Nearing the End of the First Quarter

So, things are wrapping up in my classes now. That makes everything sound so peaceful and calm, everything's coming to a close. It's kind of the opposite though. I have group projects in pretty much every single one of my classes, and my group members are all, without fail, slackers. I'm doing shit tons of work for all the projects.

The project for my Communications class is already done, although that's far from a good thing in this case. Our project was a group debate, and it went very poorly. Our topic was Harry Potter, specifically "Harry Potter could have won the Triwizard Tournament without Mad Eye Moody's help". Now, if you've read the Harry Potter books, you'll remember that throughout the entire fourth book Mad Eye Moody was lock in a magic chest. The FAKE Mad Eye Moody, a.k.a. Barty Crouch Jr. taking a Polyjuice Potion to LOOK like Mad Eye Moody, is the only one that helps Harry Potter throughout the whole book. Therefore, the real Mad Eye Moody didn't help Harry Potter at all. Obviously, me and my partner brought this up. However, that pretty much killed the whole debate. I mean, what else is there to say? Mad Eye Moody DIDN'T help Harry Potter at all. We didn't get to exhibit any of the things the professor told us to. Also, the debate is worth 30% of our grade. So I was pretty pissed off. I emailed the professor about it four days ago, but he still hasn't responded, so we'll see. I've worked really really hard in that class, and I think the professor is a pretty cool guy, so this pretty much sucks for me.

Anyway.

Letting go. (haha)

I am doing well at my new job at the on campus Starbucks! It's fun, the people there are really cool, and I'm starting to get to know how to make drinks and all that jazz. I'm excited for when I can do all of them.

Also, I saw Scott Pilgrim the other day, and I love that movie more than life itself. I really really want to dye my hair some awesome crazy color now. I hope work lets me. I feel like Starbucks is usually pretty cool about stuff like that.

Okay, well I'm going to go write an essay for my IGE class now. More later!

Molly

Stupid People

My newest challenge is this: Stupid people. I am so happy I came to the college I did, and living here is great. The classes are interesting, my dorm room is fantastic, and the people in my building are (for the most part) really nice, and smart. However. I feel as though the majority of the students I am taking classes with are stupid sheep. I have a Psychology professor who is a dingus - she's not necessarily a bad TEACHER, she prepares powerpoints for class and tells interesting stories, although she is kind of a flake sometimes - she's just not very smart. She's always giving us examples for things that really just flat out don't make sense, or are incorrect. And she's narcissistic too. When we were learning about logical fallacies, she kept giving explaining why they didn't apply to her and she would never make a mistake like that, and when she was giving us puzzles to show the fallacies in action, she kept mentioning how she got the answer quickly, and she got it "on the first try". It's so frustrating!!

The way I'm dealing with this is using it as fuel - whenever someone in my classes says something stupid, that just makes me want to work that much harder to get good grades, so I can transfer to a different school in two years. I don't know where I want to transfer yet. I think I'd transfer after one year if I could, but I don't think I'll have enough evidence that I've changed since high school to really get into a good college, and focusing on college applications during the school year would honestly just be too difficult for me anyway. I am working hard enough on trying to have a job and do 16 units a quarter from now on and volunteer and participate in extracurricular activities. I can't do college apps too. But anyway! I'm also trying to use the stupid people as training in being understanding, less critical, and diplomacy. I should probably stop calling them stupid people for this to work, though. :P

My First Midterm

I just took my very first midterm EVER! Wow, college is so different from high school it’s funny. I actually studied really hard for this midterm; I thought I was over preparing. I went into the class thinking it was going to be an absolute breeze, but it turns out I studied just enough. It was way harder than I thought it was going to be, but I was still prepared, so that was nice. Teachers in high school always tell you that they’re going to extrapolate on the information learned, and that the tests will be about critical thinking and understanding, but they never actually ARE, it’s always just rote memorization still. Tests in college ACTUALLY DO have extrapolation, and test your understanding, and yaddah yaddah yaddah. I have another midterm today, Communications, which I’m about to go study some more for, but then I’m done! I know it seems weird that I only have two midterms, but I am only taking three classes, and the “midterm” for my other class (IGE) was an art project. I also have a club meeting I have to go to today, though, for the Art Student Society. One of the things I’m kind of worrying about right now is the classes I’m going to sign up for to take next quarter. Registration starts November 3^rd, and I don’t know what to do for my General Education. I have been taking Interdisciplinary General Education, a special program of general ed offered by my school, but now I’m thinking that if I’m considering transferring after two years, it might be smarter to take regular general ed classes instead. I’m trying to find out who my academic advisor is so I can talk to him/her about it, but things like that are always really hard here. Although I might sound like a broken record about this, college bureaucracy is a real bitch.

Socially everything is going great, I’ve kind of relaxed about things. I’m not really in to staying up until 5 in the morning when I have class at 8, but a lot of my friends would stay up super late, doing last minute homework and going on food runs. I was feeling really left out sometimes, and it was super frustrating, but now everyone’s sort of starting to calm down about things, and I’m coming to terms with the fact that I can’t always hang out with everyone. Besides, crazy drunken partying on the weekends is plenty for me ;)

Life is Good

At the moment, I feel kind of like a pro at college. I know saying that less than halfway through the first quarter of my freshman year might seem a little presumptuous, but that’s why I add the “at the moment”. Everything is back to good with Cole (he’s not flirting like a little biznatch anymore), I just signed up with four other girls on my floor to play intramural volleyball, I’m applying for a ton of jobs, I’m an active member of my school’s art campus, I’m volunteering at the library, I’m checking out (and reading, haha) books from the library, I’m doing all of my homework early, I’ve finished a project that’s due in a week, I’m hanging out with my friends, AND I’m getting plenty of sleep! I don’t know how I improved so much between high school and college, but life is good. Also, I really like partying. Me and my friends go out to at least two parties every weekend, frat parties are awesome, but any party works. Also!!! I’m also eating a salad with every lunch and dinner, drinking a ton of water, and working out every day. And I have a job interview with Starbucks next Thursday. So wish me tons of luck! Midterms are coming up already, because we’re on the quarter system. I can’t believe how quickly that happened. I’m kind of nervous, so studying makes me feel better. Unfortunately, I can’t study for my Psych midterm, because my dingus of a professor screwed up the course outline, so we don’t know which chapters in our book we’re supposed to be studying. She said she’d make an adjusted one, but she keeps forgetting to put it up online, even though I’ve sent her two email reminders (at her request). It’s getting ridiculous, and I’m kind of pissed off. She’s not a very good teacher in general. I don’t have any really GREAT professors this quarter, although my Communications teacher is at least intelligent and on top of things. I’m looking forward to taking more than 12 units next quarter. Anyway, I’m STARVING so I’m going to go grab some food at the commons. That’s another thing, the food is only okay, but it’s better than I thought it would be seeing as we pretty much eat at the same place every day. So that’s nice J Okay, more later!

Busy busy busy

Wow, it’s only been two days since my last post but SO many things have happened, it’s almost ridiculous! I’ve been making tons of friends. My entire floor (I’m on the second floor of my building) is really friendly, and we do a bunch of group activities, so I’m really starting to get to know people. Me and Emily have been stealing so much food. I know that’s a classic college student thing, but I really think we’re taking it to a new level. Natalie brought Ziploc bags, and we took tons of things for oat meal, things that we looked normal taking, like bananas and raisins, and things that we did NOT look normal taking, like brown sugar, and cinnamon. Trust me, people give you weird looks when you walk off with a plate heaped with brown sugar. But our fridge is full! So that’s awesome. We have muffins and brownies and pizza and candy and lots of fruit. One of my favorite things is stealing doughnuts, because we can microwave them and they get really warm and the frosting gets all melty and crystallizes a little and it’s soooo good. So there’s a tip to all you other college students out there! Steal doughnuts. Also, I went to the gym yesterday, which was fantastic. There’s a free gym on campus but the big on is SO much better, and it’s only 15 dollars a month, so I decided it was worth it and bought a membership. Especially because we can’t start using the free gym until Thursday, and I really wanted to start working out a couple days ago. Anyway, it’s a great gym, and it’s relatively un-crowded so far, so I went for like an hour before dinner. Exercising is really essential for me, because it helps keep my moods stable. I’m taking birth control, and that makes me kind of moody or depressed sometimes, so exercising helps keep my positive and in control of how I feel. The gym is a REALLY long walk from my dorm, but that seems like a kind of silly thing to complain about since the whole point of a gym is to get exercise, hahaha. I’m still on the waitlist for the English class I want. I’m in position ONE, but still, I’ve been in position one since I signed up. I wanted to buy all my textbooks, to be prepared and everything, but my mom said it was a better idea to wait until after the first day. It’s just hard to relax about it, because a couple of the seminar instructors have mentioned that since this is the quarter system we have to be really on the ball right away, because it moves really fast, so we should be totally ready, textbooks and notebooks in hand, on the first day. But I’m not going to stress out about that because I have plenty of other things to worry about without adding more. One of which, unfortunately, is my boyfriend. The other night my whole floor went on a midnight walk, just to get to know each other and stuff. We decided to play Mafia, so we all sat down in a circle. I mentioned before how I noticed that Cole was paying lots of attention to Natalie, and it had been bugging me all day. He walked the whole way with her, so I just walked and talked with other people. When we sat down in a big circle, he and Natalie sat down on the opposite side of me and the people I was talking to. So that kind of pissed me off already. But then, the whole time we were playing, he was whispering with her, and she was giggling and he was laughing, and then he put his hand on her knee (that is so cliché flirting, right?) and I was just trying not to cry or anything right there, and it was really annoying timing because I wanted to be focusing on getting to know people and making friends! So I was pretty pissed off. So I told Emily I was ready to leave, and she said she was too, and she got Cole, and he, of course, got Natalie, and he walked with her all the way back and held the door open for her and stuff. So I was pretty much ignoring him by the time we got back to our room, and he could tell something was wrong. He texted me when he got back to his room, but he thought I was just grumpy because of the pill. I explained, albeit tersely, what was wrong, and he felt really bad. So we talked about it, and he said he’s just bad at having friends that are girls. He said he always ends up flirting. So I don’t know how I feel about that right now. I mean, if that’s how he acts when I AM there how is he acting when I’m not? And he basically said he can’t control it, so that’s kind of weird. Anyway, I’m giving him another chance and we’ll see how it goes. I just got back from my first class, Psychology 202, which was really cool! It starts at 8, which is kind of early (I have 8 o clock classes EVERY DAY with my current schedule! D: ), so I woke up at 6:30-ish and gave up on going back to sleep. I snuck around getting ready, trying not to wake up Emily (which apparently worked beautifully, she didn’t even hear me leave), and left by about 7:15 with a tootsie roll and a banana for breakfast. I got there way too early, and was pretty bored until the teacher arrived, about 2 minutes before class started. Most of today’s class was just her going through the attendance list and us sharing things about ourselves. We ended half an hour early, and now I’m back on my bed! Emily just left for her first class, so I’m aaaall alone :0 PRIVACY! Haven’t had that in a while. I don’t even know what to do with myself. I think I’m going to go eat, and maybe cat nap and go to the gym, before my next class at 3. Lots of fun! College is awesome!

First Dorm Night!

It’s 8:30 in the morning, and I just spent my first night in a college dorm. There is a giant, loud, beeping, roaring garbage machine right outside my window, reinforcing the importance of my buildings strictly enforced 10-10 quiet time. The tiny crack at the very edge of the blinds is managing to pour a ferocious amount of early morning light directly onto my bed. So I am awake, forcefully awake, but very happy!

My first day was definitely a huge success. Moving in was wonderful. I woke up yesterday feeling incredibly excited, but kind of nervous. My mom and stepdad drove me to Cal Poly and we followed the big “FRESHMAN CHECK-IN” signs to my new dorm. It was kind of hard to find parking, but after we finally found a parking space miles away from my dorm, me and my mom went to check in. Check-in was smooth and easy, a very different experience, I’m guessing, from a lot of college students.

, I got my key (okay, so at first they gave me the wrong key, but after that it was perfect!), and I went up the second floor and got a look at the little room I would be living in for the next year. IT’S BEAUTIFUL. I am no longer even the slightest bit jealous of Chapman. Our rooms are not too small, with beautiful brick walls and old (possibly decaying?) wooden closets. We have our own little bookshelf above our beds, our own little (very little) dresser/bed stand, our own little (kind of big) desks, and our own little wooden closets with long term storage cabinets above them.

Unpacking my stuff was so much fun!!! My room looks gorgeous personalized, it really does.

My roommate Emily, one of my best friends from high school, got there later in the day, as did my boyfriend Cole. While they were unpacking my mom and stepdad took me out to a delicious goodbye lunch (as much goodbye as you can have while living half an hour away) at Applebees, where my sweet and loving mother put on sunglasses inside to hide her “goodbye tears” from the waitresses.

Anyway, twelve hours later I’m pretty sure I’m already the coolest kid on campus (joking!). I had a great time hanging out with Cole and Emily during our first activities, but then I made friends with Natalie and Zachary, two awesome kids, and they fit in perfectly with Cole and Emily as well. Cole’s roommate also turned out to be pretty fantastic, so the six of us stayed up until 1 AM in me and Emily’s room, talking, and eating our food, and playing Uno. I now officially have all the classes I NEED, although it would be nice to get into the IGE class that I want.

So life is going pretty fantastically! The only thing that is even the tiniest bit off it that Natalie is REALLY pretty, and really sweet and I think she’s fantastic, but Cole just pays so much attention to her, and I’m all paranoid that now that we’re at college he’ll find some hot junior girl or something, so it kind bugs me. But other than that everything is perfect! And that’s probably just me being silly.

I know it might be weird that the day I actually move INTO college is the day I write the shortest blog post, but there are so many super exciting things happening now that all the less-exciting little details seem small and trivial. Also, I really want to go take a shower before the shower rush starts. I’ll post more later, promise! Out!

Slow Goin'

So, as the blog probably reflects, these last few weeks before school starts have been pretty static for me. Since we’re on the quarter system, we don’t start till the 19^th. Which sounded nice in the beginning, extra long summer, woohoo, but now it’s getting to be kind of a drag. All my friends are beginning their adventures, they’ve moved in to their dorm rooms and started classes, and I’m still at home, waiting for the 19^th to drag itself around.

It is, however, the prime situation for dorm visits. Just a week ago I visited Chapman, where four of my friends are going, which was really fun, but oh my gosh did I ever get campus envy. Chapman is SO. BEAUTIFUL. And their dorms are so nice, and each room has it’s OWN freaking bathroom with it’s OWN freaking shower, and there’s a little entertainment room and conference room on every floor, and the whole campus is sooo beautifuuuuul! *melts into a little puddle of jealous goo*

Not to mention the fact that one of the girls we were visiting was an old flame of my boyfriend, so I felt kind of territorial and protective the whole time. Grrrr. :P But it also just made me really pumped to move into my own dorm room, because they were all having so much fun!

I bought myself a cute yellow desk lamp, and extra-long twin sheets, and a binder, and some pencils. It was fun. And I’ve accepted my loans, and I have a budget. Using a debit card feels very mature, and I’m nervous and excited for how thrifty I’m going to have to be. I’m thinking of just keeping most of my money in a saving account, and transferring over how much I’ve allotted myself as allowance into my checking at the beginning of every month. Luckily I have a very sweet boyfriend with more money than me, so he’s been buying me food and stuff when we go out.

One thing that has been worrying me is the fact that I’m waitlisted for almost all of my classes. I’ve been trying almost every day to contact Cal Poly about whether I should buy my textbooks, email my professors, pay tuition fees. Basically I want to ask them what I should be doing to prepare when I don’t really know what classes I’m in yet, but they have this wonderfully efficient system set up where their phone line immediately disconnects every time you call. Fantastically well-organized, gets through the callers at a terrific speed.

So I guess I’ll wait until I move in, and I’ll just drop into the offices I need to, and talk to people directly. Luckily I move in five days before classes start.

I’ve also been working on applying for jobs. I know that beggars can’t be choosers, but working for a fast food company sounds like a nightmare. Working for Jamba Juice was awesome, but unfortunately there are none in the area. I’ve applied for secretarial positions, assistant positions, Starbucks, and a few cafes. But I’m holding off on applying to Taco Bell, Dennys, or Carls Jr. until it looks like I really have no other options. Maybe this a bad plan? Opinions are welcome.