue what to take.

Seeing as I've been a little overwhelmed lately with school -- I'm not used to actually doing work -- I am a little concerned with how I will manage to cope at State when the classes are harder and the professor-to-student ratio is considerably lower. And the cost of school will be higher at State, which means financial aid won't extend as far. Unless my stocks begin to pay off quick, I may be forced to get a job, which will only push my education goals further from my reach.

Right now isn't a good time to look for a girlfriend. At the moment I don't have the time or the money to devote to dating. But lately I've been feeling a little isolated and it would be nice to fill the loneliness. As a result, I've been thinking about Ex again as a sort of self-medication. She has become my latest imaginary girlfriend, filling a space held by so many other girls before her.

Is it bad that I often seem to be walking the fine line between sanity and delusion?

Have fun and keep living life... or some approximation thereof.

Snow Days

Snow. We don't get much snow in Raleigh, these days. Usually, we get a light dusting that doesn't do much but give us an excuse to close down the city for a day and sleep in for a morning. Today we got about 2-4 inches of snow. School was cancelled, and will be tomorrow as well. That's fine for me. I wasn't really ready to go to school Wednesday, anyway. I have a stupid "reading log" due in Brit Lit I that I'm not looking forward to doing. We're still stuck on Beowulf, of which I have a 2-5 page paper due Friday. I've only gotten the critical review that I need as a source for the paper, but I haven't begun to write it, yet.

Thanks to the snow, my lunch date with Ashley had to be postponed. I sent her a text message to that effect, and I even tried to call her later in the day, but I never got a response. I'm not too bothered, really. She knows how to contact me if she decides she's interested in rescheduling. Still, it would have been nice to actually go out in public with a member of the opposite sex. I haven't done it in awhile. Of course, I expect a date with Ashley to go about as well as did my last date with a girl about six or eight months ago. She was Japanese, and soon to be going back home to pursue a job. She'd been here for several years working for the National Institute of Health. Don't ask me WHAT she was doing for the NIH, I could barely read the titles of some of the papers she had published while working there, much less understanding what the hell it was she was actually researching. I think it was something to do with immunology. At any rate, we'd been going out as friends, and I wanted to upgrade a little before she went back to Japan. I blew over $100 on dinner and a rock show (we went to see Mike Doughty, which I enjoyed quite a bit, actually) which went over with her about as well as a request for more ice in your sweet tea while sitting on the barge of the Titanic!

Since I didn't have anything better to do, I spent the day trying to do a little homework. I read a chapter in my Environmental Geology book and took a chapter quiz online that I made an A on! I visited my Philosophy Professor's Course Blog and posted a few thoughts in lieu of our in-class discussion period. I also watched the Inauguration of Barack Obama online for several hours and felt a great sense of warmth and satisfaction at being able to witness the swearing in of the first black President of the United States. As I've mentioned before, I've been a backer of Obama since his 2004 speech at the DNC, and I can honestly say that I've never felt prouder of my country, and my political party, for finally getting something right for a change. We've done alot of good in the history of the world, but it seems like it's been a while.

In other news, I've finally been seduced into joining Facebook! I won't post my page here, but if you want to Friend me just leave a comment and I'll send you a link, or look you up and Friend you there. The reason I finally broke down was because I had an invite Sunday night when I got home from the dance from a woman named Laura whom I haven't seen since the New Year's Eve Black and White Swing Ball from 2007-08. Laura is an attractive 41 year old who is currently in grad school trying to go into the same field as I. We've talked several times in the past and seem to have many things in common. In the not-so-off chance that she may read this (since I have a link to the blog from my Facebook page), I probably shouldn't admit this but, in keeping with my sense of honesty up to now, I've long had a bit of a crush on Laura. I've considered asking her out on a few occasions, but never managed to do it since I figured she probably wasn't all that interested in dating a younger guy, and why stir up the pot if I didn't have to. I did manage to kiss her once at the New Year's Eve Ball, but not at midnight. Come to think of it, I've NEVER actually kissed anyone at midnight on a New Year's Eve. Nonetheless, I did enjoy the kiss.

Oh well, such is life.

Have fun, and keep living life... and get back to work, you slacker!

Back to the Grind

Let's not talk about last semester.

School starts back tomorrow. I'm cautiously looking forward to getting back to classes. I know I have a tough slate of classes ahead of me this time with LOTS of reading involved. Here's what the schedule looks like:

Monday, Wednesday Friday:

British Literature I -- 9AM-950AM

Human Development -- 12Noon-1250PM

Tuesday:

Philosophical Issues -- 930AM-1045AM

Environmental Geology Lab -- 11AM-1250PM

Environmental Geology -- 1PM-150PM

Thursday:

Philosophical Issues -- 930AM-1045AM

Environmental Geology -- 1PM-150PM

I'm hoping that having a two hour break between classes this time will encourage me to actually do some homework, or at least stay on top of the reading. My biggest problem with school has ALWAYS been that I choose not to do homework. Most of the time, I've been able to get by just fine without it, however those times when I have committed an EPIC FAIL has been almost exclusively the result of not keeping up with the homework.

To that end, I actually got my school books before Christmas and spent some of my break trying to get ahead in the reading. Obviously, I have no idea what essays/stories will be required in my British Literature course, since the books (there are three of them!) have a huge assortment of readings and we can't possibly cover all of them. I was able to get through the first couple of chapters in my Philosophy textbook, though, and I skimmed through the first several chapters of Environmental Geology. Again, I'm not too worried about the Human Development class (yet!) since it's a psychology class and I can usually do pretty well in those without really trying (Did I mention I got a B in my Abnormal Psychology class last semester?)

I'm going to leave it there for now. I'll get back tomorrow with some first impressions of my new professors and the class overviews.

Have fun, and keep living life... or some approximation thereof!