More Academic Realizations

(Upon reading this post you might wonder why I'm taking the time to blog. Relax, dear reader. Most of the Physics is done at this point. This is approximately a ten-minute break before Spanish, and I've been working decently up till this point.)

After another late night at the Cove (the assignment didn't get finished then, but should be finished to the best of my ability by class time. It's physics, which means certian problems I'm just not getting at all, some I'm getting most or all of, and the rest are in-betweens)--after another late night at the Cove I decided to apply a sort of Biblical instruction to the academics...I'm going to do my homework as if I were doing it for the Lord. What this means is my planner-book is going to get used a lot more. I've even deveoped a generic notation, which gives the class's three-letter subject abbreviation, a date, and what I'm supposed to do with it (B for begin, if it's the first day of the assignment, W for work on it, if it's a weeklong assignment like Physics, and F for finish if the assignment needs to be done that day.) There's also a date, which tells me which date to check in my assignment book or syllabus for the actual assignment. Oddlly enough, those are all grade symbols--but I trust those who see the book will see the difference.

Anticipations:

I anticipate that the inital Physics homework will be at a mediocre-to-slightly-above average range. Again, I'd like to note that the way I put off the Physics homework was unacceptable to myself--maybe not as much as it is for my folks, but it still is to me--and that it's that assignment primarily which prompted me to start the above habit. I anticipate that the initial Physics lab will be fine, however. There's also some small extra credit I can do this semester, basically whenever someone comes to speak about Physics things. So I'll be taking up at least one of those offers, more if I discover there's more extra credit.

Spanish is going pretty well. I'm really enjoying the class. I survived my first oral presentation as far as the personal aspect of those things goes, but I don't have the academic evaluation yet, so we'll see how that goes. If I did anything major wrong, it's the length. I felt like I was very short with my presentation.

Calculus is...I'm doing the homework. I don't know how his grader works yet, so I can't really say much in that department. That's another subject I could probably use to work a little harder on.

Persuasion is going alright. I'm enjoying the class enough, and I just finished today's assignment this morning. I'm not sure how I'm going to do on it, though. I'm being asked for a fairly specific sentence format, and I'm not sure if I followed it closely enough. If I tried to cram everything in it seemed the sentence got quite awkward. I'll find out what I need to do different when I get the assignment back, I suppose.

Theology isn't going too badly. I actually wrote that analysis before I was supposed to, and in a string of events I'll share later I wound up sharing the Mark transfiguration passage with another person in Biblical Traditions. The good news there is that I've got that done with, so I only have two readings plus the one I managed to miss on the weekend's syllabus to do today / before 2:30 tomorrow. Although I think that would actually be today, because they're marked "F" on the to-do list. I really need to change it to something like "BEG" "WRK" and "FIN"--it's got too much potential to give the wrong impression.

Anyway, off to Spanish. Good day and God bless.

Please Feel Free to Nag

I started off my first week on a good note, doing quality work in my Spanish class, doing my best to pay attention to Calculus assignments and do them, and working well in the other three classes as well. However, by Thursday I found myself slipping into some old habits, which continued through today. (The notable exceptions: I not only did the Spanish homework for Friday, I later found out I didn't even have to do it. And I did have everything else that was required on Friday done by classtime Friday (and in the practical sense on Friday, although the Spanish I believe to have strecthed into the early AM hours. Also, I've got my THE 205 readings done for the weekend.) I've decided that I need to establish some more concrete goals academically. "Do better in school" isn't gonna cut it, really. As much as I'll regret this I am giving adult commentators on the blog (and other youth/young adults, if you are still reading this and really want to) permission to nag me via blog comments about whether I've done what needs doing that day, and maybe even a bit more. And now comes the thing I promised, except only to my parents. Here's how courses sound after Week 1 (in the order that they first appear on the schedule.) Commentators who know other things about the professors not mentioned here are asked to keep them to themselves...I'm trying to maintain their anonymity. And while naming my friends with first names doesn't really give them away, doing that or last names with professors will...Please just don't mention stuff about the professors unless I mention it first.

MTH 202 - Calculus II. I like this professor. He seems cool. The course picks up a bit before where my high school Calculus class left off. I actually have Thursday's and Friday's homework to do for this one this weekend, because the days it's due are Monday and Thursday and, as said before, my old habits made a hopefully brief return.

SPN 302 - Conversational Spanish. I like this class. Got an oral presentation this Monday, which hopefully will not kill me. But my first written assignment got full credit, which was awesome. The one she showed before it was an example of less-than-full-credit work, so when I saw mine up on the board I thought I was going to get...well, less-than-full-credit. But then the professor began talking about the vocabulary and the structure and said it had gotten full credit. Basically, written assignments won't be so much of a problem if I do what I did with this one--actually put some effort in, dictionary included--and on top of that proofread for what Spanish errors I do know how to catch. The professor for this class is cool...she has a decently-thick accent, but that'll be better for me in the long run.

CST 100 - Communication and Leadership. My professor calls it communication to emphasize that leadership isn't just about persuasion but also about dialogue, to suggest that it should be more about democratic meetings and less about authoritarian orders. Something like that, anyway. I despise one of my textbooks, but I'll take away one or two things from it. I love the other textbook, because the guy talks to me like I'm a human being and not just an information processor. My understanding is I need to read the next chapter of each textbook for next week, or something along those lines. This professor seems cool and seems interested in helping us learn the material.

PHY 205 - General Physics II. This is a different format from the last one. This time there's lecture for an hour and then an hourlong lab. It's stuff that we started covering about 2/3rds of the way through senior Physics, stuff about energy and coulombs and all that jazz. Vectors are involved. I'm not sure, but it sounds like some students take Vector Calculus in conjunction with or before taking Physics II. Homework's due Wednesday, but after the other stuff's done I'll make sure to at least look it over and start doing some problems. The professor for this class actually told us they wanted to hear us talking about the example problems, as opposed to telling us not to talk at all, which was a nice surprise.

THE 205 - Biblical Tradition and Culture. Also known as "BibTrad" this huge-honkin' class has a reputation for huge-honkin' papers. I've chosen my passage, picked my poison, as it were. I'm doing my paper/analysis thing on the transfiguration. The class should actually be alright, especially considering as a Freshman in BibTrad I'm sort of unexpected. But I won't really know for a bit. The thing that's due Tuesday for this class is an analysis of the wording of the passage. The professor is nice and seems cool. I had a bit of trouble staying awake in class Thursday, which was my fault for being up so late. Hey, I'm doing it again!

Finally should I find much spare time tomorrow I need to begin Alice's Adventures in Wonderland again. I should probably just start from the start again. The guy whose Alice's Adventures in Wonderland I have has my copy of Orthodoxy. It should be fun, because we've each got books that mean a lot to us that we're getting the opportunity to share with each other.

I also need to work on establishing a routine for my current Megazeux project, which is a trading-card game as-of-yet officially unnamed. Not sure what it'll be yet, but at this point the plan is to establish that along with other things, such as eating fewer unhealthy things and doing homework in a more efficient manner.

That's the latest post. Enjoy.

New Post!

It's been forever, hasn't it? I've been re-reading John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany, and it's almost as much fun as the first time. I'm noticing more of the foreshadowing this time around, since I've already read to the end. The unfortunate thing is that I saw a movie based upon the book (loosely...it's called Simon Birch) about five years ago, so even on the first reading I knew how the book was, on a basic level, going to end. I won't spoil that here. I'd recommend this book...I could probably even lend it to someone, once I'm done with this read-through.

I also have read the first few pages of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but have to pick it up again, probably next week sometime, and finish it. Owen Meany distracted me.