Posts (page 2)
I have had somewhere around 50 dollars worth of junk food in the last three weeks. I feel guilty for wasting money like that, but hey -- it's a holiday. I can forgive myself a little. However, part of my new year's resolution is to cut out all drinks except for water, so I'm getting back on it...starting...now. (Heh.)
Next semester, I'll be working 10 hours a week at two different jobs. I am typing for three classes (at three hours a week each), and I will probably be cutting back my tutoring work from 90 minutes a week to an hour a week. I have a feeling that if I don't put a limit on it, I'm going to burn out. Hell, Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to be stressful -- I have back to back classes, which are FINE with me, but I just now realized that the classes I offered to do on Tuesdays and Thursdays are, you guessed it, back to back. So I have something to do on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:30 AM up to 3:15 PM. The other class I'm typing for, however, is a night class on Wednesdays. You can bet that on weekends, I will be sleeping in and doing no work at all. Heh. Apparently I enjoy stress (at least I can admit it - give me that much).
However, I really believe that it will be worth it. I need the money since in my case, 'out of sight, out of mind' has pretty much summed up my family's attitudes towards me...especially my Mom. It disappoints and depresses me, but it really angers me more than anything: Woman! My GPA was the result of my going to class and my ability to do something, not yours! Seriously: she doesn't call when I call her on campus, and now that I'm home, she doesn't even talk to me. However, she insists that she's happy I'm here, but that she "just likes having me around". If this is how she treats people she likes, I really don't want to know how she treats people she doesn't like.
I have one more week here, and I just want to sleep. I'm not physically tired, simply mentally strained from the amount of emotional stress. Living in this house is draining -- something bad is always happening, you constantly have to walk on eggshells, and I'm always protecting my things from being taken. I want to be back on campus where the stress is of my creation, and it's for a good purpose. Maybe that's why I feel like I can handle it.
Still -- I'm so excited to start my English class. How big of a loser am I?
Again, I'm sorry that I haven't been posting as much. Right now I'm just trying to help my Mom get the house back into ship-shape before I leave. I've been doing a lot of sleeping, a lot of eating, and a lot of reconciling with my boyfriend.
Oh, yeah. We broke up. For a week. It's long, complicated, and I just don't feel like talking about it. Right now, I just want to make sure that I get back into this habit of writing somehow.
When the new semester starts, and as part of my multi-part 2008 resolution, I will be writing at least once a day, and you can also expect to see paid posts, too (I gotta pay the book bills somehow, and I don't have enough boobs to start doing nudie pics).
Christmas went well -- got a bunch of sweet-smelling stuff, gift cards, and money. I'm happy.
I go back to the Mount on January 14th. I'm insanely excited, but I still want to visit my friends while I'm here -- unfortunately, Matt has pneumonia, Liz is always busy, and it seems like I never have a ride to get ANYWHERE. Gah. I'll get my license by May if it's the death of me.
My brother told me that if I made "straight As" during any point in college, he would take me out and get me drunk.
Details are pending, but according to my school's website, I have a 3.734 GPA...which places me not only on the Dean's list, but in what qualifies as an A- average. Depending on how that's distributed, there's a chance I made straight A's (low A's, but A's nonetheless).
The school doesn't have the grades up, merely the GPA...so I will know by around 9:30 EST (I will edit this post with the grades when I find them).
WOOHOO!
Edit @ 2:10 PM: Fail. I got a B+ in one of my classes. I have a feeling it's an 89%, which makes me even more upset...
Freshman Seminar: A
Spanish Written Composition: A-
Foundations of Education: A
Beginning French: A-
Origins of the West: B+
Literally, two minutes ago:
Phone call: Hello, this is not a telemarking call. I'm doing a survey and I'd like to speak to someone in the household over the age of 40.
Me: Well --
Phone call: Would that be you, ma'am?
Me: Actually, there's no one in the house over 40, sorry. (I'm staying with my brother at the moment; he's 27.)
Phone call: Oh, well thank you anyway!
Me: Alright, goodbye.
I'm kind of insulted. I always thought I had a girlish timbre to my voice. Apparently not.
I'll explain this all later. I just want you to see how NUTS this is.
Key
+ - Core curriculum requirement
@ - Computer Science requirement (per course sequence on site)
$ - English requirement (per course sequence on site)
! - required elective for either major
Credits Earned Before Sophomore Year
FRSEM 101+
FRSEM 102+
CVOR 101+
CVEN 102+$
CVHI 102+
ENGL 100$
ENGL 380$
AMC 201+
Sophomore Year: Fall 2008
PHIL 211 - From Cosmos to Citizen+
GSCI 101 - Physical Science+
CSCI 120 - Intro. to Computer Programming I@
ENGL 275 - Intro to Literary Study I$
CV 201 - West in Modern Society+
Sophomore Year: Spring 2009
PHIL 212 - From Self to Society+
GSCI 102 - Biological Science+
CSCI 125 - Intro. to Computer Programming II@
ENGL 276 - Intro. to Literary Study II$
MATH 247 - Calculus I@
Junior Year: Fall 2009
THEO 200 - Foundations of Christian Theology+
MATH 228 - Discrete Mathematics@
CSCI 246 - Assembly Language@
MATH 254 - Data Structures@
ENGL 330 - Early American Literature$! (1st Am. Lit. Class)
Junior Year: Spring 2010
THEO 201 - Foundations of Christian Theology II+
AMC 202 - American Experience+$ (AMC 201 and 202 count as 3 credits towards an English major)
CSCI 264 - Computer Organization@
MATH 285 - Data Analysis@
ENGL 325 - The Romantic Movement$! (Post-1600 European Lit.)
Senior Year: Fall 2010
PHIL 301 - Moral Philosophy/Ethics+
ENNW 368 - Japanese Literature and Culture+$ (Non-western core course; non-western English course)
CSCI 385 - Theory of Computation@!
CSCI 475 - Senior Project@
CSCI 453 - Algorithms@!
Senior Year: Spring 2011
ENGL 318 - Shakespeare$! (Brit. Lit. pre-1600)
ENGL 331 - American Renaissance Literature$! (2nd Am. Lit. Class)
CSCI 449 - Intro. to Artificial Intelligence@!
CSCI 491 - Independent Study@! (presumably in natural language processing)
CSCI 499 - Special Topics in Computer Science@! (presumably in natural language processing)
I've been living with my brother for the last few days, and I realized two things about him: first off, he's trying to go into selling things online, and secondly...he knows nothing about computers. For someone like him who is so connected, I still find it funny that he's managed to go without a home computer or Internet access for so long.
I'm not exactly sure what he's planning just yet, but he's been talking about selling things online -- possibly on his own site. He's been asking me to show him how to use things: AIM, Internet explorer, and I know for a fact it's not going to be too long until he starts throwing around bigger phrases like the ones he's learning about at these seminars -- like ecommerce software.
I've looked at Ashop before, and their ecommerce software and sites are pretty-straight forward. Definitely good for someone who's just starting work online. It's web based, so neither he nor I would have to go through the hassle of installing anything onto the computer he's getting next month. He's also being pretty aggressive with his goals -- he wants to have his car paid off in six months -- so the fact that this helps sites accept credit cards online would definitely make things easier.
Check it out if you're interested....heck, he's trying to get me into this now!
<a href="http://www.ashopcommerce.com"><img border="0" src="https://members.smorty.com/members/advertiser/14/2007924145846.jpg"></a>
this is a sponsored post.
It's 2 AM here. I'm at my brother's house, watching Futurama, trying to keep warm. I've got on my flannel pajama pants (I insisted that my matching flannel top would be too hot, so I left it on campus -- yeah, not a smart move), a small coat, and I'm wrapped up in every sheet I can find. The good news is, I can sleep for the next few weeks. The bad news is...I'm back home, kind of.
I don't have a room anymore in my house. My parents insisted that my room would be kept just as it was before; instead, they gave my computer to my sister and my sisters turned my room into a closet. The one night I stayed there, I slept downstairs with my Mom (my Dad slept on the couch; he was too tired), and in the morning I slept on the couch. It's stressful -- that house is horrible. Tony's letting me stay here for now, and I really appreciate it. If I had the money, I would pay him for it. Honestly.
Finals went well...well, about as well as you can expect them to go when you have the flu. I went to one final with a pen and one hour of sleep -- I got a 95. My Seminar professor told me I had an A- for the semester before adding in my final and my last project, so it might be a solid A now. The two classes I'm worried about are Spanish and Origins of the West -- those could range anywhere from a B minus to a solid A each. I only need a 3.4 to make the Dean's List, though. Well, we'll see how I did when grades are posted -- the school says it'll be done by the 19th, but I'm hoping it's earlier. This waiting is driving me nuts!
I have everyone's gifts except for Carly. I need extra money first...gah. I think I'm going to start doing paid posting on here again to help make me a slightly-less-poor college student. I had to take off from work during finals week because I was so sick, so I'm down by a lot of money. About a hundred. D'oh. Stupid holidays. Thank goodness my parents don't celebrate their anniversary, otherwise I'd really be out of money. Jon's birthday is December 10th, their anniversary's on the 15th, and Christmas is the 25th. Can't everyone stop doing stuff in December? Come on! Help me out!
As for academics...I found, while reading online, a field of linguistics that is very interesting to me: natural language processing, a subset of computational linguistics. In order for me to go into graduate studies for that degree, I need a background not only in human language...but programming languages as well. I didn't want to accept it, but...you know what? Jon gave me a pep talk and I really think I can do it. My aspirations are a little more grounded now, but still unorthodox: a double major in English and Computer Science. I need to have mastery of my native language, of foreign languages, of computer languages and machinery, and a very good understanding of all the underlying systems that make each one of them work. It's a demanding career path. Hey, maybe if my mom sees the average starting salaries for computational linguists, she'll be quiet about me not going into pre-med.
Jon and I mapped out my schedule for the next four years, and by our double-checking and cross-referencing degree and graduation requirements, it would work. In January, I'm going to be going to the heads of the English and Computer Science departments to get it checked over (and of course, to get their inputs on it). I'm going to post it later -- it's hilarious and insane. Soon, I will be able to write programs in Python and iambic pentameter! Fear me!
If that doesn't make me a nerd, I have no idea what does. Oh, also: I've earned about 10 "cool points" with Jon for now being in his major. He just kept telling me how he'd be willing to help me with any classes in that major that I needed help with, he'd talk to his professors about it, get me information that I'd need...it was really sweet. He admittedly is the worst with expressing feelings in any way; in fact he went as far as to say during an argument once, "Just because I don't know how to say it and I don't know how to show it, doesn't mean I don't love you" (Yes. He's that dense). I could tell by his response, though, that he was really excited and happy for me...which, in turn, made me really happy...since I know one of the things he was excited about was having classes with me. Everyone say it together now: awww.
More updates to come...once I get over this damn flu.
I never expected to get back into this. My new year's resolution, in addition to losing 20 pounds, is to blog on here every day. Right now this may not even be coherent; I've been fighting some kind of sickness for the last three weeks and it seems to get worse at night. Thankfully, I took a very long nap (from 5 to 9:30!), so I may be able to give some kind of update.
So, next week is the start of finals week. Right now, to my understanding, I'm staring down possibly straight A's -- maybe not a 4.0, but hey, straight A's for the first time in my life is nothing to sneeze at! I still have no idea what my major is going to be -- all I know is what I don't want it to be.
I will never be a business or accounting major. EVER. Suits, numbers, and money are my mortal enemies. I will never be a chemistry major, and so help me, I will never, EVER do what Jon is doing -- a double math and comp. sci. major. Pardon me while I vomit over the idea of that many numbers in one place.
I'm debating language majors at the moment, only because with the number of core classes my university requires, doing a double major is damn near impossible; a triple like I want to do is...unheard of, unless you have a lot of money. Guess what? I don't have that kind of money, school! So, we shall see. To my understanding, I would have 1/4 of a Spanish major done this semester, so we shall see. I love French, and I really want to start German. I've taken Romance languages, but never a Germanic one (unless you count English). Why not? I'm just sitting here trying to strategize how in the world I could do that.
Also, one of my professors refuses to let me leave this institution until I declare an English major or minor. I have no idea how I'm going to do that. I registered for an English class next semester that apparently "kills GPAs and spirits of the strong-minded", so we will see how I fare. It's a linguistics-rooted class rather than a literature-based class, which is right up my alley. It's English 380, "Analysis of the English Language". I had to get clearance to take it. I'm the first freshman to take it.
I would love to double major in two languages and minor in two others. I think I may be too ambitious, though. Whatever...graduate school is in my future anyway. What I don't know, though, is that even though I love language, what the heck am I going to do with it? The NSA wants Pashto, Urdu, and Mandarin right now above anything -- those languages aren't offered here at all. If anyone has suggestions for jobs in linguistics, tell me. Please.
I can't focus anymore. My head is hurting my my body wants me to move around. I could also really, REALLY go for a sandwich, but I don't have one. Dammit.
So, how have you been? I promise I haven't forgotten this place!
Originally published at Marsofel. You can comment here or there.
 Also, I need sleep.
 All is...OK in my life right now. I won't say "well", but it's tolerable, to say the least.
Originally published at Marsofel. You can comment here or there.
 I'm back down to 15 credits this semester, and I still feel bad about it a little, but I know deep down that I'm doing the right thing. My schedule was quite literally driving me insane: with my field placements for Education 100, I in essence have classes at 8, 9, 10, 11, 1, 2, and 3:30, with everything ending at 5. I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't eating, and finally I just asked Jon if he thought I was burning myself out. Without hesitation, he said very sternly, "Yeah". That was what made me realize I had to slow down. Thankfully, Dr. Rosenfeld's been really understanding: "Your health comes first. If you can't do it this semester, do it next semester." I just hope I can explain to my parents what it means.
No matter how much I try to explain a situation to them, they just don't want to listen. If I tell them I dropped a class, they will go ballistic. I can see it now: "We spent how much money on that school and you're going to drop a class?!" First off, it was an elective. Secondly, it had no books that needed to be bought for the class. The only thing it was doing (other than making me laugh, and introducing me to great people) was taking time out of my schedule and stressing me out because I was so drained by the time I got there. I still have this feeling that I'm going to get chewed out when I get my grades back and they see a "W" for Chorale.
The good news is that I'll have more downtime. I'll be able to sleep a little bit easier, and I'll have more time to update this site, too.
Another thing in relation to wasting time, heh: I realized a few weeks ago that teaching is most likely not going to be for me. The education field is far too political for my liking; there's no way I could be completely neutral and do (what I feel) would be a good job at teaching with so many little political conventions here, there, and everywhere. I'm not upset that I took the Foundations of Education class, though; after all, if I hadn't, I would still be thinking that teaching would be for me.
I had a talk with Dr. Tsoukatos one day a few weeks ago, and she said that it sounded to her like I would want to pursue a degree in linguistics. That's always been a bit of a dirty word to me because linguistics is actually a science. I don't know what it is, but when I see "science", I can't help but think of all the crap that I didn't like in (for example) my biology, chemistry, and physics classes. On top of that, I've never really thought of myself as a "scientific" person. I've always just been good with words, and making a sentence sound correct, and making sure that everything agrees in case and number...
And it hit me. That's very calculated and analytical. That is a science. I could completely see myself working with things like that. So, Jon and I looked up fields that wanted linguists, and we found one place that really wants linguists right now: the National Security Agency.
Right now, they want knowledge of Arabic, Farsi, and Mandarin Chinese -- none of which I speak, but I have no problem taking the time to learn them. I met someone on campus who speaks Cantonese and Mandarin, and who's willing to teach me. I found out the main reason why he wanted to teach me was because he thought I was cute, but he's a nice guy, and hopefully he'll be able to get past the fact that I have a boyfriend. Heh.
He, some friends of ours, and I were out at a karaoke night, and the Most Awkward Moment Ever So Far was spawned:
Hannah:Â So, where's your boyfriend?
Me: He goes home every weekend.
He-who-shall-remain nameless: Boyfriend?
Me: Yeah. You met him, remember?
He-who-shall-remain-nameless: That tall guy?
Me: Yeah.
He-who-shall-remain-nameless:Â He's your boyfriend? I thought you two were just friends!
Me: ...I thought it was obvious.
Hannah: Me too.
He-who-shall-remain-nameless: No, it wasn't! You two never like, hold hands or kiss in public or anything!
Me: It's not our style. Nobody has to see that. Â
    He just didn't talk to me for the rest of the night. I guess it was that, combined with the fact that he was flirting with me earlier at the karaoke night that just made him feel like he had put his foot into his mouth. I hope he realizes that I didn't mean to hurt his feelings or anything like that; he's a really cool guy to talk to.
    Right now, I'm just doing some late-night laundry to get ready for fall break. Did I mention I had a fall break? Probably not, because I've been SWAMPED with work. I'll be spending the week with my brother, which means I won't have access to a computer for a week, which kind of sucks. Once I get settled in, though, I might visit my house and try using the computer, which is still going to be really annoying. I'm still very upset at my parents for what they did, and I just don't want to see them. I hate going home; I feel like a stranger there.
Thankfully, Tony's house is a party house. And he's letting me relax there for the whole week. I NEED RELAXING PARTY TIME. Midterms, exams, research papers, multi-drafts...I just want to scream. And I will when I get back to Baltimore.
