Too Much Homework!

Does anyone else feel the same way? The semester is nearing an end, so everything is beginning to come an end, and it’s pretty overwhelming. There is simply too much to do as you look at your semester agenda and realize that April and May both mean that a lot is due, and no matter how hard you try to stay on top and get it all done as soon as you possibly can, you find yourself frustrated because the amount is simply too high to successfully accomplish that. You get something done with ten other assignments still ahead of you. That’s how I feel, anyway.

I am doing a relatively good job, mind you. I got a great deal of work done over Spring Break, work that wasn’t due until April, but to help exemplify my point, I still did next to nothing this past weekend except a lot of homework. I worked most of my day yesterday (Saturday) and all of today so far, and I’m still not done. There are so many papers and so many reading assignments. It just gets so tiring.

On a good note, April is almost here, and while that does serve as foreboding for me in a sense (since it means summer is approaching, and I don’t want to not be here), it means that warm weather is on its way. I was expecting weather in the 50s and 60s already, since it’s near the end of March, but instead, the weather has been really cold, which has been kind of ridiculous. Ray and I still really have not explored the town on foot, and that’s something that we really want to do. I can’t wait to walk into town, just take a day to explore the town and visit shops, go see a movie, and so forth; that’s why I can’t wait until April. Also, April 13th will mark two years that we have been together.

Right now, I’m just trying to get through as much of this work as I possibly can while still enjoying myself. I can’t really say that it’s a challenge, because I do love being here, and I love this campus, but I am definitely ready for Spring. I do know of some crazies who love Winter, but I am not one of them (I am here, to make a long and repeated story short, because I didn’t have much of a choice, but don’t get me wrong – I love Oswego). I find Winter to be so exhausting and numbing, and I’m sick of it. Luckily, calendar-wise, it’s gone. I will be writing again soon.

Enjoying the Good Weather

Am I the only one who is really happy that Spring is pretty much here? With any luck, we won’t get any more snow in Oswego, because I hate Winter and really love Spring, especially in Oswego, as Oswego is simply beautiful in the Spring. A really close friend of mine came to visit last year, and he was here from April 1st to April 11th; during that time, it tended to be pretty hot during the day, usually in the 80s, and that’s not too far away at all, so I’m keeping my head up and my fingers crossed.

I have, for the most part, enjoyed my break, but I really can’t wait to get back to school. Now that I have my boyfriend Ray here, I am so happy to be in Oswego, because I can have the best of both worlds. My break got off to a rough start, but it quickly got a lot better, and I also got a considerable amount of work done; I figured (as did Ray) that I have nine days away from everything – I’m going to take advantage of that and get work done, so I actually got work done that isn’t even due until mid-April or so. The more that I get done now, the more relaxed the rest of my semester will be, and relaxed is always a good condition when the weather is beautiful.

April 13th will be two years that I have been with Ray, and there is so much that I would like to do with him on that day, so hopefully, it will be all shine, no rain. I would definitely like to walk into town, get food somewhere (which might be tricky, seeing as how we are both vegetarians), visit the river, and so forth. It just sucks that it is on a Wednesday, not only because that’s a school day but because it is a really rough day for him (he has class until 7:45 p.m. on Wednesdays), but I really don’t have a problem celebrating the following weekend.

I don’t want to say that I can’t wait for the semester to be over, as that is far from the truth. I love being in Oswego; I just don’t like all of the work. Some people say that they work well under pressure, and that just isn’t me. I need to feel relaxed to produce good work; pressure makes me feel very chaotic and tends to make me focus more on quantity, not quality, that is, consider it more important that I get an assignment done than that I do it well, and that’s certainly not good, but I usually manage. For now, I need to run, but I’ll be writing soon – next week at the very latest.

No Practicum Setting This Semester

So, as it turns out, I will not have a Practicum Setting this semester. That is for a couple of reasons, but the primary reason is that it is not ideal for me at this point in time. My concentration is English, and what I would be observing is Special Education in AIS Math and integrated Technology, Social Studies, and Health, no English at all. The main reason that this is not ideal is because I took my Third Block before my Second (which I am taking now), and that means that my next block (which will be Spring 2012) will be Student Teaching, so the thought that the Practicum placement right before my Student Teaching experience does not involve observing English is incredibly scary.

Fortunately, because of the very fact that I am ahead a semester, I can afford not to have a placement this semester and then just fulfill this requirement next semester. I was hoping to not have to do that, but I think that it will ultimately benefit me, especially due to the serious health problems this semester. Later this month, I have to have surgery done, and that is going to result in me being off my feet for a week at the very least, maybe two, since that is what the surgeon told me. I think that this is really going to be beneficial; the only other downside is that it’s looking like I am going to have to take sixteen credits next semester, which means that the Dean’s List likely won’t be happening, nor will very much free time, but I tend to make the best of difficult situations, so I’m not too worried.

Finally Moved into Sheldon

So, I am finally in Sheldon with Ray, and I couldn’t be happier. Beyond the facts that the room is pretty big, has heat and air-conditioning, and we have our own bathroom, this building is so incredibly quiet, and that last bit is what is especially important, since Mackin was so obnoxiously noisy. A couple of weeks ago, for example, a group of about five male residents stampeded down the hallway after two in the morning and shouted, “Everybody wake up!” making an alarm-like sound in the process, and that wasn’t even the weekend; it was a Thursday night.

Sheldon is so gorgeous, and I love the sense of community here; everyone is so friendly and helpful and wanting to meet new people and make new friends. The very first day that we were here, our RA introduced himself, and we have already met four or five residents who introduced themselves, and they were really nice people. Like I said, I couldn’t be happier to be here, especially with Ray.

What about this weather, though? I am a Junior, so this is my third Winter here, and this is the craziest one yet. It is definitely the coldest and the windiest. Thursday, I had two classes, and both were canceled, something that has never happened to me here before, and if Monday is anything like it was today (as in Saturday), then I don’t expect class on Monday, either, because today was exceptionally bad.

I would love to hear from others about how your semesters are going. Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, so hopefully everyone’s will be just as happy as I’m sure mine will be. I’ll be surely writing again soon; until then, take care.

Gearing Up

Wow, this semester is going to be yet another toughie; I can already tell. Not that anyone would really care to know all of the specifics about my medical life, I’m sure, but I started my semester out with a pilonidal cyst, which, from what I understand, is pretty much the most painful kind of cyst one could get, and believe me, I would know, as it was basically the most amount of pain I’ve ever been in in my whole life, but thankfully, I am just about fully healed now and back on my feet, so to speak.

I haven’t even been to my Literacy class yet, because last week, I wasn’t doing too well, and yesterday, I had to go back to the surgeon for a follow-up. That is quite daunting, because despite my attempts to find out how much work I have missed via emailing the professor, she has not returned the email, so I’m so afraid I’m going to walk in there on Wednesday only to discover that I have a hundred or so pages of reading to do, which would be quite unfortunate considering the fact that I am reading Clarissa by Samuel Richardson this semester for English 365. In case you don’t know what that is, it is a 1500 page book, so it’s going to take me forever to get through it.

As always, there is so much reading to do, and as always, there is so much writing, which I actually don’t mind as much as the reading. The reading is far more time-consuming, and it can be quite mundane when it isn’t really anything that you want to be reading. Every semester, I fool myself into thinking that I can afford to bring books for pleasure up here to read during downtime, and what I forget is that that is something that I get incredibly sparingly, but hey, it’s one step closer, right? I took my Safe Schools Healthy Students exam this previous Saturday and passed the class, so little by little, I am getting there – to being an English teacher, that is. Anyone else care to share how their semester is faring thus far?

Next Semester Is Going to Be Awesome

Well, as I have been saying, the semester is nearing an end. Tomorrow, I have a half-day of Practicum, and then, after next week, there are only two sessions of Practicum left. I can’t believe how close we are to the end; this semester has gone by so quickly, and I am not complaining about that, because stress-wise, it has definitely been my worst so far.

Next semester may not be too much better stress-wise, because I am taking an English class with a-Professor-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. The last time I took a class with this said professor, the professor would give pop writing assignments to be done in class, and I missed one. On top of that, when the professor assigns a major paper, he/she cares far too much about positioning of the margins, how far the heading is from the top, and so forth. I have never had a professor even care about that let alone enforce it as strictly as this one does. They just want it to look professional. I am taking the class with a good friend of mine, though, so I am actually kind of excited about it.

Plus (and forgive me, this is confusing), second-semester sophomores who took their first Education Block last semester are actually taking their third this semester. I can’t remember the exact reasoning for that; it has something to do with a certain Block not being available at a certain time, so next semester, I will actually be taking my second Block, whereas this semester, I am taking my third, so I will already know how to write lesson plans. It should be an easier semester.

Lastly, my boyfriend, Ray, got accepted into Oswego and sent in his deposit on Monday, so he will be here next semester, and I am so excited about that. It is all that I have been talking about for the past few days, ever since I found out, really. I am extremely excited and actually want Winter Break to fly by. We are trying to get into Sheldon, and our fingers are crossed. I live in Mackin now, and I don’t like it. There are a lot of very immature residents here who are supposed to be adults but certainly don’t act like it. Anyway, I will definitely be writing again soon to report on my Practicum experience tomorrow. I hope that you will be reading then. Adios!

Wow, Almost Over!

As my religious readers know, I always write about my Practicum experience every week, but this past week, Syracuse City Schools had a half-day, so I was told that I didn’t need to go. This past weekend, I had so much fun. I watched a lot of NCIS with Ray and Saw VII with him on Saturday, which I absolutely loved. I felt that it tied everything up, and as an avid Saw fan ever since the first film was released during my freshman year of high school, I was very emotionally satisfied.

Anyway, though, moving on to more important matters, who can believe that the semester is actually very close to being over? We have about three weeks left until Thanksgiving Break, and then, when we get back to school from that, it will only be another three or so until Winter Break. Good news? Most definitely, but it has its downsides, too.

For example, I have a major Final Project to worry about for my English 360 class, one that I have not even had the chance to start thinking about yet, let alone actually start, and I believe that it is 25% of my grade. Am I worried? Definitely. On top of that, I have a Teacher Work Sample to complete for ADO 310, English Methods, which involves a unit’s worth of lesson plans, as well as five additional parts (one of which is complete, thanks to EDU 380).

It is just so difficult to believe how close to the end we are. This semester has (thankfully) flew by. It has been very rough on me, with a ridiculous amount of work that needs to be completed on a daily basis, and I have very little time to myself. I am so looking forward to Winter Break, which will be a much needed break. Friday, I will be going to Practicum, and (I believe) next week, I have to teach a lesson to the students, so I met with the other Practicum Students who have the same Host Teacher that I do and will be meeting with them again on Thursday night. I will be writing again soon.

Long time, No Blog :(

Hello there!
I apologize for my absence on the blog scene. I have had a lot going on, but when don’t I?

So this summer, I didn’t get the chance to go to Italy, the financial aid didn’t come through in time so hint of advice, DON’T WAIT! I saw some pictures of a few friends who went and they were absolutely beautiful. I WILL be going either on Spring break for a week to Rome or I’ll go in the summer of ’11.

However, I did get the chance to camp in the Adirondacks for 5 days, let me tell you that was an experience! I have never really camped, I mean with a tent and cooking out and all that jazz. It was amazing. I woke up every day around 5 a.m because of the sunrise and Rollins Pond was as calm as could be, it was a humbling experience to say the least. I’d get up and fish with those I was camping with and I caught my first two fish ever! I was so scared to hold them. I got to visit the Olympic Village in Lake Placid and see Saranac Lake. I climbed to the top of Whiteface Mountain! That was unbelievable! I plan on going back to climb the rest of the peaks in the ADK! That was definitely the highlight of my summer experience.

So on the school side. I’VE STARTED MY SENIOR YEAR! Holy moly, where has the time gone? My co-blogger Samantha Shelton, was my roommate freshman year and we can tell you every single detail about move in week. It was so much fun! It seems like that was just yesterday.

I’m in the capstone class for Public Relations Majors, which is the final class you need for the major to graduate. I am so excited. We’re working on a PR campaign for any business of our choice and my group decided to work with The Mustard Seed, an all natural food store. We are able to put into practice everything we’ve learned from freshman year on about surveying, research methods, print layout and design and of course the writing of press releases! I am so excited to see the end result. The business has the choice of implementing our work or not but the manager seems really excited to work with us and use our materials.
In my other PR class, we’re working the United Way Kidney walk and we get to put that on ourselves. Our class is broken up into groups such as T-shirt committee, recruitment, thank you committee and others. Also in that class, we get the chance to design our own campaign for ScanDisk and send it into PR student of the year! How awesome, we’ve had 5 students in the top 5 of the competiton and last years winner was from Oswego! How awesome! He was awarded a paid internship and a cash prize!

I seem to be working in groups in all of my classes except for Math 102, which I will give you another hint of advice, don’t wait until senior year to take a 100 level course, you’ll more than likely be the only senior in there and it’s just annoying to look forward to taking “math in the real world” four years later ha! But, in my marketing class we get to design a marketing campaign for any product of our choice and we can’t decide between Dove Chocolate or Starburst. We get to create our own commercial, print ads and PSAs. The graphic design department is working with us to design our commercial, which is great because it will be other students helping us!

In management, we’re working on case studies of ethical behavior and my group is doing the case of “baseball and steroids.” Should be a very heated discussion in class! I also get to write a paper on ethics and leadership, which is a topic that really interests me!

Lastly, my interpersonal communication class is probably my favorite class. Professor Eichhorn is a great teacher and the topic is just interesting in general. I am going to be evaluating a group of people who work together and teach them ways to improve their communication skills in any area I so choose, I haven’t figured out which area quite yet but all in due time!

So, there is an overview of my classes and all that I will be doing this semester. I can’t believe it! Senior year, time sure does fly! I’ll be writing more soon updating you on the extra curricular stuff soon!

Chao 🙂

Practicum Starts Soon

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.

Crazy Week, but All Will Be Good

So, the first week of the semester has been pretty crazy, to say the least. Although I don’t want to get into it on here for multiple reasons, my roommate did something on Monday night that made me incredibly uncomfortable, and it was, in fact, so bad that I gave three different reports, one to an R.A., one to the Waterbury Hall Director, and one to a pair of UP Officers, and I moved out of Waterbury. It was very sad, because I loved Waterbury, and I will miss it very, very much. It was a comfortable home for me for my entire sophomore year, a place where I shared a great deal of good times with friends, and I hated having to leave it. I can’t, however, live where he is going to be, so I am living in Mackin now.

So far, I really like Mackin now. My new roommate is really nice, and I like him. I definitely think that this year is going to be pretty good, and I’m looking forward to it, more or less, despite the fact that I am clearly going to be bombarded with work. There is, as always, so much reading, so much writing that has to be done this semester, and looking at all of my syllabi makes me feel so overwhelmed. However, I know that I can do it, and I’m going to do it with flying colors. Last semester, I managed a very good GPA, and I want to do even better this semester. I benefit greatly from taking all Education and English courses, though, because I feel very motivated. I will definitely be writing frequently throughout the semester, updating everyone on how the semester is going.