Tag Archives: homework

Feeling Good

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Here I am, sitting in my room, and of all things, I’m actually thinking about how much I absolutely love college, and no, I ensure you, I am not insane. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was completely and entirely stressed, because I was so overwhelmed with work that needed to get done, and at this point, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, but a reminder to all that feel as if negativity is consistently slamming them in the face is that life is full of lessons to be learned, and therefore, every experience becomes an opportunity. There was a quote that I read once, and as a matter of fact, I am pretty sure that it was on an edition of Toilet Talk that I read it, but it said something like a pessimist sees failure in every opportunity while an optimist sees opportunity in every failure, and I think that that speaks a great deal of meaning.

I’m, of course, not at all saying that when times are tough, you should just try to ignore them and think ahead, ignoring every conflicting situation that you are currently experiencing. “Everything is going to be okay” or “just look at the bright side” rarely, if ever, work, at least for me, anyway, because when you are experiencing a situation that is vehemently difficult to deal with, that’s all that’s on your mind at the time, and although you understand that whoever is trying to help means well, their words mean nothing at the time, but keep in mind that usually, if I’m correct in saying this, you’ll end up thanking them, because as it will turn out, they were right. There was a bright side, there was something to look forward to, and most importantly, there was something to learn, and as long as we do in fact learn the lessons that life so desperately wants us to learn, then we’re on the right track.

Just this past week, I kind of had a breakdown, because, once again, there was so much going on, and it seemed as if one unfortunate event right after another was hitting me like a brick in the face. I had a History paper to write, and I didn’t think that I had any idea whatsoever how to write it. Also, the last time that I went home, I discovered that my father had somehow discovered that I am in a relationship with a male, and since he is extremely religious, he believes that being gay is a choice and that it’s a sin, so he told me that Ray (my boyfriend) could no longer visit me anymore, specifically because he is a “bad influence” on my two younger siblings (a sister, 13, and a brother, 17), and the reality of what that meant caused me to hit rock bottom this past week as well. Ray and I have been together for almost eight months now, and never in my life have I been happier, and his coming over to my house was an easy and convenient way for us to spend time together; now, it’s not so easy, and when we do spend time together, it’s for much shorter periods of time, and we’re never alone.

This was eating away at me as well as a number of other problems, and as I usually do in situations such as this, I panicked, unsure of what to do. However, a friend of mine once said that the universe has a way of self-correcting itself. He didn’t come up with this on his own, of course, but I give him credit, because I am pretty sure that he is where I first heard it. Back when he first said it, I thought that it was utter nonsense, but my recent experiences have showed me that he was right. Almost everything that goes wrong results in something right, and what went wrong happened, because we were meant to learn something from it, and that is indeed something beautiful.

Just as a small example, college is obviously very stressful. As a student, I am consistently being challenged, and there is rarely a time that I am completely free and am able to do something relaxing. However, at the same time, there is a reward at the end of almost every long and winding road. I feel accomplished when I complete a challenging paper (which is exactly what I did this weekend, having worked for about four hours on my History paper), and I feel accomplished knowing that as a college sophomore, I have made it really far at this point, and continuing in this same direction is going to one day soon result in teaching high school students English Literature, something that I have been wanting to do for years, basically for as long as I can remember. I really do love college, because every now and then, I do get those relaxing moments where I can reflect on life and how good it has been being to me lately, how rewarding it feels to be productive and to get work done. Ultimately, going to college is a decision that I’m really glad that I made.

A New Day in the Old Town

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It’s so hard to believe that we’re nearly halfway through the semester already. Tomorrow, well technically today, I suppose, I have to take my English 304 midterm, and I am very nervous about that, because I remain pretty confident that I am going to get a pretty terrible grade on it. I am just not used to this kid of English course. Ever since middle school, English classes did not involve actual assessments but instead portfolios which consisted of written work throughout the year, and now, I have to take an actual written assessment in the traditional sense, and I have a multitude of different terms that I need to know the meaning of as well as a multitude of different names that I need to associate with literary periods, and I am really stressing out.

Basically, this semester has really been pretty on and off for me; it’s been pretty bittersweet, in other words. A lot of goodness has come out of this semester, a great deal that is much different than my situation last year. For example, I have an awesome roommate who I am so happy I asked to room with last year; there have been absolutely no issues whatsoever thus far, and I don’t foresee any taking place. There’s a great deal of respect between us, and I definitely think that that is the main reason why this is really working out for us. So, anyway, I am really happy with my living situation, which is currently Waterbury, and apart from the ear-piercing fire alarm, I love everything about it.

Other than that, though, like I said, I’m kind of struggling to sync myself with this English class, and additionally, I am taking Biology, and I am having a really tough time with that as well. I got my first test back last week, and I remember leaving the class in which I had taken the test, thinking that I had managed to pull of a solid C grade, but no, I didn’t have any such luck. I failed it miserably. I was really upset the day that I found out, but not that I’m the type to blame other people for my mishaps, but in this case, I really do think it’s partly my professor that is at fault for this grade, because she flies through the slides, and when a student will ask for the slide to be brought back up, because he or she didn’t have enough time to get everything down, she will say, “All of this is in the book,” so what I’m wondering is why I’m wasting time coming to class then if all of my learning is to be done from the book.

I learn by taking notes in class, letting that sink in and then going over my notes and deciding on what I understand and what I don’t, and what I am not quite absorbing, I resort to the book for, and I am having trouble doing that now, because I’m not learning anything in class. She did say the other day in class that all of the notes are on Angel, so I might just have to go there to read up on the notes, because this really is pretty ridiculous if I may say so myself. I cannot allow myself to fail this class; I really want to put all of my general education courses behind me so that I can get into my major. I honestly do not understand general education requirements. I’ve never in my lifetime going to use anything that I am learning in Biology, for example.

Anyway, I went home this past weekend, and that was really nice. I love this weather; and I love this time of year and everything that it involves. I love the Autumn air, leaves, apple cider and Halloween, of course. The only thing that I don’t like about is that almost all of the things that I love about Autumn, with the obvious exception of Halloween, are indicators that winter is coming, and I hate winter. I can’t stand snow, and I can’t stand the cold, and yes, I chose to Oswego, but don’t ask me why. Everyone always asks me that when I declare my detestation of the winter time, “Why are you going to Oswego then?” Well, I suppose that’s about everything that I wanted to cover this time around. Hopefully, I will be writing a bit more often, but there is just always something occupying my time, and it’s usually not something I’m having too much fun doing. I hope to write again soon, though!

New Year

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Welcome back, or for any freshmen reading this, it’s a mere welcome! So, here we are are back at college, and for me, the summer seems as if it really flew by! It doesn’t seem like that long ago at all that I was packing my bags and heading home for the summer, and now, my sophomore year has begun, and I’m thinking, “Wow, one year of college is already behind me,” and the thought is rather daunting to say the least. Forget about the summer flying by; everything is flying by! It doesn’t even seem like that long ago that I was in high school let alone a college freshman!

This year, I am living at Waterbury, and I actually really love it! The only part of it that I don’t like is that there is no dining hall connected to it. Lakeside and Cooper are approximately the same distance, with Lakeside perhaps being a bit closer, and right now, I don’t mind in in the least, but when it starts getting really cold, and the snow starts to fall, which basically always guarantees for ice, then it becomes something that I mind. Other than that, however, I really feel as if Waterbury matches me; whereas last year, when I moved into Oneida at the start of my freshman year, there was quite a bit that I didn’t like.
There’s always the homework, which never seems to end. For any freshmen reading this, keep that in mind. I made the mistake last year of assuming that college was going to be high school with a dorm room, and it’s not by any means. College gives a lot more homework than high school, and you need to do your best to manage your time, because I myself ran into a lot of problems last year with that, literally being driven insane with the homework and feeling as if I didn’t have enough time to do it. Already, I have been given a great deal, but I have figured out what to do differently.

The work actually doesn’t take as much time as is usually taken to complete it. The problem is when your mind wanders and wants to check Facebook, or go on AIM, or talk on the phone, or text, or eat, etc., and I therefore learned that I needed to go somewhere where distractions such as these weren’t going to be an issue, and what better place is there than the library? That’s therefore where I have been doing my work, because I have come to find that the work gets done a lot faster there. I feel more concentrated and “in the zone,” and things like Facebook and AIM don’t distract me, which is surprising, because if it’s not reading out of a book or something to that effect that needs to be done, I am on a computer, which still gives me the opportunity to steal time and hop onto Facebook, but for some reason, I don’t feel the temptation like I do in my dorm room. I think that it might be because in my dorm room, I am in a tighter, more enclosed space.

Another thing that I vowed to change about this year as opposed to last year is a more appropriate bedtime, which, so far, I have been doing a very good job upholding. Last year, I often went to bed at like 4 or 5 a.m., and that simply didn’t work, because then I had class, and I was exhausted, therefore taking a nap in the afternoon, losing more time. The first night that I was here, I went to bed at around 1, and last night, I went in at around 10 (I am currently sick and therefore felt pretty tired early). It’s been awesome, because this morning, I woke up at around 9:30 feeling totally revived and awake and got right up and went to the gym to workout. I even had time to do a little bit of work.

I know that this year is going to be better, despite the fact that my current issue with books is looking like a bad omen. I tried to get a job over the summer, but my attempts were futile, because no one was hiring, and I therefore have no money for books. Yesterday, I got my refund, which totaled over $300, and I figured for sure that that was going to be enough, but it isn’t. I bought everything yesterday except for what I need for two classes, Psychology and History, and that came to $213. My Psychology book is going to cost $90 used, and the books that I need for History are going to cost $40 and $60. To break it all down for you, I still need almost $200 and only have a little over $100. I’m trying to figure something out. My Psychology professor brought up a really good point in my class last night. He said that in the book that we will be using for our class, there will be roughly thirty pages out of the 150 or so that are really going to count, and yet we pay $90 for that book, which breaks down to approximately $3.00 per page; it’s ridiculous. Books are so expensive. I’m not looking at this as a bad omen, though, because I just have a very strong feeling that this is going to be a great year.