The Girls

Just a short post about what a great night I had yesterday. Around 7:00 Cecilia and her roommate Michelle came over for dinner. They brought a delicious pork roast, gravy, and stuffing. Liz and I made mashed potatoes and carrott cake. We started off having bread and dipping oil... oh and we had my favorite red wine too. It was great. Around 9:00 Leah came over and we kept chatting and had desert. We played Scategories for a little while. Time just flew by, the girls didn't leave until around 1:30... and I thought it was only 12:30 because it went so well! It was the first time I had met Michelle, and now I'm even MORE excited about going to Las Vegas. She was REALLY nice! Anyways, I had to share... because I really like hanging out with the girls, it just doesn't happen too often!

It's a Plan!!

YAY!! I finally have Spring Break plans, and they are finalized. I'm going to Las Vegas with my friend Cecilia and two of her roommates! I'm super excited! We're staying at the Bellagio for 3 nights, and four full days... and that much of it only cost us $460 after taxes! It should be a blast! It's really nice to have something to look forwards to for the rest of the quarter.

This quarter really is flying by fast. And much faster than I think I realize. This week will be #5 of the quarter, which means it is HALF over. Appropriately, I'm having my first midterm in one of my classes this week. I'm also having my second quiz in another class, and paper #2 is due. So busy week #2 of the quarter will begin Monday. I'm not sure how to study for my Ecology class, and apparently I"m not alone. Our class' average on the first quiz was about a 55%. Ouch. She let us take home a blank copy to turn in to get more points back... but the wording of her questions are really weird.

Anyhow... This past week went pretty well. I'm just chugging along. I can't believe that Monday I schedule for next quarter already! Fortunately, I know that Leah will be in my Mol Gen 500 class... so that makes me really happy! I have to apply for the SROP program in two weeks... so I'm starting to work on those essays and asking my proffessors to write me letters of recommendation. I really hope to get into this program, but I"m not going to hold my breath. Needless to say, there are a lot of minority students applying to the program in a variety of fields.. so we will just have to see.

Last night Leah came over and she, Mark, Dave, and I all played some Euchre and watched Wedding Crashers. It was a lot of fun. Tonight a few of the girls are coming over to my place for dinner and maybe some games. It's really nice how much we try to get together before we graduate!

That's it... I'll leave you with a few pics from New Years.
Leah and I
Cecelia and I

Dave and I

Exhaustion

What a week! While I only had 4 days of classes this week, there easily could have been 7. I was moving at full speed all week… and you know what? I FEEL GREAT! This week was already filled to the brim with how much I could handle… but I added another meeting to it because it sounded like a good opportunity. What made this week so crazy?? Let me reflect…

Tuesday- full day of classes, followed by starting my homework, with a scholars ambassador meeting from 6:45 – 8:10.

Wednesday- my usual classes, test counseling during my break in-between, followed by a meeting that I added to my schedule Monday which lasted from 4:30- 6:15. Then I got to go home and do my homework and studying for things that were due the next day. I ended up having Cecelia and Jeremy come over to study for our quiz the next day. Somehow managed to get to bed by 12:30.

Thursday- woke up early to study for ecology, went to my 8:30 am class and turned in my stats homework, had my usual classes followed by an ecology quiz. Went home and wrote my paper for my psych class on judgment and decision making. I was happy to finish by 11:15.

Friday- today I went to my usual 9-10:18 class, then I went to help out with the Scholars Day as an ambassador in between. I was the main person to schedule people for this event, so it was nice to see it run smoothly! I helped as “mission control” so making sure everyone knew what they were doing and running to do what was needed. It was great reading some of the comments we got about being well organized… I think my group of committee heads for that day worked really hard to make that happen. It makes me feel so old, but really good that I can accomplish leading in that way. sorry… I got off topic. So I helped until 1:30 and then ran to my 1:30 class and got there… like a minute late. This was my judgment and decision making class… I really like how it’s designed. On the days that papers are due, we split into 6 groups of 6… then traded papers with one other group… then each person read all the papers in the group and we had to decide as a group which 2 of the 6 were the best. Those two papers got an A. The rest of the papers will be graded by my teacher, and you can still get an A, but it shows how different people decide what is best in a paper. I thought it was a good idea… and that was before the other group chose my paper as one of the 2 best!

So this week ended up going well! I got an A on my Psych paper. (that’s good). I think I did fairly well in my other 2 classes assignments as well. Scholars Day #1 seemed to go well (day #2 is tomorrow). And that meeting I added… let me talk more about that! It was about a program called SROP (Summer Research Opportunity Program). The program looks fantastic! You can do ‘research’ in ANY field of study… one year a girl wrote a short story. You can either choose a mentor, or they will pick one that is closely related to your interests. It’s for 9 weeks of the summer, and is about 40 hours a week. 36 of research, and then 4 of workshops like how to do well on the GRE, and how to apply to graduate school. It pays $3,000… plus $1000 for living expenses/food… plus $500 towards the research that you do. At the end of the summer you present your research at 2 Conferences (one’s in Chicago I think). Oh, and they provide transportation for the conferences! How wonderful is that? So I’m going to apply and hope that I get accepted. They favor minority students… so we’ll see how much a learning disability will be accepted! May as well try for such a great opportunity!

Now I can’t wait for next week… nice and slow!

Hectic Start!!

Well, this may be the week of the quarter that has the fewest days... but it is far from being the shortest week. I've been running around filling out forms and talking to bunches of people. You may wonder what I'm talking about, so let me explain.

Wednesday was the first day of the quarter. Sitting in my first class of the day (Psych 320) my professor announces that the class is really pointless for anyone who has taken and done well in Stat 145 (a class I got an A in last quarter). She said to see her after class if this was the case. So after class I talked to her and she said that she has written many people to skip 320 and go right to 321 and they tend to do well because the sylabus for 320 is pretty much the same as that of Stat 145. Ok, but 320 is required for people who want to graduate with a B.S. (not Stat 145).... hmmm.. so I talked to my 3rd psych advisor of the year who said they're in the middle of approving a change for Psych B.S. majors to take either class, and he said if I got written permission from the 321 instructor he would allow 145 to count for me. So, today (Thursday) I went to that class and got the form signed, and then took it to another office where they simply enlisted me in the one class and dropped me from the other.

Confused?? So am I! What amuses me most is that both 145 and 320 are listed as possible prerequisites for 321. WOW. So anyhow, I got that sorted out. And it has a double bonus. Not only do I not have to take Psych 321 next quarter, but it's 1 less credit hour than 320. So I'm now only taking 18 credit hours this quarter, and 15 next quarter. Originally I was looking at two 19 credit hour quarters back to back!

As usual... I've been filling out my forms for ODS... looks like I'll have 2 finals on the same day again. Although... that wasn't really a problem last quarter, I did well on both!

I've also been trying to sort my extracurricular activities for the quarter too. The big Scholars Day event we have every year is where I do most of my work as an Ambassador, and it's January 19th and 20th!! YIKES!! So I've been scheduling meetings and sending lots of e-mails about that. Also, I've been trying to plan when I can shadow for test counseling. Plus, still trying to figure out spring break plans... I called the travel agent yesterday... Plus just looking at the workload I've taken on for the quarter. I'm not sure if it's good or bad- most of my classes don't have tests, they have papers. Hmm... I suppose I'll know when I get the prompts!

The classes seem pretty interesting. I like that I've had 2 of the teachers before. They are great lecturers. And I looked at my schedule for next quarter and am very excited! All 3 classes I wanted to take are offere at times that don't conflict! So I'll be taking Mol Gen 500, an intro to ethics, and a psychobiology class next quarter. It should all be interesting! But first things first- this quarter.

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In other news, my New Year's Eve went very well. Pictures to appear later. There was a nice mix of people, and everyone knew just a few people there. Very fun. We played games and chatted. Had a good time with my friends.