Right after my alarm clock went off at 8:50 am this morning, I turned it off, rolled over in my bed, and decided to skip environmental studies for the fifth time this quarter to catch a few extra hours of sleep.
Then my phone started ringing loudly exactly two minutes after I rolled over.
It kept ringing. And ringing. And ringing.
I climbed down my lofted bed to retrieve my phone, swearing loudly at the empty room - who the fuck calls me at 8:52 am?!
"Leave a fucking message if it's something so goddamn important that you have to call me at 8:52 AM!" I thought angrily in my head.
When I finally dug my phone out from under all the crap on my desk, it, of course, stopped ringing.
I checked the missed calls list and was beyond surprised by the name I saw. Since there was no message, I assumed that the bastard probably dialed my number by accident.
I climbed groggily back into bed and spent ten minutes trying to go back to sleep.
No can do.
I guessed all that climbing and swearing woke me up for good, so I decided to go to class after all.
I somehow managed to stop and get breakfast at Summit AND get to class on time for the first time this quarter. It was pretty amazing.
***
I have been working on the final draft of my Muir 50 paper all night - it is pretty much ten-going-on-eleven pages of pure crap and I know I could have done much better if I had spent even half as much time on this class as I did on Muir 40 last quarter.
My Muir 40 instructor was beyond awesome and he motivated me to do well to impress him, but my Muir 50 instructor kind of... sucks. There has been a lot of unhelpful busy work in 50 and the she literally spends a majority of our class time standing in front of the room reading handouts aloud to us - I can read by myself, thankyouverymuch. Now can you teach me how to write a better research paper, please?
Her comments also annoy me because they can be pretty inconsistent - first she tells me my paragraph-long thesis is good when I ask her in person and then she writes a contradictory comment about my thesis on a draft we turned in... wtf?
I heard my 40 instructor mention that my current 50 instructor was extremely particular and picky in her grading last quarter... and I can thank my lovely roommate for recommending and encouraging me to take her old 40 instructor's class.
Grr.
Whatever. As disappointed as I am to know for a fact that my GPA will be taking a huge plunge this quarter, I think I am just going to have to live with it. An A in 40 means a lot more than an A in 50 anyway since A's are a helluva lot rarer in 40.
On a brighter note, I am a conclusion and a witty title away from finishing the Muir Writing Program!
***
Summit needs to start serving better coffee. I have resorted to paying $4 for gargantuan soy lattes at the coffee cart in front of Center Hall - they use soymilk fortified with calcium (yeah, so it's Costco-generic brand, but calcium!) AND grind the espresso beans for my shots right when I order my drink, so my latte actually tastes like something. Not like the watered down crap from the dining hall - I don't even think they use real espresso beans.
I love Peet's Coffee, but what the dining hall is serving in those Peet's cups puts the awesomeness of Peet's Coffee to shame.
***
The person who called me at 8:52 am called me twice in one hour while I was working on my paper. I didn't pick up. And he didn't leave a message either time.
I will call him back tomorrow to see what is up because I am curious now.
Showing posts with label mcwp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mcwp. Show all posts
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Walking On Clouds (Part One)
My most challenging class this quarter is probably Muir 40. The style of paper-writing is very demanding, and I spend hours and hours in front of my computer rereading and rewriting my each of my sentences that make up the progressively-longer-and-more-difficult papers.
I was absolutely elated when I found out that I had gotten an A- on the first paper, but the second paper was so much harder to write and so different from the first one that I had no idea what grade to expect after I turned it in. I even completely gutted my main argument of the paper the night before it was due and basically rewrote the entire thing because I was so insecure about what I had written before.
The instructor told our class he would pass out pieces of papers with our paper grades and the aggregated comments of all the different graders at the end of class today, so we all waited anxiously for over an hour to see them.
At the end of class, he pulled out a stack of paper, and much to my surprise, called my name first and handed me the folded sheet on top.
I anxiously unfolded the paper he had handed me and gasped when I saw my grade - I had gotten a SOLID A on the second paper!
Turns out, burning that midnight oil really did pay off in the end!
I literally felt like I was walking on clouds on my way out of the room.
Our final paper is an eight to nine page monstrosity that will be worth 45% of our grades, so hopefully I can finish the quarter off as strongly as I had started it!
I was absolutely elated when I found out that I had gotten an A- on the first paper, but the second paper was so much harder to write and so different from the first one that I had no idea what grade to expect after I turned it in. I even completely gutted my main argument of the paper the night before it was due and basically rewrote the entire thing because I was so insecure about what I had written before.
The instructor told our class he would pass out pieces of papers with our paper grades and the aggregated comments of all the different graders at the end of class today, so we all waited anxiously for over an hour to see them.
At the end of class, he pulled out a stack of paper, and much to my surprise, called my name first and handed me the folded sheet on top.
I anxiously unfolded the paper he had handed me and gasped when I saw my grade - I had gotten a SOLID A on the second paper!
Turns out, burning that midnight oil really did pay off in the end!
I literally felt like I was walking on clouds on my way out of the room.
Our final paper is an eight to nine page monstrosity that will be worth 45% of our grades, so hopefully I can finish the quarter off as strongly as I had started it!
Monday, November 26, 2007
Scrambling that Writer's Block
Thanksgiving break was much too short. Flying home for those four days off felt just like pausing live TV on my TV tuner without pushing the record button first; once I click on the "Play" button, everything suddenly jumps forward and I am scrambling to catch up on the crucial elements of the plot I missed while attempting to juggle comprehension of what is going on at the moment.
That's exactly how I am feeling right now and I am not happy about it. Scrambling, unless it is scrambling eggs for my breakfast (preferably with a side of French toast and two or three veggie sausage patties, please) has no place in my presumably more laid-back life here in La Jolla.
Since I did not get a lick of work done in San Francisco, lugging my untouched books back to campus with me, knowing full and well of all the end-of-quarter deadlines hanging over my head, left me with an extremely guilty conscience.
My biggest deadline was the outline of my worth-45%-of-my-grade, eight to nine page (trimmed down from ten) Muir 40 paper due at my 2:15 pm conference with the instructor. The thing about writing is that it is a fickle facet of academia; no matter how much you may want to focus, once that writer's block hits, there really is not much you can do besides sit at your desk, stare at the little blinking bar on your open word processing document mocking your inability to express coherent ideas in written words, and scream silently while attempting to rip chunks of hair from your scalp out of sheer frustration.
Despite shelling out some big bucks to take a cab back to campus from the airport so I could start hitting those books earlier with the hopes of catching a few winks of sleep before my 9 am class the next morning, I did not get any work done whatsoever. That stupid blinking bar was really getting on my nerves, so I ended up browsing internet deals and mentally adding items to my wish list for THREE hours.
I desperately needed those extra few hours of sleep, but I was convinced that I would be able to come up with something brilliant to write about if I just stared at my notes or the word processing document a little longer.
Unfortunately, that much-needed bout of inspiration did not come and I ended up crashing into bed, feeling completely dejected, at 3 am.
When my alarm went off at 8:30 am, I turned it off and seriously contemplated rolling over and sleeping through my Political Science class. After weighing the pros and cons of cutting class, I figured that the benefits of sleeping in did not outweigh the costs (how's that for theory of rational thought for you, Hobbes?), jumped out of bed groggily, brushed my teeth, and ran out of my room with my notebook, an Odwalla bar, a half-filled Nalgene, and my iPod.
I was glad I did not miss class today because we watched a really moving documentary about Jewish rescuers during the Holocaust. The rescuers' accounts of what happened were so intense that I started tearing up at one point. I am really excited about the "Becoming Evil" seminar I will be taking with my current Political Science professor next quarter that will delve even further into this dark period of history.
At the end of class, our TAs returned our in-class midterm exams. When I opened my bluebook, I was very surprised to see a big "A" circled at the end of my essay with the word "Excellent!" underneath it.
That was just the inspiration I needed.
Once I got back to my room and pulled up the blank word processing document I had opened up the night before, the right words and ideas began to flow out of my head like water out of a kitchen faucet. Two hours later, I was pretty satisfied with my paper layout, so I printed the sucker out and headed to history class.
After class, I grabbed some food before walking over to my instructor's office for my conference. One-on-one conferences with my instructor always make me nervous because he can be pretty intimidating, but things always work out well in the end and I come out of his office with great advice to guide me as I sit in front of my computer writing my papers late into the night.
Today, I sat at his desk and watched him in silence for about ten minutes as he read the outline of my paper before either one of us spoke. When he was finished going over what I had written, he told me that he had no real criticisms of how I intended to write my paper and that he was looking forward to reading it when I was done. After giving me a few reminders to keep in mind as I wrote the paper, I was good to go.
I hope this is a good sign that I might be able to score that "A" in the class after all!
That's exactly how I am feeling right now and I am not happy about it. Scrambling, unless it is scrambling eggs for my breakfast (preferably with a side of French toast and two or three veggie sausage patties, please) has no place in my presumably more laid-back life here in La Jolla.
Since I did not get a lick of work done in San Francisco, lugging my untouched books back to campus with me, knowing full and well of all the end-of-quarter deadlines hanging over my head, left me with an extremely guilty conscience.
My biggest deadline was the outline of my worth-45%-of-my-grade, eight to nine page (trimmed down from ten) Muir 40 paper due at my 2:15 pm conference with the instructor. The thing about writing is that it is a fickle facet of academia; no matter how much you may want to focus, once that writer's block hits, there really is not much you can do besides sit at your desk, stare at the little blinking bar on your open word processing document mocking your inability to express coherent ideas in written words, and scream silently while attempting to rip chunks of hair from your scalp out of sheer frustration.
Despite shelling out some big bucks to take a cab back to campus from the airport so I could start hitting those books earlier with the hopes of catching a few winks of sleep before my 9 am class the next morning, I did not get any work done whatsoever. That stupid blinking bar was really getting on my nerves, so I ended up browsing internet deals and mentally adding items to my wish list for THREE hours.
I desperately needed those extra few hours of sleep, but I was convinced that I would be able to come up with something brilliant to write about if I just stared at my notes or the word processing document a little longer.
Unfortunately, that much-needed bout of inspiration did not come and I ended up crashing into bed, feeling completely dejected, at 3 am.
When my alarm went off at 8:30 am, I turned it off and seriously contemplated rolling over and sleeping through my Political Science class. After weighing the pros and cons of cutting class, I figured that the benefits of sleeping in did not outweigh the costs (how's that for theory of rational thought for you, Hobbes?), jumped out of bed groggily, brushed my teeth, and ran out of my room with my notebook, an Odwalla bar, a half-filled Nalgene, and my iPod.
I was glad I did not miss class today because we watched a really moving documentary about Jewish rescuers during the Holocaust. The rescuers' accounts of what happened were so intense that I started tearing up at one point. I am really excited about the "Becoming Evil" seminar I will be taking with my current Political Science professor next quarter that will delve even further into this dark period of history.
At the end of class, our TAs returned our in-class midterm exams. When I opened my bluebook, I was very surprised to see a big "A" circled at the end of my essay with the word "Excellent!" underneath it.
That was just the inspiration I needed.
Once I got back to my room and pulled up the blank word processing document I had opened up the night before, the right words and ideas began to flow out of my head like water out of a kitchen faucet. Two hours later, I was pretty satisfied with my paper layout, so I printed the sucker out and headed to history class.
After class, I grabbed some food before walking over to my instructor's office for my conference. One-on-one conferences with my instructor always make me nervous because he can be pretty intimidating, but things always work out well in the end and I come out of his office with great advice to guide me as I sit in front of my computer writing my papers late into the night.
Today, I sat at his desk and watched him in silence for about ten minutes as he read the outline of my paper before either one of us spoke. When he was finished going over what I had written, he told me that he had no real criticisms of how I intended to write my paper and that he was looking forward to reading it when I was done. After giving me a few reminders to keep in mind as I wrote the paper, I was good to go.
I hope this is a good sign that I might be able to score that "A" in the class after all!
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