Making up ground

This weekend was probably one of the more stressful weekends I've ever had. In high school there was no such thing as a stressful weekend, but in college my weekends are used to catch up on schoolwork and get ready for another week of classes. This weekend in particular was tough due to the two cross country meets I had to go through. I hate missing classes, and am glad that this is the only time I will for meets. I basically lost all of friday night and most of saturday so I was playing catch-up saturday night and all of today. The hardest thing to organize out of all the workload is the group projects or activities. Dealing with my own work is easy, but scheduling times to meet with groups for group projects is frustrating. I've never been a fan of out of class group projects. Everything seems to take twice as long to get accomplished and becomes more frustrating than if I just did the work myself. Coordinating with others in group projects has always been a weakness of mine, something I hope to change in my time at Wartburg. Dealing with others is a necessary skill and not something to neglect.

On another note, I'am looking forward to this weeks classes. We have our first unit test in Biology and I'am anxious to discover just how hard these tests are. In high school I always heard from other people that a certain class was really hard and then after taking it myself I always discovered they were full of crap. I can't stand it when people tell me I can't handle something. Who are they to tell me what I can't do?! I always enjoyed proving these people wrong by getting an A in the supposedly "hard" class. I learned quickly never to take to heart anything that people say about courses. I prefer to find out for myself and then make a decision rather than rely on other people's opinions. On a lighter note, I'am also looking forward to my IS 101 class. I really enjoy having the group discussions that we are having. It is an extremely unstressful way of learning about the material. I also enjoy voicing my own opinions, and I like hearing from other viewpoints. Overall, it should be a good week, and hopefully I'll have some days to just relax for a bit.

First Animal Dreams Discussion

So it happened, I knew it was coming. We had our first discussion on Animal Dreams. I actually was looking forward to it surprisingly enough. Who would want to spend so much time reading and analyzing a book without giving their two cents about it? The discussion was not what I expected though, Janell split the class into two groups, those who hated the book and those who loved it. I was completely on the fence about this, on one hand, I did not enjoy reading the book but I did find some value in reading and understanding the story. In the end I decided to go with the "lovers" because I actually want to have some useful discussion on the book, and I was right in my decision. The majority of the "haters" seem to have not been able to get past their dislike and don't appear to have read that deeply into it. I can understand where they are coming from (especially the guys), but I just can't see any value in proclaiming that you hated the book. You HAD to read it, you HAVE to participate in discussions about it, so what point is there in holding back? The only thing it's going to do for you is make you clueless and opinionless in discussion. As far as I'm concerned, if I have to read something then I'm going to get everything I can possibly get out of the book, regardless of how much I like it. In all regards, I really just wanted to tell them all to suck it up. We are in college now, if you still are against things solely because you "don't like it" then high school was waaaayyyy too easy on you. Your with the big dogs now, start acting like you belong!

Productive Weekend

It's all starting to come together. For the first week I felt like a chicken with it's head cut off, running around doing homework without a system of organization or finesse. Things have certainly changed. I have made great use out of the sticky note and planner and have organized myself so I know exactly what I need to do and when it is do. I'm a planner by nature, and enjoy knowing exactly what the week has in store for me. The biggest roadblock for me in high school was procrastination. But since coming to college I have cut out all distractions besides cross country and school. With less things to distract me, it is much easier to turn my boredom into productive lengths of time. My biggest fear will always remain the thing that eludes me though. I hated coming into class in high school and realizing that there was some assignment that was due that day. I still come into college classes where I know nothing is due but I find myself asking all my friends anyway. Hopefully through repitition I will become a little more confident in myself as a student, and stress out a little less. Stressing over school work has it's benefits, you usually remember 90% of what you have to do, but it also just wears you down. Usually by 3:30 I'm completely mentally exhausted and ready for a nap. If not for cross country at 4:00, I would probably have trouble finding motivation to do anything the rest of the night. Cross country has a way of clearing your mind and recharging you for the rest of the night. It's funny because thats not how most people would imagine running 10 miles, as a recharge tool, but it does exactly that. Bouncing between cross country and school (two things that require all my focus) is difficult at times, but the benefits it provides and the learning experiences I will gain will be invaluable to me in my future endeavors. Another thing that kind of has me worried is what my grades are going to look like after this week. I feel like I have done quality work, but it is so hard to read the teacher's expectations this early in the game. In high school, those first papers always seemed to not get the grade I wanted, but they served as a guide to how I need to improve. Hopefully I'll get some good feedback from my teachers this week. Even if the work doesn't reach my teachers' expectations I hope they tell me why, the very worst thing to do would be to just say it was bad and not give me tips on making it better. As I said before, these first grades help me decide where I need to go from here, even if they are a small portion of my grade.

Jurassic Park Paper

Today my entire focus was centered on doing one thing, my jurassic park paper. I knew that if I got that done then the rest of the weekend would be manageable, with all my other assignments falling into place on Sunday. The paper was the only MAJOR assignment I had, and I knew it would take some time to complete. Starting yesterday, I prepared for this paper, organizing my thoughts into what I was going to write, what my sources would be, my main points, EVERYTHING. Thats how I write papers, in the days and hours before I actually start the ideas cycle through my head like a merry go round. The problem is getting all those sentences and statements to blend into something people can actually read. I have no problem SAYING what I'm talking about, but writing it down properly has always been a weakness of mine. Thanks to the preparation however I was able to knock the paper off the old checklist by 4:00 today, but what has me so irked is how I feel now that its done. I have nothing else I have to do today or tonight, I'm completely free to do whatever I desire, but the problem is that I have no desire to do ANYTHING. It is now just after 8 as I write this blog and I could go to bed RIGHT NOW. For some strange reason I'm hit by this horrible apathy. I spent most of the morning staring at the computer with my notes and sources spread out on the floor, knowing what I had to accomplish, and now I can't think of anything. The major problem I think is that all I could think of when I imagined this day is that darn paper, and now that it's done, I can't think of anything else I want to do. It has been affecting me all day, even when I'm sitting at lunch with my cross country buds, I can't think of a single thing to say, it's bothering the hell out of me. Maybe it's just the stress of college getting to me a little bit, or maybe the fact that today was my day off from running. Even during the summer I was never the same on my days off and maybe thats whats affecting me. From now on, I'm going to try doing SOME form of physical exercise on my off days. I've heard stories of athletes behaving weird on days off, perhaps just doing SOMETHING physical will make sure days like this don't happen again. As for tonight though..........I got nothing.

1st week done

Wellllll it is finally done. I survived the first week of college and am not failing any classes to the best of my knowledge. The weekend was a great time to recharge, run a great race on Saturday and get over this cold I've been battling. I haven't been sick in quite a while so this is extremely frustrating for me. I can't wait to start labs this week and I'm looking forward to a good week of practice considering we don't have a meet this weekend. Overall, college has been challenging but not impossible and I look forward to what the rest of the year has in store for me.