So, the semester has definitely been going much better than how it started out, although I do really miss Waterbury. At Mackin, though, I have a really awesome roommate with whom I am getting along great. I really feel like the whole situation has worked out for the better, and I am happy. I am busy, as always, very, very busy, but I do have downtime, thankfully. Every week, I have to read a literature selection (it’s called that, but it’s really the professor’s selection) for my Adolescence Education course, which obviously eats up a great deal of time. I also have a lot of reading and writing to do for my other classes, and it’s very time-consuming, but I’d much rather be where I am today over where I was during my freshman year for so many reasons, and most importantly, I feel a lot more motivated now. I only have one Gen Ed Requirement left, which I am probably going to have to take either over Winter Break or over Summer Break (which is an upper-level Exploration in the Natural Sciences Course, which I think is utterly ridiculous; when am I ever going to use such a thing?), but other than that, I am completely working on my Major Requirements, and so, I feel like every chapter of a textbook I read, every paper I write, every book I read, etc. is one step that I am taking, one step closer to becoming a teacher.
Friday is my first day of Practicum this semester, so like last semester, I plan to write a weekly blog entry regarding my experience. This semester, I am at Henninger High School, but unlike last semester when I only had to complete one half-day each week, this semester, I have to complete either two half-days or one whole day. I am doing one whole day, so on Fridays, from 7:55 to 2:00, I will need to be in Syracuse at Henninger High, and I have very mixed feelings. Last semester, I was at Corcoran High School, and it was pretty rough, the students coming from pretty rough backgrounds, many focused on promiscuity and violence. I have heard that Henninger is, likewise, a rough school. I recall having a bad experience at Corcoran last semester. I went to the bathroom, and a student in that bathroom threatened me, saying that if I didn’t show my face to him, he would use physical force, and when I did, he laughed at me. It was obviously disheartening to me, someone who wants to be a teacher. I don’t mean to prejudge; I would just really like to be in a school where I can observe students who are a bit more eager to learn. Plus, I am not looking forward to getting up that early, wink wink.
The only real problem that this semester is presenting to me at this point is that my room has no internet service. I really feel like CTS has not treated the problem like it’s a real problem, and it has been incredibly frustrating. My roommate contacted CTS when he first got here at the very beginning of the semester, and someone came to the room to see what was wrong. They told him that within a week, he would have internet in the room, and there is still no internet in the room. I have repeatedly contacted them. Friday, they came here again and said that it would seem as if an entirely new line needed to be set up and that they would be contacting us very soon. A couple of days went by, and there was no word, so I contacted them. Apparently, someone is coming to the room tomorrow morning (as in the 15th; I can’t post this until the 15th due to not having internet access) at around 9 AM to take care of the issue, and I’m just hoping that it will finally be taken care of, because, needless to say, it has been incredibly inconvenient. Both my schoolwork and my job on campus make readily available internet access a crucial necessity. Anyway, I have to get some work done. I am sure that I’ll be writing again very soon, most likely after Friday to write about my Practicum experience.