When someone undermines your accomplishments.

Today was alright. Pretty typical Tuesday in a lot of ways.

This morning I got up around 10, wasted an hour or so on facebook while I ate the last of that leftover Chinese food for breakfast, got ready, and read a chapter for my marketing class. Got a 9/10 on the quiz this morning which is always nice. Another step closer to getting two A's this quarter. I've definitely got good prospects for my finance class. I was super proud of myself for getting a 96% on my last test. Or at least I was until this afternoon.

Marketing was let out early and I saw Kevin P. and he asked me what I'd been up too. I told him I'd been kicking ass in my classes so I really wanted a job but nothing had really materialized yet. He told me Young made him a finance tutor so he basically scored a job without really looking for one. I can admire that, you know finance is fucking hard. And of course when I mentioned that I was doing really well in Tenerelli's he's like "Well he's super easy and a terrible finance teacher..." And I'm like, "Well I think he's good, I've learned a lot in there and he doesn't assume that we already know all the material like Becker and Young did. He actually makes us learn the definitions and material before doing the problems..." and he just kept insulting him like 'oh he's a terrible professor' and 'oh he doesn't teach NEARLY the material you need to know and if you were to leave his class and take finance 470 you'd fail."

It was just hard to hear that. Especially after I struggled so much and had to drop it with Young and Becker and finally felt like I was getting it. I told him that he does cover more material than in his previous classes... apparently before the school got on his case about not covering enough chapters he only got to chapter 7 but we're doing chapter 9 and 10 right now... I don't feel like I'm at some kind of disadvantage having a professor that's more understanding and provides more explanation for material that's completely foreign to most of us unless you're an accounting major.

Kevin is in his 5th year at CWU. He's triple majoring.. When I was defending what I'd learned in Tenerelli's class he said "Well just to let you know nobody going on the all expenses paid trip in the Finance club took Tenerelli's class.." and I'm scoffed like "Whatever! I wouldn't want to go anyway!"

I think at this point he realized he'd been kind of insulting. That's the thing about Kevin though. He's super intelligent and even if he's my friend he says things that makes me feel like I'm never doing enough. He's one of the people that back when I was in the height of my depression a couple years back that I'd just say to him out of the blue, "F*ck it I'm stupid and wish I would just die" and he'd flip out like "Why would you say something like that? You're so smart..." Because he'd have no idea he had said things that insulted my heart.

That's all I'm going to say about this... You know regardless of the fact that Tenerelli doesn't make us memorize the formulas like the other finance teachers does not mean he makes this subject easy. I've had to study hours to get the grades I've gotten just like any other class. And I know for a fact I am more confident in that class then people during the midterm that were letting out loud exacerbated sighs and that doing well enough to be at the top of that class should be something to be proud of. I should allow myself to be proud of myself for once but that conversation with Kevin hurt, bad.

I wish I wasn't so hard on myself. I want to feel confident entering the job world. This month it's super important that I do search for the first stepping stone into my actual career to avoid moving home. There's so many big changes that are going to happen soon and I'm trying to prepare myself the best I can for it.

In the meantime to keep myself calm and happy I've just been doing a lot of art and guitar. I'm so ready to upload Phantom of the Opera, the tone sounds fantastic. My Dad, Mom and I went to Goodwill after hitting my favorite Chinese restaurant and Rite Aid and I had a couple great finds. My Dad found me an AWESOME Black Album tabs book and I found a pantera shirt that I love.

I cut out the sleeves, of course. Ha ha. Alright that's enough for today.. goodnight!

peace.

Somewhat of a setback

Evening.

Yesterday was not a fun day. It shook me really hard and I'm still having a difficult time forgiving myself for what happened even if I tried as hard as I could.

I had to withdraw from finance again to avoid a failing grade because I completely bombed my test on Monday. After spending hours drilling the problems online and thinking I had a decent grasp on the material. Come to find out I didn't comprehensively what so ever. The test questions don't go in order from easiest to most difficult, the concepts are mixed up and if you don't know the appropriate steps and formulas to get your answer your pretty much f*cked.

Soo, I'm going to be taking it with Tenerelli in the Fall. He's the one finance professor that apparently goes slow enough or has some other method that helps get people through it. I f*cking hate how hard this class is for me and that even after all the work I did I was somehow still completely oblivious to my own ignorance.

I took it out really hard on myself last night. Not living up to my own standards makes me feel psychotic and almost suicidal because I feel like self improvement is the only thing that I live for at this point. Failure is my biggest nightmare.

Lately I've been watching any documentaries
I can find about Russian ballet. 

But only with tribulations in life do you discover your inner strength. I am not going to flunk out of college and I will not allow this class to keep me from getting my degree. I'm going to now use this quarter as an opportunity to better understand R and my forecasting class and really be able to put some effort into my paper for my capstone course. Taking finance is so draining on my time and psyche because I'm constantly working on homework and constantly feeling nervous about homework being due that I only half understand the procedures for. Then when I actually do the homework my anxiety is super high because if you make one tiny rounding or decimal error in the intermediate steps whole problem is wrong and it's EXTREMELY frustrating.


I think I had mentioned to you guys that I had asked for Kyle's number to help me study for the test on Sunday and he said he'd be totally down on Friday. I did not text him at all during the weekend, I told myself I wouldn't talk to him until I actually *did* need his help so I didn't make it seem like I got his number to get to know him or anything (lol I've learned that guys generally don't like making conversation via text and things can be so easily misread so why even risk it). But I did text him Sunday when I needed help and didn't get a response which kind of sucked my motivation somewhat.

This morning he passed me on the way to Carbaugh's class and asked me how I did. Kind of sucked having to say that I failed. I really wish I could have said "Oh I stressed out for nothing!! I studied my ass off on Sunday and probably did fine!..." like I've said for practically every one of my other tests I've taken in college but instead I had to say, "Pretty terrible. I failed."

It sucked so bad. And having this happen means that I'll be taking one online class for my business minor this Summer to make up for the one I won't be doing in the fall. If I don't get this internship with enterprise I'm going to be moving back to the tri cities again in a month and a half. That for me is hard to believe as well and makes me determined to work as hard as I can until that point.

That's all for now.

peace. 

God damn I've had a day.... And it's only 2:42

 I'm really happy  right now because I'm done with what I literally thought I wasn't going to finish. As you guys know I didn't get shit done this weekend... I mentioned that right? Well I've had this ethics paper hanging over my shoulders for the past couple weeks, I somehow managed to put it off until the last minute because I was so freaking determined to beat Terry on that macro test. And it worked, I got 92%. Beat him by a whopping 10%.

I walked into class and we just looked at eachother and laughed. I knew it was stupid of me to bet on the Broncos, which I'd realized the second I found out the 49ers whooped em last time Broncos were in the superbowl. God that was almost a hard game to watch there toward the end.... Seeing those Colorado boys red faces.

...So yeah, I guess going on about the superbowl with Terry in class yesterday was kind of fun.. I was completely unable to give him the cold shoulder as originally anticipated. He has that affect on me. He drove home this weekend like I did to watch the game with his Dad. I owe him 5 shots of whiskey. I would have today but I'm too damn tired.

I haven't slept in about 30 hours. I started RESEARCHING for that paper yesterday at 5... That's how much of a turd I've been about this. I came back to my apartment and spent the next couple hours reading with Michael. I didn't actually start writing the paper until about 9 pm, and it took me the entire night to just finish the damn introduction. By about 4 this morning when I finished the introduction and had a solid idea what I was writing about I decided to try to get two hours of sleep.

Come to think of it, had I slept two hours this morning I wouldn't have finished. Marshall was the reason I got that paper done and won't automatically get a C- in my management class, alright!! 

I'm never procrastinating again I swear. 

I laid down on the couch and Marshall was still wide awake running all over. I was still wide awake too but was trying really hard to meditate or something. Marshall jumped up on my coffee table, to get my water of course... knocked it over, broke the glass. So now my carpet is covered in broken glass and I have to get up and clean it. At this point I decided sleeping was probably futile, especially with the amount of stress riding on my shoulder about the enormity of work I had to do to complete this paper.

I just plowed right back into it... until about 9 am. By that time my hands were shaking and I felt sick from exhaustion. I then called my Mom in the midst of a panic attack and she was somehow able to bring me down enough that I was able to finish.

Oh yeah she told me that every assignment she did in college was like how I felt today... That cracked me up.

I think I'm going to bed...

peace. 

Lets take a speed-a-light ride

I debated whether or not to keep the blog entry I posted last night up and it ironically caused me to stress out a little in bed last night. I said some things that I usually don't admit on my blog, but I figure those of you that read this know me well enough that not much I say should come as a surprise.

Today's been... long. I can definitely say that. I accomplished what I needed to do-- I finished my studying and felt confident enough going into the test this morning. I recorded a total of 10 hours on that exam. If I get above an 80 I'll be very happy with my score-- but yeah obviously final is out of the question. If I get above a 90 that could push my average up to just squeak into a B and I would actually have an option whether or not I want to take it. Granted this is not likely, that test today was hard.... and if I hadn't of thoroughly prepared I would have been in Hell this morning.

When I talked to Terry in Managerial today he said he couldn't even guess what he got. I said anywhere from a 73 (1 point higher than my lowest test, lmfao, because I KNOW I DID BETTER THAN THAT ONE...) to a 92. Give myself a huuuge range so I can't possibly get disappointed. I know it would sound crazy that someone could possibly spend 10 hours studying material and not know it like the back of your hand. It's not that easy... Reading a chapter of money and banking the first time through would take about 2 1/2-3 hours total because the material was so boring that it'd either knock me out half way through or my eyes would start glazing over what I was reading.

I have found that as you start to get the material more and more it gets more interesting. You get excited and accomplished feeling when you start to understand it but it's normally not until right before the test where I feel this kind of confidence. Then you move on from the material and forget about it. That's why taking finals is important (Sipic said this originally and I was like "mehhhh"), because you get a chance to refresh all of the information that might have not made sense before but now you can connect it with what you've learned later and it all comes together...

Managerial was pretty entertaining and stress free today.. I mean considering once again Terry and I spent the entire class writing bullsh*t notes to eachother. A couple times we cracked eachother up so bad that I literally couldn't help cracking up in class. Of course really nobody in class was paying attention, this being the last day of class and people still debating whether or not they want to take the final and Ghosh was all over the place today. Most of what he covered I already knew from my public finance class earlier in the quarter, and every time I'd try to pay attention what was going on in the lecture Terry would bother me and try to get me to play hangman with him or something.

I've actually grown to like Ghosh a lot more as the quarter has gone on because I have learned a ton from the material from his class and it was a great review from Stats but I hope he didn't somehow notice me goofing off in class. The past few weeks I've felt like the days that Terry and I have been there we've quietly acted like middle schoolers.

One of my goals over Christmas break is to actually improve my LinkedIn profile, figure out that website, and start applying for internships in Spokane. 

There's a part of me that's really sad I won't get a chance to see my adviser every other day next quarter because he's really good at keeping me on top of things.... like registering.. Had I been on the ball with that earlier I wouldn't have this impending threat of my public finance class dropping me. Really, really crossing my fingers I'll be able to get into Tennerelli's (probably spelt totally wrong) finance class instead of being stuck in two more very difficult econ classes next quarter and an online class that I would have much rather taken this prof in person.

Oh jeez if you guys have a weird sense of humor like me you're going to love this. Recent discovery that I wish I could show Katelynn because I know she'd love get it..... 

peace. 

Bad end to Round 1. Enter Round 2.

I did pretty horrible on my money and banking test (74%) and am finding it really hard to not feel extremely guilty because I partied this weekend. Had I just stayed home and reviewed the material on either Friday or Saturday night I would have done much better.

I just wanted to find some sort of balance in my life between school and having fun and thought that taking a break on the weekend would actually help me but it's only making me worse. My major is so difficult and the only way I'm going to get through it is to focus solely on myself and my understanding of the material. I've been so sick and worn out this last week it's been a struggle to get anything done....

I'm now nervous as Hell how I did on my public finance test. Today marks the beginning of Round 2-- I'm going to study harder, smoke less, not drink, go to bed on time, spend less time on facebook, take vitamins and eat healthier to get A's on my next tests to raise my overall grades to normal. I do not consider myself a person of "average" intelligence and when I got a score that reflected that it was like a stab in the heart and a slap in the face that I need to change my current habits.

peace.


I'll write more later after I get some work done and have a better idea of how I'm going to do this. I'm planning on writing a new practice sheet, weekly assignment schedule and priorities list today and hopefully get myself back to the confidence level of where I need to be...

22 in 1.15 hours. Government might shut down for it.

Hello everyone.

This birthday has weighed on my mind quite a bit. I feel like this birthday has been more of a realization of adulthood than 21 was. Any time I begin to feel worry about aging I begin to think about how much more stressed and insecure I was this time last year... How I wasn't barely eating anything while trying to cram for 3 hours.. Ha ha, thank God for people like Kevin P. and Burnadette P. that gave me advice about the importance of rest and good food early on.

Me about this time last year. Cute picture but that dingy green tanktop is a pretty good representation of what I chose for my wardrobe at the time. Actually most days I'd wear practically all black to class-- either jeans and a black tank top or black yoga pants with a black tanktop. I was so stressed out at the time that I only cared about what was comfortable. 

This time last year I was also going through an increasing amount of anxiety. Note that I wasn't taking Prozac until about January, by then having gone through months of panic attacks and feeling the need to completely cut myself from the outside world as much as possible. Over time of taking my medication my panic attacks have ceased and my general outlook on live has improved. This has come from the support of my friends too.

Today was a typical Monday. Both of my economics professors spent a good amount of time talking about how there is potential for government shut down over the disagreement about Obamacare. Now that I realize why the Republicans oppose it I can see why this is happening... Originally I thought it all had to do with republicans feeling uncomfortable about the government overstepping it's bounds by making everyone buy insurance-- when in actuality it's the CHEAP insurance itself that is the problem. If Obamacare is implemented it will likely be run by democrats and republicans feel like this will give democrats too much power because all the people buying cheap insurance will want to keep the program running and will be more likely to vote democrat. It makes sense.

Yeah honestly I didn't understand why the Republicans hated Obamacare so much until Sipic explained it today. I love his lectures, the way he says things just makes sense.... even this totally abstract tool that he's trying to teach us about being able to measure the maximum amount of utility (pleasure) people can get from the stuff they buy. By the looks of it finding out how to do this is going to be a complete b**ch but the way he explained what it was made sense which is always the first step to figuring this junk out...

The formulas in economics are really bizarre and abstract because it tries to make humans actions (assuming that they're rational) quantifiable-- then to be moved onto graphs and stuff to be used for a company's research. It's not as boring as it sounds; actually it's the closest thing humans can get to predicting the future.

I texted the guy in my public finance class who's also the president of the econ club asking him when the first meeting is. He's friendly and helpful and I got the info I needed on that. I also signed up for that career fair november 1st that'll hopefully land me an internship.

Moving right along, yay. Sorry this entry was kind of boring guys.

peace.

Good day ended with good BBQ

I've been feeling pretty good about my stats test that I took this afternoon.. I mean I did such an absurd amount of studying on it there's no reason that I shouldn't do at least better than my third test (66%...). I automatically had 20% of the points when I started taking the test because of an excel assignment that he added as an optional bonus. That cut down the initial stress quite a bit.

Sipic offered to meet with me to redo my schedule for a THIRD time... Lol I just crack up at how helpful he's been because I've been figuring a lot of stuff out this quarter. I have to do the paperwork for my finance major and mix up my class order so that I'm taking classes for both majors until this upcoming winter or so. I'm so excited about my classes next year, this year has definitely been an indication that this is the right choice for me.

Tomorrow I have no class which is nice but I'll be spending a good deal of it reading my economics book. Terry and I will study tomorrow more than likely, it'll be our last session for this quarter. We've both worked extremely hard. I don't know if I told you guys this but yesterday I actually told him I liked him. He came over to work on the stats lab (we weren't able to get very far on it working together) but really all he did was sit there and crack jokes and give me sh*t because he didn't know what he was doing apparently.

Bradley C. BBQ'd a bunch of meat and invited me to come hang out with them. I had actually just gotten up from a nap and I was super hungry so that was nice. I wolfed down a hamburger and a bratwurst really fast.. I don't know I think I might be slightly iron deficient because I haven't been cooking steak for myself at my apartment anymore...Anyway it was super sweet of him to have me. I also had a slice of watermelon that really hit the spot too. I was super thankful, I did not want to cook tonight what so ever and felt lucky. 

ouch, my left wrist is really sore tonight, I better stop typing.

peace. 

I've got this under control, But there's no guarantee

Damn, so I told you guys the other day that Terry said Economics is the best specialization competitively.. That's really sat in my mind, so I sent my stats teacher an email on it because he's actually an economics adviser to see what he thinks. He hasn't responded back so I feel like a goob, of course I reread the way that I wrote that email like 5-6 times to make sure it didn't sound weird. He's probably really busy and I can't expect some immediate response. I just feel like I've bugged him more than I've bugged any professor ever.

It's not just my competitiveness with Terry that causes me to contemplate these decisions, it was more my overall experience this quarter. If I do switch over to economics from Finance I am not going to tell Terry because it'll look weird.


So maybe I'll be doing an economics specialization with a MINOR in finance.

I'm not looking forward to my stats lab tomorrow at all so I'm going to kind of study how to do the linear regression models on excel beforehand so I don't get lost on it tomorrow. My A is looking pretty good even with that low exam score-- 20% of the final grade is going to be based on an excel assignment that we turn in. If I can get some help from Kevin P. to make sure I'm on the right track that'd be really helpful.

This is Kevin P., aka Peter Parker from me because he's saved me on a few assignments that I haven't been able to get this year. 

Not saying I'm going to ask him to practically do it for me. In fact I plan on doing an online tutorial on youtube-- how about THAT... But no seriously, Kevin is really smart and he always knows the correct way to do things. He's better at reading directions than I am.

ZZZZZZZPPPPPTTTTTTT

Lol I was taking weird pictures this morning.

Pointing is rude in a lot of cultures so obviously I didn't post this, but I figure why the Hell wouldn't I post it here it's not like anyone really reads this. Or do you, for anyone that does that's super cool-- I don't proofread much when I write these.

..Which can occasionally get me into trouble. I found an old entry and felt super humiliated because it was SUPER open... I have no idea if I was drunk or depressed or super emotional when I was writing that night but GOOD God... I would never, ever be as open with this blog as I did with that entry nowdays. And it makes me wonder what else is back there, but I don't want to look.

Old entries are like old skeletons. I want to be able to dig them up someday when I'm old and be able to indiscriminately read because I'm older and wiser than I am as I'm writing these entries. Like I can read blog entries that I wrote on myspace a long time ago and not feel too embarrassed, but if I find something from 2011 that's super bias or gives off the wrong message I contemplate deleting it because I don't want people to think that's what I represent now. 

Whatever. I'm human, this is a good outlet, I'll say whatever I want on a given day for the most part.

I feel like everyone around me is so sick of school

It's like the weather sucks so bad here in Ellensburg that everyone wants to go home where it's warmer. It's so hard to get motivation when it's rainy so I haven't been doing much of anything but sit around and study. Really these rainy days couldn't have come at a better time because I'm not tempted to go anywhere. Meh... unless it's above 70 degrees I'm pretty good with the indoors. 

Alright it's guitar time. Gotta lesson today, hell yea!!!

peace.

You nerds out there that read this blog are going to love this.

On right...

Excuse my language but f&^*ing Terry S... lol, who's not even on my facebook friends list today, finally asked for my number. I'd deleted his number because he didn't save my seat in lab, I was pissed off. We did not text eachother for four weeks, and after awhile it became more of an experiment whether or not we'd ever talk outside of class again. 

After the long and... mediocre-difficult Stats test..Man Sipic looked good today up there reading his book... lol he's so intelligent you can tell he's trying to make it look like he's not looking for cheaters but in actuality you know he's using his peripherals. He's from a Slavic country, they encourage cheating and you know he could suspect a clumsy American cheater immediately. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed when he cut off most of his hair recently. I thought his long hair gave him the mad scientist-y look. POINT BEING: I REALLY REALLY REALLY hope I did well on this stats test. lol 

..Terry looked up at me and said "Hey, you want to study for econ tonight?" which was pretty ballsy because the room was dead silent during a test. I'm like "Yeah..." so I sat down and he's like sitting there scrambling looking for a piece of paper. I actually took a flash card from econ out of my pencil bag and wrote my phone number on an index card. 

I gave him some shit because he told me that he didn't have my number in the first place. Huhhh sooooo... in those 6 weeks of talking and three or four times seeing eachother you never added my number to your contacts? A-HA touche!!! I NEVER ADDED YOURS EITHER.

But I did delete all my text messages... thus deleting his number... and kind of forced myself to not talk to him for awhile. Sometimes he can act like a real dick so I can't tell if he likes me or what. He did ask me via text if I thought he was attractive.. I'm like...are you serious? Lol seriously he could get with any girl he wants I'd think, which is why I don't take half of his kind of half flirtatious passes at me that seriously. 

I think the closest he's ever come to asking me out on a date in person is when we were studying together and he told me that if I was right about a question being on an exam the next day that he would buy me a beer. This was 5 weeks ago. As you all can see, whatever this is has moved at a snails pace but surprisingly we're studying today. DUN DUN DUN.

But yeah today via text I told Terry about how he's my rival!! Ha ha, he of course didn't seem to get it. He's like "Wait so you don't find me attractive? Idk you compared me to pokemon." Like he didn't get the reference what-so-ever!! But he knows what rival means and he understands how being competitive has helped us this quarter so we intend to benefit from eachother in the future.

Also, YES, the Finance specialization is seperate from the Supply Chain management specialization. Me and Terry are the only two people in my economics class doing this particular specialization, which makes things more fun and competitive. Ha ha ha our last quarter will be the "Elite Four". Lol I'm thinking of my credit sheet as getting a certain number of badges. I'm such a nerd you guys, I could never tell Terry about the extent that my mind just took this. 

oh!! And tests are like battles. So every time Terry does better than me on a test I feel like I lost a battle. So now when I'm studying it's like I'm training my brain... as if it was a pokemon. 

I am the f'ing weirdest person you guys, I'm so sorry. Again, if any of you know who Terry or Jack or anyone I mention in this blog is please do not tell them about this page, I'd have to switch blogs to something more secluded and that would stink because it'd be like starting all over again. I'm hoping that if either of them ever do find these blogs... or anyone else for that matter, that they just don't tell me about it. My opinions about someone often change, sometimes I'll be frustrated with someone and other times I could care less.

Anyway

Check this out.

That's how many credits I have under my belt now, 69% isn't that sick?! Next quarter I'm taking Introductory Financial Management which will probably be one of the hardest classes I take here because it's the groundwork for everything to anticipate in the future. I'm also taking Money and Banking with Carbaugh. I just love the framework of his classes and how he's so annoyingly repetitive that there's NO EXCUSE not to learn it. He initiates the class too, which is sort of silly at times but he's really jovial so it just cracks people up and puts us all in a good mood even though to most of us we're studying very dry material.

Alright time to play some guitar.

peace. 

Let's make this next four weeks as painless as possible, shall we

I've got five minutes before my speech class.

Last night I prayed to God I could work really hard today. I asked him that my mind feel energized so I can get things done because I'm not feeling particularly comfortable about the statistics material right now. It's STILL taking time to click even if I've studied the material for about four hours in the last couple days. The day before the test is the only day that I skip in stats because he only reviews the old material which I can do from my apartment and get more retention for my time.

Granted I know that I can't teach myself this. I always feel like crap when I skip a class but if I actually study and use the time I feel okay about it. Today is one of those days. Chose to skip statistics because my attendance in speech isn't fantastic and I can't afford to skip that again. Speech class kind of drains me and I always want to take a nap afterward which is frustrating because the evening used to be prime guitar practice time for me while I make dinner.

I've tried to control this problem by letting myself relax in the late evening around 8'. Unfortunately what this can sometimes do is make it so that I'm going to bed too early.. Which I suppose is better than sleeping at 4 then waking up at 8, making myself dinner and studying until 11...

I'm always trying to get the perfect regime to make my life the least stressful. Shoot I gotta go to class, write later....(2:43 pm)


3:52 pm:

Today I threw up about 15 minutes after class started (rushed to the bathroom.. honestly I don't know how much longer I could have made it) because I took a prenatal on an empty stomach. They've good multi-vitamins but they can make you feel sick because of their potency levels.

Speech today wasn't bad I guess. There was this girl that did her presentation on her resort-vacation that she goes to during the summer, that was entertaining. What was probably more painful was that the MC was the Hawaiian girl today. She kept reading these completely inappropriate facts or bullshit statistics off her phone and I'm just sitting there trying to keep my head low. Whenever I listen to her I have to REALLY put on my Noh face... closed mouth smile, because I have to keep myself from cracking up.

So yeah uh.... That's definitely THE class I'm excited to be out of this quarter.

I signed up to do my persuasive speech first. The professor was watching if I'd do that and he's like "OHHH she did it!" and people started laughing. Going first ds ,oesn't bother me at all. Waiting for a bunch of other people to go is much more stressful for me because I start overthinking it.

I've got more than a week to get it done. Tomorrow I'm actually going to have to skip speech class to go to the "Bite of Insight" speech for the outside critiquing assignment. I feel like sending him an e-mail about my absence on that one because this is going to be the 4th day that I'm absent. I'd really not like to lose participation points in that class when it should be an easy A.

I'm going to go back outside and enjoy the sunshine and read over one of my stats chapters again before tomorrow's test. I want to do really well to make up for feeling like a dork for not getting the lab on Friday. It's totally my fault that I've fallen behind in the excel stuff because I've barely touched it outside of class. I'm really hoping there's not going to be an excel skill exam or anything at the end of the quarter because I would really need to get on figuring out what the hell I'm doing. It's a hard program in my opinion.

But everything in life is hard. I just need to work at it like anything else, won't come over night.

have I posted this before? Yes? No? Oh well. Took this screenshot awhile back, lol Peggy whipped out the "Funsaver."

Jack and I haven't talked since Saturday morning. This is expected because Jack doesn't really like texting. I wouldn't mind texting every so often but definitely not continually... Idk, he told me to download this app called SnapChat that you can send photos back and forth and they disappear in 3 seconds or something like that. My phone isn't compatible with it so until I get an upgrade I'm pretty sure we're not going to do that much communicating outside of when I spontaneously see him on the weekends.

And to be honest your guess is as good as mine whether or not I'll continue to see him because I like I've said this has happened so many times I just can't ask questions of what he's doing anymore. It's like when he came to my house on Friday night. He immediately held my hand when we walked outside. BUT it was 1 am. See it makes you wonder if he would act that way during the day time, probably not. Again I have no idea, we'll see what happens either way.

Wow I've been writing for an hour already. I haven't played guitar much all day because I've been studying a lot but I still plan too later this evening. 

alright I'll stop rambling

peace.

There's always shit to do

I've had a pretty fun week, mainly because I've had a lot of people over lately. I honestly get so much satisfaction out of making people feel welcome around me. When I like someone or want to get to know them of course, or have invited them to spend with me. I love making food and drinks for people, smoking, and really talking/getting to know someone. I haven't hung out with Terry since Monday so I'm wondering if I'll see him this weekend. If not it's cool, like Jake said to me yesterday...

There's always shit to do.

It's true, so regardless of where I go or who I end up with everything's gonna be okay.

I guess I just really like Terry.  He didn't do very well on that test, he got a 72%.. So he goes to Carbaugh's office and asks WHY he missed the questions that he did. He's always getting clarification from Sipic on things we learn in statistics as well. It's natural that I would want someone who is also as driven as I am. I'm pretty sure I'd frustrate a super laid back guy because he wouldn't understand my I'm so focused on my routines. I wouldn't want someone that would take me away from that, either, and when I see how engrossed Terry is in his sports, fitness, academics and job I'm extremely impressed.


But does he actually like me? Maybe. He likes me enough to go out of his way to try to spend time with me at least once a week for the past four weeks or so, and we're gradually getting more friendly with eachother.

There's a really tall basketball player girl that sits next to me in Economics and next to Terry on the right in Stats. She bought him a coffee today, I wouldn't be surprised if she likes him too. There's also this annoying redheaded bimbo in my stats class that tries to get his attention. Blegh, I'm not saying I'm intentionally paying attention to other girls that are looking at him, it's just obvious that he's never had a problem with it. Which is why I have to continue to act very coy toward him and play the cat and mouse game.

I feel like I've been playing the cat and mouse game since I've started dating. In my life I only recall really having feelings toward two other guys-- Chad and Jack, both of which I was in sort of this back-and-forth, frustrating game with for a long period of time but never ended up in a relationship. It's like they liked me enough to let me stroke their ego but they didn't like me enough to take the step to actually be seen with me, which was extremely frustrating and painful at the time.

I cannot say things have gotten that much better for me with this new guy that I actually like, but there's a huge difference in the amount of self esteem I had then versus now. That and I don't care as much.

Anyway yeah,  I'm hoping to find a job here in Ellensburg so I can work and take classes over the summer. He's planning on taking international economics which was what I was planning to take too. I would much rather have the opportunity to take classes this summer and graduate at the end of next spring then go to school NEXT summer which is what I'm inevitably going to have to do based on my credit standings now.

If not so be it, I can understand why my Dad wants a break from student loans this summer...

Class registration is on the 6th. I'm going to turn in an application to Happy Market today, I'm hoping I can get a job soon if I start applying every day. I really want to start making some money and as I'm getting my academics more under control it seems more plausible. I'm getting used to the pace of college classes.

I ordered guitar pro through Amazon and it should be arriving home shortly. I'm considering taking a trip to Benton city for said purpose this weekend if it arrives, (it should be..). I told my Dad to keep an eye out for it and he said he'd call me when it comes in the mail. I'm probably going to double check with my Mom today. If so I could be driving back to the tri cities tomorrow if I feel up to it, who knows. 

Gotta study excel

peace.

Oh my dreams, Come back to me, back to me

Morning everyone.

Just got back from economics. Today I got an 86% on my first exam, which is definitely acceptable. I'd say my score is probably in the top 15 percentile in the class because most people got in the 70's and low 80's. It's probably lame of me to say that I was actually expecting/wanting a higher score in the 90's after the amount that I studied the material but that's what I get for skipping out on studying the multiple choice questions.

I already sort of feel myself getting lazier academically which means it's time to re-evaluate what is important right this second. On my whiteboard I wrote three columns to start recording the amount of hours that I spend studying on my most important exams. I'm hoping that at the end of this quarter I can look at the data I obtain from this and see if I can make an estimation of how many hours I have to study to get certain grades. Something like that would be good to know, I feel like I spend so many hours studying but I've never actually recorded it.

Here's what's on my mind currently:

1. Next Stats test (Tuesday), next econ quiz. I'll be studying for these every day.

2. Guitar Recital (April 27). I've been making a lot of progress on my piece. The solo is coming along and I've been working with the track directly to get the lick timing exactly.

3. Informative speech. Have to start watching Korean documentaries again and start putting together a slideshow. I have to have a visual aid for my presentation.

4. My new friend!!! Sort of. I knew her back in highschool because she dated my friend Caleb at the time. The reason I say new is because I never really got a chance to know her back then, and it's been so long that both of our personalities have matured so dramatically that any prior judgement and memories are obsolete. Hell I think the last time we were communicating people were still using MySpace... 2008? 

I've never disliked Arwen. She's always seemed very mysterious, interesting and deep to me. Back when we were younger I had sort of tried to be her friend when Caleb and I were playing tennis and Arwen would occasionally show up to practice. I remember asking her if she wanted to hang out sometime and she told me her mom is extremely strict and doesn't let her do hardly anything so I didn't ask again. I sort of got the vibe that she didn't want to be my friend at the time. 

That was back in highschool though-- when I was a sophomore... Back then I was playing sports, was super outgoing and loud, and pretty sure I had practically bleach blonde hair. Arwen dressed pretty "scene" at the time (as was Caleb) and they usually hung out with other scene kids. She always did her makeup and hair really well and clearly didn't come from Benton city so I found myself fascinated. 

Anyway she added me on facebook recently so we've been talking. She's clearly intelligent just based on the few messages we've sent back and forth and I am looking forward to hopefully getting a chance to hang out with her when I have my recital. 

5. grass. lol guess that's always on my mind.

6. Terry. We did study the other day in the library for a good hour and a half. When I was getting my test out of the pile I spotted his. I did do better than he did but I still think both of us could have done better. 

7. math

Which I'm gonna study now.

peace.

I love purity ring, lol. This is one of my favorite songs from this lovely album some guy at the computer repair store told me about. 

Well the crazy lady's gone

Hello everyone. What do you think of this font? It's called "Trebuchet." Maybe I'll set this as my preset font. I can't tell if my eyes can get used to this font or not. 

Yeah probably not. 

Alright so, let's see, haven't written in a few days. It's Friday and here I am in my scrubby clothes at 5:30 pm. I just had dinner a few minutes ago. I had whole wheat pasta with vegetables and chicken on top. This is what I like to eat almost every day lately, it's so healthy. 

I'm staying in Ellensburg this weekend after all. I had my lesson with Jacob last night and he told me we weren't going to do an actual practice run-through at the pre-recital. It's more of a way for Jake to figure out the seating arrangement, which is cool-- but yeah not gonna drive back to the tri cities for a 10 minute run-through. 

My lesson was really good last night. Jake sent me the Nothing Else Matters backing track that I need to be able to play with perfectly. I realize now that I'm not actually playing with the TRACK in the background... Gah, I'm a noob. No, it's going to be just a little track in the background... for 6 minutes. Why the hell did I insist on picking such a long song. 

Jake wants me to practice it 8-10 times with the track per day until the 27th. I plan on doing so. Today I've been working on adding some tab to the sheet music that I ordered. The way that it's laid out shows different guitar parts in pieces so I've been unable to use it. I don't know, it's hard to explain, I'm getting it taken care of.

My visit with my friend Evan went well. He came over a couple nights ago around 7:30. We went down the Surc to meet up with a friend of his, came back and took this pic. Our visit was really fun but pretty brief. We basically hung out and watched netflix for a bit then I had to study. He crashed on the futon. I noticed Kristin hasn't slept out there since. 

Evan  said he might come up and hang out with me next weekend! That's awesome, glad to see I have a new person to hang out with on the weekends. 

Right now I'm not entirely sure what my plans are this weekend. I know that Katharine is going to be in Ellensburg at some point but I probably won't get a chance to see her until tomorrow. To be honest I'm kind of happy I'm not driving back to the tri cities, that would be such a huge pain in the ass right now. Now that Katelynn and I aren't best friends there's not much reason to go back... I mean anyone else I could just communicate with on facebook but Katelynn was someone that I always wanted face time with to get away.

That being said there is a chance Terry and I could see eachother this weekend. Yesterday I texted him asking if we could plan to sit next to eachother in lab and he's like "Yea we can probably do that." So today we sat next to eachother and I think he anticipated being the one to help me but it was visa-versa. He told me that he had years of experience using Excel but today he didn't know how to move the table around... Lol. Okay I'm definately not an expert at this crap either but it wasn't him sitting there holding my hand to get me through the homework today like I think he expected.

Numerous times he asked me, "Are you getting this?" Like asking if I need help. I'm happily said, "Nope!" and would then get ahead of him and he'd ask me to get caught up. It's felt great being on top of my academic game lately. 

There's this really cool guy in my stats class that helped me get through some of the final steps of the lab. I can't remember his name but he reminds me of Will Ferrell. Anyway he helped me finish the lab, then I helped Terry, then again we were a couple of the last ones out of there. Maybe because we actually get the lab done in the time allotted. About half the class leaves just 10 or 15 minutes after Sipic finishes explaining the material. 

The crazy older lady is gone from my classes I think. Damn it, she was providing some regular entertainment-- but not having her there has made it easier for my professors to get through there lectures so that's a plus. Okay if you guys haven't read about the crazy lady yet, she's this woman in late 30's to early 40's who was in both my Statistics and Economics class this quarter. In both classes she would continually raise her hand asking these asinine questions that are so irrelevant that people would just roll their eyes any time she'd raise her hand.

On Monday she was especially bad in economics. That day in statistics during our review for the test Terry and I were chatting more than usual and trying to help eachother out. Needless to say, I do not include the crazy lady in my conversations regardless of the fact that she sits next to me and tries to butt in continually. Terry and I were looking at something trying to figure out a step and the crazy lady tapped on my shoulder and said "Well here's my answer!" and points to it. I'm like, "Oookay.." Shortly after she shoots up her hand and asks another stupid question and I finally just cracked up.

Like I chuckled out loud, I'm not going to lie. I think I was facing Terry and said something along the lines of "Oh my God..." and she said "Is that a stupid question?!" and I'm like "No, no, I'm just laughing at something my friend is doing.."

The next day she moved to the row behind me, and for the rest of the week she didn't show up to economics. If she's been in stats it's only been for a couple of days because I haven't heard her ass backwards, kind of "showy," jargon-filled but obviously NOT knowing-the-context-of-the-word questions. Older students that act like they have something to prove piss everyone off. Ha ha university level college is a lot better than community college because you don't have to deal with that as much.

But yeah I think she's done. For some reason I'm having a feeling I drove her nuts. I bring out the crazy in people at times... 

peace. 

First tests, check. new friend!!! : )

I've had a pretty good couple of days.

Oh, look it's about time for my roommate's nap in the living room. This morning she snapped at me again when I knocked on the door to the bathroom. Lol, I am going to have no problem not talking to her for the rest of the year. Then when we move out at the end of the year I will say to her, "I hope you had so much fun here!" Fun watching TV and doing nothing all day.

Yesterday was my first econ quiz and I got 35/36, that's way better than I've ever done on one of his tests, I'm pretty sure the best I did last quarter was an 88%. I'm also almost certain that I did well on my statistics test. Doing well on tests makes me feel like my time was spent productively this past week.

Today I have an impromptu speech in my Speech class. I'm in a good mood today so I feel I will do well. The topics are really broad and basic, like what are you going to do this summer, talk about your favorite music, etc... These topics are unfortunately extremely broad so it's almost harder for me to come up with something specific. I'm bringing my index cards and will have almost the whole class period to look it over before I have to present. I just have to pretend that I'm talking to a webcam and I'll be fine.

I also have that Chapter 18 speech and an interview project that I have to get done. This is exactly like the speech class I took at columbia basin college. I'm just hoping I can pull a better grade this quarter but to be honest I've barely read my speech book at all. After I get offline here I'm going to read the section on impromptu speeches and see if I can pick up some tips on it.

That class is just annoying to me sort of like English 102... I tend to put writing assignments off until about the last minute to avoid having to rewrite it several times. I'm too much of a perfectionist to really enjoy a speech or a writing class because it's impossible to know what the professor is going to think of your work. There's no concrete right or wrong answers.. Like with my stupid Exotic animal final that apparently got me a B (not even a B+) in my English class-- I thought it was good!! 

Terry continues to impress me. Today he skipped economics class to study for his statistics test. That shows me that it means a lot to him and that he's very good at managing his time. I lended him my 4-function calculator today but Sipic was super nice to bring a bunch of extras anyways. Ha ha in so many classes I've been in it's like, forgot the right kind of calculator? Well you're SOL! hahaha

I met this pretty badass guy named Evan A. yesterday. I've basically been texting eachother and talked on the phone for about 2 1/2 hours. We have a ton in common and I think we're going to be really good friends. He drives and isn't working currently so he's really excited to come up here and hang out with me. He's sang in some bands before, plays a little guitar, and is best friends with Aaron M.

Lol, Aaron and I aren't friends on facebook. I'm pretty sure I've tried to add him before but either got denied or deleted, some people keep their facebook friends lists kind of exclusive. I don't, I find too many people fascinating and I don't delete anyone unless they're spamming continually and I don't know them. Basically I'm sure Aaron's only memory of me is that I am Mrs. Wilson's daughter and that I took lessons from him and didn't practice.... lol.

But anyway!! YEAH, me and Evan!!! lol We're going to be good friends!! We know similar people, on top of it, so we'll always have stuff to talk about. 

That's a blessing, definitely. Ever since I lost Katelynn I've felt like there was something missing in my life. A best friend to smoke with? Perhaps. Katharine and Samantha aren't smokers, though I consider them my best friends as well. And Ashley B. is one of my best friends... but also my councilor in a lot of ways. Like because she's older than me she's been through a lot, and has taught herself coping skills to deal with a lot of the difficult emotions that I've been through such as depression and anxiety.

So I'm pretty blessed for friends.. I'm so lucky and I always have to remind myself that when things get hard.

peace. 

Wrapping my head around this

Hi.

  I would usually talk to Katelynn about this and save my bloggers from that but needless to say I can no longer communicate with Katelynn so this is the next best thing. I think someone's kind of taken interest in me

I hadn't noticed him that much on the first day but we did have a quick conversation on Wednesday after the firealarm in Statistics. We spent about a half hour talking that day because we got coffee at the building next to Shaw. He plays baseball at central so has to works out really rigorously. I would never want to wake up at 5:40 am to get to the gym at 6 to work out two hours before class. That just seems like a huge pain in the ass, ha ha, but I respect him enough for doing that.

Anyway I went out to dinner with my parents yesterday. I drove over to Union Gap to meet with them were we ate at a Shari's. My Dad HATES when I text at the table so I didn't text him at all that day except for to ask what his specialization was. He's specializing in Finance which is what I've been considering switching my major too. 

NOT because of this. Good lord, no, you know me I never make major decisions based on a guy's interest. 

What mainly had me thinking about switching majors was that I've been really inspired by my professor in my Statistics class to keep working at this. Business math gets crazy and frustrating but I've got the groundwork for accounting, economics and finite math under my belt so I feel I could keep doing these finance classes into my Senior year instead of doing Human Resource management..

Because even if every company has those, they're just kind of used as the last mediator when there's problems in the workplace and hire/fire people. That means I'd be dealing with breaking people's hearts when they have to go home to their family to say they don't have a job. I just don't know if I can do that.  

I feel that I'm a leader and that if I were to ever work for a company I would want to be helping make actual decisions.

Anyway so Terry came over around 10' or so last night and I showed him around my house a bit. He looked around my room and asked what I do on the weekends and asked, "What do you do on the weekends?" I quickly respond, "Play guitar all day, ha ha ha." I sort of dodge the subjects of my weekends because up until about halfway through winter quarter I was barely doing anything on the weekends except go home to see Katelynn. And now that I'm not friends with Abe anymore, I don't know where parties or anything are located. 

We got along really well. He's really sarcastic and competitive so we give eachother a lot of shit and can laugh a lot. He seems to like me quite a bit but I'm taking things really slow. I'm really interested to get to know him more because he's got a lot of similar hobbies that I do and I think we could have a lot of fun doing things together if he's not as competitive as he seems, ha ha ha. 

Athletic guys are usually really afraid of girls being clingy because their time is so limited, so I'm giving him his space to kind of invite me when he wants to do things until we know eachother. I'm looking forward to the next time I see him, which will probably be Monday. 

peace. 

Should be easy to sleep tonight

Ha ha, this is a picture Reina took yesterday and posted today. 

The last couple days have been exhausting for me so this picture already feels like it was taken a week ago. I finally got that horrible critique paper done-- which I had to pretty much entirely re-do from scratch because my first attempt at it was an absolute fail. Good thing we did peer reviews otherwise I would have been in for a rude awakening. Granted I don't think my paper that I wrote is outstanding by any means but it at least follows the assignment guidelines. 

Today I also had an econ quiz which was a little stressful because I haven't been keeping up with my econ studying as well as the first part of the quarter. I'm happy to say that I did barely pull a B on that quiz (I got 4 wrong, so 81%). Tomorrow I've got a finite quiz that I'm pretty prepared for and spent a solid hour studying for tonight. 

I haven't been playing guitar as much as I'd like too... Now that I know the precise day of the recital however and will be starting a new week tomorrow I'm feeling good about using guitar pro this week. That's basically what Jacob told me at our lesson tonight. He's like, "You've got the right piece now, it matches the one on guitar pro, break it up into little chunks and keep working on it." This week I didn't get nearly as much time to practice as I would have liked too but that's how it goes when it gets to this point in the quarter.  It starts getting more difficult. After tomorrow I'm pretty sure there'll be four more weeks of class. 

At least I'm done with accounting, ha ha. Any time I complain about this quarter I think of how much MORE stressful last quarter was. Last quarter that accounting homework would take me at least an hour and a half a day. I'm thinking statistics is going to be just as hard. Maybe I'll pick up the text early and start looking it over during spring break.. whatever it takes to make this class easier on myself. I also of course have to make sure I register early to get a decent professor. 

I had to do some reading for english tonight, too, but after spending hours on that paper my brain feels completely fried. I'm back to drinking coffee again, by the way. Wasn't doing that for a couple weeks but I'm back to drinking it again. I've been kind of getting back to feeling "Normal" again regardless of the fact that I'm here. For a long time I didn't feel like myself because I was so pessimistic about this place but things have been improving. 

Getting the hell out of my apartment has helped a lot. I don't have a job, though, and I'm kind of nervous to check my balance because I've been eating away my student loan money. Surc food is so f'ing expensive but I've really liked hanging out with Bruce and Trent this week and have met a lot of new people just by hanging around there. Just having two people that I feel comfortable around has made a world of difference for me. I was trying to make friends with girls when I first got here but I've gradually given up. I just feel more comfortable around guys generally; or at least they're easier to hang out with. 

My roommate and I still don't talk, really. I'm sure it's predominantly my fault. I haven't been as friendly as I could have but I still have difficulty talking to her for some reason. My friend Abe has come over a couple nights and he usually talks to her but I can't get into the brief conversations. 

Jessy and I have stopped talking. We don't walk to finite together because I've been walking to Abe instead. Honestly he's more entertaining to talk too, Jessy and I don't really click and since we saw eachother at that party it's been kind of awkward. She's started sitting next to this guy she knows in our finite class. This guy always wears really trendy looking clothes, blegh. Not my thing. I don't know why, I can't take a person seriously if they seem to take way too much time coordinating their outfits. Maybe because it's something that doesn't concern me what so ever. 

I like the way I dress though, honestly. I feel like when I'm ready and have more time I'll incorporate more into my look but for now it's so comfortable just being simple. 

peace.  

I have all around had an epic week.

This week has been SO stressful but I'm so incredibly proud to say that I survived with flying colors!

The accounting test... was extremely hard. I thought I'd be getting a low C. Granted, I studied the formulas, did all the homework, but nothing prepared me for like three of the problems on that test. I had come to class first thing at 10:00. I sat down, feeling calm and confident from all of my studying I did before. The second I looked at the test, I felt nervous because most of the problems focused on differential costs and sunk costs versus just making business decisions like to add or drop a product line. I put in a very fair amount of effort into each of the problems, and made sure to very clearly define what I did know.

The back page however, which was Chapter 15, was a snap for me because I had studied my flash cards. I looked over the test quickly. With accounting, you either get it or you don't. I accepted that I would not have the ability to do a couple of the problems because I hadn't studied that material. I knew what a sunk cost was... Two of the problems I literally had never seen before.

He sends us the test grades. I looked at mine using the last 4 digits of my student ID for security reasons. I scored a 102%... I got the highest grade in the class. I was absolutely shocked out of my mind. I thought, there must be some sort of mistake... What if that's actually someone else's grade. But then I thought, maybe hardly anyone in class did the problems that I did wrong correctly so he let us go from it. I'm not sure what happened, but I triple checked that THAT, indeed, was my ID number, and yes, I got a 92% on the test and the 10 extra credit points from doing all the homework. I am so proud of myself, I will almost definately get a B+ in that class.

I took a math test today, one of my last in my life. Daniel and I studied for it for the second time last night. I think I certainly did okay on the test. I had calculator problems but I will almost certainly get partial credit for the amount of correct steps that I did do, such as labeling the asymptotes, intercepts, etc... Montgomery has been so helpful. I brought the test up and asked if he had the study guides. He told me to just look for the old tests online and the answers are located there. I'm pretty sure both of my finals are on Friday. I need to make sure what time exactly.

Daniel has been very helpful. He did admit, however, that my calculator has some strange deficiencies so I get very wacky graphical results. I'm going to be happy to be done with pre-calc, but also thrilled to now have more confidence in math. I mean I've made it this far, that's much further than anyone might have expected from me... I mean I think back to sophomore year in Mrs. Prior's class, sleeping on my desk. Getting D's and blowing through Mr. Harris's homework without even nearly understanding the material.

Thank god for teachers like Mr. Dickman and Mrs. Haines. They were the math teachers that made it so that I am now able to do college math.

My 6th grade year I had taken Mrs. Thomas and I was stuck with the "smart kids" group. They were the typical kids in my class that did well in school, like Mikayla S., Chelsea E., Hailey H., Jake, Emily D.... This same group that I was sort of half on-half off with. Because I wasn't a bad student. I tried hard and turned in quality work... well when I could GET it in. I was terribly disorganized growing up. I'd throw things in binders and use random pages. I wouldn't keep notes, teachers like McCue and Herman would hate that.

They used to categorize us in middle school. There were the smart kids, the "happy averages", and the lower kids. Isn't that sort of how it is in society? Anyway, it was painfully obvious to me because I would be mixed in with each group in subjects I was weaker in. Those kids would predominantly stay together throughout the day and many cliques were formed in this way, with exceptions of course. They also really segregated many of the Latino students into ONE classroom instead of three or more classes throughout the day. I imagine that must have been slightly embarrising, especially when many of them really belonged in the higher English classes (or "Honors English", where I was always placed.)


My math experience... 

I was actually originally placed in an honors math, in 6th grade. That was a nightmare because Thomas just couldn't figure out why I couldn't keep up with the other students. Well, because she was going way to fast for me, wasn't explaining things in ways I could understand, and we were using stupid accelerated math. Thomas used to send me into a small classroom with Gerrick, embarrassingly enough, to try to catch me up. It wasn't happening, I wasn't particularly good at Math even if I could hold my own in my other classes. Thomas passed me, May lord have mercy on that child's poor soul.  6th Grade I had spent the entire year with that one group, the "smart kids." Though I felt at the bottom of the barrel because of my lack of organizational skills and by the end of that year my confidence was a little shot.

7th Grade was different. I was with the "smart kids" in Isley's class, which originally full and I got stuck in Vickerman for my homeroom. Vickerman's homeroom was all loud, happy averages. Displeased, I was able to switch over to Isley's homeroom which had a lot of the kids I also went to Band with. If I was not in their homeroom, I wouldn't be in the loop of things. I remember sitting next to Jennifer W. and she'd always make me feel very stupid. I look back on all the extremely hard work she used to do. I wonder if it paid off well for her.

I took science with the "happy averages," you could say. The kids that weren't really at the top academically but passed their classes. But then in Dickman's class, to my surprise, I was with the lowest of the low. I remember being surprised that this is where Thomas sent me... But I'm so glad she did, that's where I needed to be, not in advanced math what so ever.

Dickman's methods were extremely clear to me. He would use step by step problems on the white board, assign the homework, maybe use a real life scenario or two that the problems could be applied too, and we'd go. I'm pretty sure at that time before I'd taken his class I was extremely behind in math. I learned NOTHING in Thomas's class, then hardly anything in Harris's class. Luckily Harris liked me as a person and had no problem letting me through.

Then onto highschool, Math 1A was alright, I probably got a C, even if most of Prior's methods didn't make much sense to me in the same way Thomas didn't. I passed 1A but completely failed 1B my Freshman year. I felt insecure about having failed, and felt like I would never get it. Mrs. Haines was a whole new kind of math teacher. She was extremely sweet, she would teach her class with extreme patience and show respect to every student. She would stay after class to help students with whatever they needed.

I tried so hard in that class because I didn't want to let her down. I got an A in her 1B class and I was incredibly proud of myself to get that confidence back. Then comes Zehnder. I took integrated math II with her and had to really fight to do well. I'd sometimes stay after class or come before class to get help on problems. Her voice was very monotone and hard to not fall asleep during a 90 minute class period.

At CBC I took my first college math, Math 96, with Professor Z., my friend Michael Z.'s father. Some nuttiness happened in this class. Practically everyone in class was a pot head, more than anyone my friend Josh. I had a crush on Josh from the previous quarter when his friend Tyson and I had a technical writing class together. Tyson used to show up to the class completely blazed every day, and Josh and Tyson liked to smoke. Tyson described to me that he gets straight A's even if he smoked every day. I sort of scoffed at that, but didn't tell him.

Josh had a girlfriend. Yeah. He still does have a girlfriend.

I kicked ass in Math 96 because it was really easy. Pretty much just introduction to algebra and doing the basics. Little bit of introductory factoring. Zhang was such a trooper to deal with that kid that used to stick his hands in his pants the entire class.

..Anyway, uh yeah Math 97 I took online with Hassham over the summer when I was dealing with a lot of other craziness. That class was a real challenge because my only resource was the internet. I was practically teaching myself. I somehow managed to get about a 2.7. I was pleased.

Math 98 with Lambert was tough, it was the most difficult class I'd ever taken but Lambert was very helpful and this girl Kim M. inspired me to keep pushing forward as she put off all her homework until the end of the quarter. She was friendly and fun to BS with, as was this really cool guy named JJ that had these crazy dreadlocks. CBC itself was such an interesting part of my life. I really did get a chance to interact with a wide variety of people of different ages.

So now here I am! Almost done with pre-calc. It wasn't nearly as hard as my last algebra class. Calculus is a whole different style of math, it's more like puzzles. I'm pretty sure I've done really well, and I'm now much more comfortable in math.

I had lunch with my friend Reina today too, it was pretty good. Originally we were going to go Starbucks but we were feeling pretty hungry by the time we walked halfway there. I ended up getting a really delicious Korean Bento. 

I think I'm gonna get going, feeling a little lathargic. I haven't played any guitar today. Haven't really had the urge. I think I might actually play a little Sims THEN practice this evening. Sounds like a plan.

peace/