Getting Along

It's been a while, so I figured I should drop by and make a post. I just got the last of my grades in today - all As this semester! This is the second time this has happened (though the other time there was a recording mistake and wasn't kept as such, but the prof told me otherwise and that it was her bad, so yeah legitimately it's the first time, but personally it's the second). That made me so happy... and relieved. I've officially made it over the hump now in class difficulty. The hardest stuff from now on will be paperwork and travel to different schools for field experiences. Well, that and sociability. I find it very hard to be able to establish good social connections with fellow teachers when doing field experiences for many reasons.

But it's not time to think about that now. Summer is finally here, and I get my first full day to myself tomorrow since January. Yesteday was my first full day off, but Bethany wanted to hang out all day. Tomorrow, though, is all about me.

I went to see Iron Man yesterday.... it was really good. I also got to see Batman Begins (finally) because my brother rented it.

For World of Warcraft stuff, I've been compiling a list of complaints I have for Blizzard in regards to how the storyline is progressing one complaint and logic fallacy at a time. Seriously, they've fucking ruined the storyline - one of the best fantasy storylines I've come across for a long time (until now), and that pisses me off. But still, Deneb may get his first run of Karazhan tomorrow (well, full run... fingers crossed).

I've also been tinkering with my novel series agian. I'm still not sure of what I want to do in terms of how many stories. I'm thinking of making the tournament and the Forgotten God the same story now, but I'm not sure. I hope people don't think it's taken from Harry Potter... now that I think about it, think of the series alignment story wise. First is the opening stories with mostly fantasy adventure, but in the fourth book, the tournament, things get a lot more serious. I suppose, though, my story will seem as if it ends after the fourth book, so that makes it a lot different.

Anyway, I'm done writing now... I'll babble more later.

The Summer Comith

Well, battle after battle has finally lead me to this weekend. Not counting finals, there is but a single week of class left, and my birthday is on Monday. The only thing holding me to reality is the worry of our group's main page being done by Sunday (he still hasn't said anything about it... troubling), and the research paper for Advanced Composition. I've already gotten a good start on it, two pages and three sources I believe (maybe four or five now that I think about it), and I still have four days off between now and the time it's due. I'm sure I can finish it. The hardest part is, without a doubt, finding the sources. I could talk about my topic - video games and the problems they pose on society - for pages and pages of just opinion, so I'm having trouble balancing it with fact. I've been using a lot of NBC news stuff about psychological studies that show the effects of video games on the brain, and often the violence related to them.

Other than that, though, I'm already making my "to do" list for the summer. One of my goals is to possibly re-write my very first novel entirely. I first wrote it in 2006, and looking back on it, not only have I changed the physics of the world (it's a fantasy world, I've changed certain Gods and magics and whatnot), but now I want the story to go in a different direction almost entirely. I'll be able so salvage the parts I am proud of, but, the primary reason I want to re-write it is because a lot has happened in the past two years. I've done a lot of time just reading and studying literature and writing about it, and now I feel I am far more prepared to write a novel.

I think I'll go tinker with that story some right now. This could be my last weekly post. When summer hits, my blog will probably slip under a few times in importance, but I will try to post every now and then. Anyway, until we meet again internet.

Light at the end of the Tunnel

Yes, yes, yes! I'm almost there!

This past week, I finished both of my research papers for my literature classes, as well as the web page for Advanced Composition, and now there are only two things that stand in my way between now and finals - the Advanced Composition Research Paper, and, the big one, the OGET test tomorrow (state standardized test for Education majors). I'm a little worried about the test... I mean, it is a FIVE HOUR TEST, but all of my friends say it's really easy.

As for the Advanced Composition paper, I've been giving it some thought. There are several topics I've considered. The most interesting I've come up with is the Separation of Church and state, but not purely because of the topic matter. Two and a half years ago in 2005, I wrote my first college research paper over that very subject. Now, I was just curious to see how much I've improved my writing skill by using the same topic. Other things I've considered, though, include video gaming, apathy in society, global climate change, and America's prejudices (perhaps through the 2008 election).

I will say, though, that I'm not going to start on that paper until I'm done with the OGET. To say the least, I've got enough stress on my plate over that test alone.

Well, I do believe it's time to start the final charge to the end of the semester.

*climbs on horsy and pulls out sword*

Wish me luck!

News from the Front

Four weeks to go and the Battle of Spring 08' rages on.

I've taken out everything that is due this week, which included the first research paper of the final three, and the second essay in advanced composition. Last night I finished my classroom analysis, so it's ready to be submitted to my eportfolio right now. I'm essentially left with three big tasks (not counting finals) for this semester; my Southern Women Writers Research Paper (which is going well), and my Advanced Composition Research paper (which... um... isn't going really... hey it's not due until way after everything else so it's taken a bit of a backseat). Of course, the third thing is the OGET test, which is next Saturday, but that's if I even get to take it...

Here's the problem. I've been to the counselors at least four times that I can remember, maybe even more than that, since starting my classes at UCO. It wasn't until this semester in my foundations class, which has a "highly recommended" standing of a junior or higher to take, was I even TOLD about the OGET. I went to register right away, but there was only ONE registration time available before the end of the semester, and that was in April (next Saturday).

But here's the real kicker; I'm enrolling on Monday for next semester, but I can't take the next level of my education courses until I've taken and passed the OGET. Even if I did just wait the week to take the OGET to enroll, endangering my odds of getting ANY of the classes I wanted, that still wouldn't work because it takes a WHOLE MONTH to grade the OGET and get it back to the students, meaning there's pretty much no possible way for me to continue my education courses next semester, which means I may very likely end up being FORCED to take next semester off, or at the very least it is now guaranteed that another semester is being added to my college plan. Congratulations UCO - you may have actually defeated me.

The only possible way I could still "win" is if there happens to be an Educational Psychology course, a quite limited class, still open come this time next month, after the entire college has already enrolled, and it's at a time that doesn't conflict too badly (though hopefully not at all) with my current schedule that will be made on Monday for next semester. Of course, this is the absolute best case scenario, and my brain usually doesn't work that way. The next step down would be that I actually have enough elective credits that need to be filled (fingers crossed) to make a full-time, 12 credit hour schedule, and take nothing but 1000 level courses next semester to clear those credits. This way, I still get to be in school, but it will be officially certain that my college plan is ruined and I'll have to stay longer than 4 years for my undergrad degree. Of course, worst case scenario is that I don't even have enough elective credits for next semester, and I have to take the whole semester off.

I'm probably going to go see the counselors and see if they have any suggestions, but I don't know if I even trust those incompetent boobs any more. Like I said, I've been there four or five times, and half of those times I actually corrected the counselor more times than they corrected me! Not only that, but their complete lack of mentioning the OGET in my "college plan" that they actually sat down with me and worked on! Looking back on all this now, I honestly feel like UCO has been trying to defeat me all along.

Anyway, I've got more work to do, so I'll call it quits for this week before I make myself too mad to work.

Weekend Update

I really don't have that much to say this week. I'm swampped with end-of-semester essays and projects right now. Currently, I've got eight writing assignments out that need to be done, only two in which are completely done. Three of them are research papers which are due in only a week! I hardly consider that the end of the semester!

My plans for this weekend are to get all my lesser writing assignments out of the way, including all my Foundations of American Education work, Essay 2 for this class, all online work for this class (about to finish that up right now), and a journal entry for Ethnic American Literature. That should narrow it to just the three research papers and whatever is assigned Tuesday. I'll be spending all next week working on research papers, because the first one is due at the end of that week, and the second is due the week after (which I'm yet to even start...). Then, of course, there's the project and research paper for this class. I'm not too concerned about the Research paper because it actually IS due at the end of the semester, not the second week of April that other professors claim is the end of the semester.

As for the group project, well, I'm a bit concerned about that

I've got one person in my group who seems a bit pushy. She came up with an idea for the web page, and is dismissing every other idea entirely to promote her own. I'm trying to find some middle ground, but only time will tell if that is possible. To be honest, I don't like her idea. At all. It's making a web page dedicated to charities. It would take a LOT of research, meaning a lot of time, which, as the rest of my post has proven, I have little of. It's not that I'm looking for an "easy way out," but that's just a bit much for me. I'd much rather create a page about something I already know about and am interested in.

Anyway, I need to shower and eat before work, so I'll try and keep updates as this month drags by... wish me luck.

Nostalgia

I loved writing this first essay in Advanced Composition because I love going back to old stories, whether from TV, movies or video games, and applying my analytical skills that I've developed as an adult to them. For the essay, I did the TV show Digimon, and while I was doing research into it I was thinking about how a year ago or so I remember hearing a story about how science is currently working on something very similar to that show. Essentially, in the show, a bunch of computer programmers made computer programs that were programs of artificial intelligence. They weren't simple push button, pull leaver, medial tasks that most programs run - these were actually sentient. Thus, on the TV show, they achieved these programs, and called them Digimon, short for digital monster. Now, I know many science groups are working on creating software that is sentient - capable of thinking and acting on its own. The primary problem posed by the TV show was that the digimon project's funding was cut, and they were forced to delete the programs, despite them being sentient, or even consciously aware of themselves.

Despite the programmer’s efforts, some digimon survived somehow. It never really explains how, but their base programs survived by the effort of the team leader who re-wrote their programs into what is now called an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online Role playing game), giving these digimon a whole world - the world of the video game - to live in. Inside the game, however, as the information was transferred through wireless connections and frequencies around the world, the sentient digimon managed to develop a way to "cling" to but a single piece of bio-matter as simple as a protein or germ floating in the same air as the wireless information that is being transmitted, and digimon were capable of creating biological forms for themselves in the real world. The government caught wind of this and created a top-secret government agency to prevent these "breeches" between worlds, and was moderately sucsessful until, using a program called "juggernaught," this agency attempted to destroy the digital world as a whole, wiping out all the digimon programs all together, including those digimon whose consciousness had taken a biological form (something about the networking of the biological brain still using the digital information). Even as an adult, this part of the series is highly interesting and morally complex. I'd say more, but if you honestly care about any of this, I don't want to ruin any surprises in the story for you.

The Power of a Sour Mood...

Okay, so I wrote that previous blog entry like, not 20 minutes ago, and, if you couldn't tell, I was getting quite mad at myself and my situation. However, after going to the seat of epiphany for a little while (otherwise known as the toilet), I constructed a to-do list for this week. When I did that, I checked all my syllabi and double-checked the information... and I have NO clue where some of that was coming from in my last post. I want to say I heard the professors say something along the lines of 15 page paper or whatnot, but I'm not entirely sure. Either way, here's my to-do list now for the next week:

TODAY
- Register for OGET
- Renew FAFSA
- Finish Taxes
- Fill out shift-switching form for work

Due Tuesday, March 25
- Southern Women Writers: 3-5 page response to either A Still Moment OR At The Landing
- Foundations of American Education: 41 Study Questions
- Ethnic American Literature: Read Dreaming in Cuban
- Southern Women Writers: Read Petrified Men, A Curtain of Green, Why I Live at the P.O., Clytie, Flowers of Marjorie, A Still Moment, AND At The Landing
- Ethnic American Literature: At the very least, come up with Research Paper Topic

To Work On Over Spring Break (Due at end of semester)
- Southern Women Writers: 10 Page research paper over Common Themes in Welty’s work
- Ethnic American Literature: Write a 9-15? Page research paper over a work read in class

Due Sunday, March 30
- Advanced Composition Paper (850 words): Critique a show that you watched when you were younger, exploring how you felt about it then, and how you feel about it now, looking at it from a logical point of view (pointing out fallacies, stereotypes, etc.)

See the difference? If you want a fine example of the power of a sour mood, just go see what I somehow got out of these things in my previous post. This isn't that much related to class, but I just felt like posting it.

For some reason I thought our first essay was March 23rd, not 30th... needless to say that alone has saved me a ton of worry.