Recalibrating my life again

School has been hard for me lately.

I think a lot of it had to do with starting this quarter off badly which f*cked up my internal schedule and confidence so I haven't been able to figure out a solid routine yet. Today I tried spent a lot of time studying macro Chapter 3 but pretty much got nowhere on the homework. The math is really killing me right now. I need to actually practice it, and I'm hoping that adding the website to my studying will help me do that this next week.

I know in order to hold myself to practicing anything I have to create a schedule with the number of hours I'm going to spend on it.

This is me feeling very stressed out and defeated. I spent about 5 hours studying today with little physical proof of improvement of understanding (completed assignments...) so I know I have to approach this differently. I'm meeting up with Kevin tomorrow to figure out the Ch. 3 production function equations I could not for the life of me get today. Then I'm going to start using the website to more proactively study the book.

Here is my schedule for the next week. I have my first macro test on the 31st and right now I'm not feeling prepared for it at all. I've wrote out this planner so that in the next week I'm going to do about 12 hours of Macro study by the time I hit the upcoming test because I know that's how much I'm going to need. That's a goal of two hours of studying macro alone each day this week, plus also remembering to chip away at that project 2 for my management class.... And try not completely throw guitar under the bus. And find a job. 

....Because I have no money, which is another source of stress in my life because my parents give me money to live so I try to spend as little money as possible. But now that I'm 22 everyone around me is drinking and alcohol is so tempting and freaking expensive. And of course I have guitar lessons that cost $80 a month and my habit that cost as much as any regular smoker at this point. 

All this stress is making it so not I'm getting enough sleep. I haven't been to sleep probably earlier than 2 am all week because I am too stressed to fall asleep and keep getting woken up from nightmares of failing school. Literally I've been having these nightmares where I have to take an exam and I'm not ready or I somehow fuck up my life and wake up in a panic and it makes it hard to even get up in the morning so I'll end up sleeping in until 11' even if the nightmare woke me up at 6!!! 

I have to change all these bad habits in my life right now before it's too late and I get a D on my first exam. This week I will get more sleep, eat healthier, smoke less, work more, wake up earlier, study harder and practice better. Then by this time next Saturday I won't feel like this. I'll tell you how the first day of this goes tomorrow (well, technically today, obviously going to bed at a decent time isn't getting off on the best foot but tomorrow I'm going to make it a goal to be in bed by 11)

peace. 

Slacked for the weekend to brace for what's ahead

Wow, today was supposed to be my big statistics study day. You know how much studying I've actually accomplished so far? Nothing. I spent all weekend hanging out at home doing nothing but hang out with family and get things ready for the upcoming week. Today I did a pretty good amount of cleaning and packing and my room looks a LOT less cluttered than it did this morning.

Here's a picture of me and Ting at Bruce's birthday party this weekend. I really did have a fun weekend, between that party and getting a chance to go home and spend a little time at my sister's senior party. I don't know if I mentioned to you guys that I missed my sister's graduation but I did. Honestly it was because I had partied the previous night and didn't get much sleep. It was so much fun and I was lucky enough to not get a hangover. Ting was drinking the same amount that I was and got pretty sick so I was probably up until 3 or 4 am making sure she was gonna sleep in the bed I'd laid out for her versus next to the toilet seat...

Lol poor thing, I felt bad when she got so sick and I wasn't because she was drinking everything that I was having but I had a big meal beforehand and that night I ordered garlic bread at the palace.

Ting didn't go to the palace. I met her at Starlight and we hung out the rest of the time. She has taken Russian with some of Bruce's friends (namely Kylea) and she is planning to study in Russia next year. This kind of made me disappointed... Here I made this friend and she's not going to be at Central for a year. Granted I will be here in Fall 2015 when she comes back (I will be in my final quarter or second to last) so we will get some time to hang out again regardless but it'll be more than a year.

(Well Ting scratched her own face out in this one.... alrighty then ha ha)

Bruce's party this time was sort of different from the last one because we all got pretty drunk before going over to his house and by the time that happened I was too lazy to play any games. It was a hell of a fun time though, like last time. Kylea (left) is fun to party with. She's really genuinely nice, not embarrassed of anything.. She's been one of my favorite people I've met this year. 

Wow, yeah it's already 3 pm. My goal today is to do three hours of statistics and 1 hour of guitar to feel better about not doing anything productive this weekend. It's definitely do-able. 

Tomorrow I have my Stats final at 10 am. I keep on meditating on being confident in this material and I hope that it'll further solidify in my mind today. 

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. 

Time management issues

Wow, this quarter is going to present all new challenges....

Today was my first day of classes and my schedule really took a toll on me physically and I'm wondering how I'm going to adjust and plan my time as efficiently as possible.

I'm taking three classes in this order:

Macro-Economics with Carbaugh, 9:00-9:50
Didn't study for this today yet, I plan to read the first review after I get offline here in a few minutes.

Today this was the hardest to pay attention because I'm very used to the format of Carbaugh's class now that I've taken him for microeconomics. I feel like it sort of gives me an edge in the class. Ha ha, in most cases over this last year I would rather not take the professor again.

Not saying I didn't enjoy listening to the professor's lectures at all or participating in the class at the time. There were just some classes that were harder than others and taking the next level up would be dreadful. Like my legal environment of business class. I liked the professor but it was so boring and two hours long.

But yeah Rob Carbaugh is an excellent professor. I try really hard to stay on top of the material outside of class because there's no excuse for not doing well on his tests. He gives students such an overabundance of tools to use to study for that I'd feel guilty not studying for the tests. He also puts a ton of work in his handouts. I printed the required 80 page packet of handouts at the BEGINNING of the quarter this time. Cost me $2 to print in the library (getting the hang of the ugly Mac system). They're double sided and out of order currently but they're all there.

Business Statistics with Sipic
Studied this for TWO SOLID HOURS....

Okay this professor inspired me today. He's AWESOME. My favorite kind of no bullshit professor. He's Croatian, so his accent sounds similar to Russian. It was hilarious today though, every time he impersonated an American coming to talk to him he would go out of his Croatian accent and do this funny sort of "Anglo-"American accent that sounded like the clear eyes guy.

He spent a lot of the class discussing that Statistics is exactly and the importance of data in the everyday world and why you should care about learning it. He said that when he's talked to major companies their supervisors usually say they're looking for employees that know statistics and how to analyze data.

There was sort of lightbulb that went off in my head when he was discussing it today and I finally realized why I'd been doing the problems that I was having such a difficult time conceptualizing in finite math. I really appreciate Dale Width for being such a laid back grader in that class because I realize now that everything that I did in that class was meant to lead up to this AH-HA moment! Yay!!

Public Speaking
This class was PACKED! There were 11 people on the wait list and I was so fortunate to be number 1 so I just got moved over to that class. Because I wasn't on the attendance list for some reason I was stressed out for most of that class. It was really crowded, I couldn't help but notice how many girls with fake tans there were in the room, I was so uncomfortable. Tomorrow I'm going to sit in the front.

I'm going to make it to my classes earlier tomorrow.. especially economics because I want to sit in the front again this quarter, the second row sucks.

I have two hour blocks in between my three classes so I'm thinking of applying for a job. That's all for today.

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/ 

Your face looks famished.

Yo.

Today was a good day, got a lot of work done.. Definitely more than what I would anticipate on a Monday but that's what I have to do in order to validate skipping my legal class.

Wow, suddenly I feel panicked in writing this. I hope I do not associate blogging with panic, now, the purpose of this blog is to get me AWAY from panic. But maybe the feeling of being very inside my own head is what's scaring me. I'll turn on some happy music.

Anyway let's see, what I got done:

-Called the post office. Then ran down there.... 9:30 am. They jacked my mail so I called them and they told me they had my mail on hold. So I drove down there, and... somehow there was no mail there for me. I'm like, okay then why did you call me down here?
Okay, I shouldn't say "jacked my mail." In all honesty, I hadn't checked my damn mail box in two weeks, but don't tell my Mom that. Especially when I am expecting a somewhat important piece of mail. Tomorrow I'm going to make sure to check it. I need to start checking it at least once a week or I could miss out on some important things... My roommate never checks the mail so it's my responsibility. All of the mail that's come has been for me anyway.

-Finished accounting assignment. Sort of. . . I was feeling facebook-y after my math class, ate a bunch of food, and it wasn't until about 11:00 that I actually started on what I needed to get done. One of the problems was ridiculously long, but luckily Holtfreter didn't notice at all.
I'm happy to say I got full homework credit in that class, perfect attendance too. The same can't be said about my legal class, but unless he changes it tonight I've got 100% participation.

-Studied accounting flashcards for a solid 40 minutes. Tomorrow I go into the process of trying to better understand Chapter 12, do a few of those assignments, then probably re-do some assignments in Chapter 15 as well. That's going to take 2-3 hours but I'm going to divide it out throughout the day like today so that it's less overwhelming.

-STARTING to make a little progress on my math... I am still having a hard time getting my calculator to do what I want it to do, and apparently I have to get it set up properly for this thing called "vars" that makes no sense to me. I'm just trying to master these kind of problems right now.
I will probably need to seek outside help on Thursday. This will probably be the first and only time I'll go to the math tutoring center. I keep on talking about going there but usually by that point I understand the material to the point that I don't need it. I always hate this part of the math quarter where there's two back to back tests, it's a pain. At least I don't have to do that in accounting.

-Practiced for 70 minutes. I've gotten a lot better on Wherever I May Roam, but I'm probably not working on pentatonics as much as I should. I'm really not in the mood to do it tonight but tomorrow I'm planning on doing a solid 40 minutes of just pentatonics and working with the backing tracks.


So it's almost 10 and I've just been chilling now, drinking my tea. I only took one lorazapam today and one half Bronkaid instead of the two that I had to take the past couple days to deal with the anxiety. I talked to Seth F. today and he told me that he used to have hour long panic attacks and told me he could offer some suggestions with dealing with them. I hope that when we hang out when I come back into town for Christmas break we can talk about that so I can gain even more methods in dealing with it.

I'd like to say it's almost completely under control now. I described to Katelynn and my Mom that my mind is too fickle to stay focused on something as natural as breathing. I'll be breathing until the day I die, so why focus on it? But it seems labored breathing is the first symptom to feeling the panic attacks come on, and when I let them get out of hand my limbs tingle, my heart beats faster and faster and I believe there's something sincerely wrong. Almost like there is a lump in my throat and it becomes to easy to believe that it could get out of hand...

This is Kristin, she has schizophrenia which she she openly discusses on her channel, including some of the common misconceptions people have about schizophrenic people. This video in particular is about school anxiety, and I used to really like to listen to it because her voice is pleasant but now I feel I can actually relate to it. Panic is by far one of the worst things I've experienced (well, maybe not as bad as the years of depression I faced but it's pretty tough) but I'm lucky there's a vast amount of people that have gone through it as well that are willing to share their thoughts on it.

I can happily say I did not have any panic attacks today, though I did notice feeling the breathing sensation during my accounting class and wanting to get out of there quickly. Once the Lorazapam kicked in I was able to overcome this anxiousness and feel peaceful as I quickly jotted down all the answers to today's homework. That's what it's there for.

I'm pretty sure one of my first highschool crushes is now addicted to meth. Out of curiosity I looked up his profile on facebook and he looks quite... famished. I can't explain it, meth heads evolve into zombies over time, it's quite sad. 

It's about time for me to go to bed now. Goodnight everyone, I'm hoping by this time on Wednesday I'll be writing to you about how I did well on the accounting final and have nothing to worry about but I've still got some major studying to do before I'm ready for 10:00.

peace. 

KILLED that test, pot legalization..

Good evening to anyone that's bored enough to read this. 

It's 7:00 PM, which isn't horrible time wise even if I've still gotta few things I need to make sure to get done tonight. I've been sort of slacking on guitar, yesterday I only practiced 30 minutes because I was so tired from getting work done. Tonight's been sort of the same way, I skipped my legal class today so I could come back to the apartment to study for my math exam earlier. I've been working on those math problems off and on all day. I also studied a bit last night. I've improved, but at the point that I'm at right now I think I'd be sitting on a D grade for tomorrow's test unless I get another couple hours in tonight. Maybe just 90 minutes and refresh tomorrow morning and I should be able to bump that up to a C+/B- area. What can I say, I'm not great at math you guys. I'm trying my hardest but it's hard to remember the rules. Montgomery understands though, he knows we all just want to pass and gtfo. 

I'm officially registered for my classes for next quarter! This quarter has been quite a challenge up to this point, I've had to work harder than any other quarter I've taken. I'm wondering how my next class load will compare.

Here's my list:

English 102, Arlo Fleming. 8:00-8:50 MoWeFri Bouillon Hall (math building, interesting location for an English class)
I couldn't find a teacher review on this one. Burnadette told me the reason for this is because English 102 is typically taught by graduate students. This could be interesting. I'm hoping for the best on that one.

Econ 201, Robert Carbaugh, Principles of Economics Micro, 9:00-9:50 Mon-Fri in Shaw

Luckily Shaw is pretty close to Bouillon so I'll be able to walk there on time.

Math 130- Finite Mathematics, Dale Width, 10:00-10:50 Mon-Friday in Bouillon

My professors for finite math and economics are rated very high, so that's a major plus. That alone makes me excited for next quarter because two of the professors that I took this quarter were rated on a ":|" or mediocre scale. I don't want to say that they're mediocre professors at all, I really like my legal class... it can just get really boring..

Like I said I skipped it today, for the first time this quarter. I'm probably going to end up re-reading the chapter he lectured on today as well as Chapter 13 for this stupid quiz that's due tomorrow. Hypothetically, I could wait until after my math test and accept a 10% penalty and it wouldn't be the end of the world. But I'd rather just get it done tonight if at all possible, even if math really is my top priority right now. 

So here's my plan for the night:
Right now it's officially 7 sooo...
7:15-8:00, read over legal chapter 12
8:05-8:40, guitar
8:45-9:30 more math
9:45-10:45 read chapter 13, take stupid quiz
10:50-11:20 MORE math....

Then bed. only 35 minutes of guitar today ughhh I'm gonna have to play a solid few hours tomorrow before Jacob and I's lesson. What's even cooler is that he's going to be able to send me files via skype and I'll be able to print them from my printer in my room... This is gonna be so cool, I'm so excited. Just have to get through this stupid math test. 

OH. Big news!! I got a 96% on my accounting test!! WOOO!!! I'm so happy!!! These last three chapters in that class are going to be difficult but I know I can get through this now. Just gotta make sure I don't bomb the last test and I'm home free. I knew the flash cards would help me.

Oh. And pot's legalized. And Obama is still the president. It's the last thing on my mind right now I gotta study. There's been so much rehash about it, I don't even really feel like going into my feelings on the election. I will say that I'm very relieved that Obama is still president, he won by a landslide in fact. Europe is happy, the intelligent people are happy, we're all happy. Our world is in a fragile place right now and the last thing we need is someone like Romney to come in and start building up our military and sending our men into countries we have no right to be in. 

I'm also happy that Obama will be president at the time that communism will inevitably fall in North Korea here in the next four years. That is a VERY fragile and dangerous situation when it all collapses, mainly because these people have been brainwashed since birth to fight US imperialists to the death... But with the population being as starving and in desperate need for help as it is maybe they wouldn't be so quick to shoot at us. They're almost all military trained, though, because their entire economy is their "army" and putting on these rally's where they march around and give speeches about how much they hate the US. 

So if our troops were to storm into North Korea we'd be ambushed by these famished North Korean soldiers that have literally been waiting for their entire lives for this so called attack on Korean soil. It shouldn't be an attack at this point, it should be a rescue mission, with the help of the entire world. They could be saved just as easily (if not easIER, considering they really need food more than anything) as Japan after their tsunami when the whole world pulled together to help them. Korea is roughly the size of Mississippi for God sake.

Anyway I gotta get going, gonna start on that list.... blegh, gotta play some Opeth or somthing.

peace. 

Two almost stress free midterms, hallelujah.

I found another North Korea propoganda film, this one translated to English. Almost the entire thing is shots of Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung smiling and pointing at these great perfect establishments that have been built for the workers party. 

The music in North Korea is just awful. That's one of the things that would make life in North Korea absolutely unbearable is the awful socialist party music. They're not allowed to listen to anything else, though many of them do obtain music from China and South Korea illegally at the black market. The whole country is ridiculously poor because there's no economy so even as more and more "shops" and "restaurants" are built there will still be people starving and dying in the streets. 

It absolutely has to end soon, something will happen one of these days in North Korea that will cause major changes in the way their socialist government under the Kim family is currently running. It's been this way for so long that the country has become an old photograph of Maoist China and the 1950's Soviet union. For this reason Chinese tourists love to visit North Korea because it's fascinating to witness the charade fantasy land that the North Korean government can't possibly think the rest of the world believes. 

 

This sports contest happened in Kim Il Sung Stadium. In older videos the stands would have been full but I'm noticing over time these events are getting smaller and smaller, definitely because their population has dropped so far in numbers from starvation throughout the years. Competition in itself is very rare in North Korea because it's considered a capitalist ideal but there does appear to be a few races in this. I don't know, it's all completely whack-a-do. I'm going to continue to follow StimmeKorea's videos until the end of the Kim dynasty. It'll happen here in the next year or so, you watch. It has too because it's getting to the point that the residents of PyongYang are going to be the only ones left. 

I think I did well on my accounting test. Lecture in legal was SO boring today, we talked about contracts and hardly anyone was paying attention/participated. These are the type of days that I really make an effort to pay attention because I feel it will play in my advantage. He appreciates when people are paying attention, and he knows that the subject is boring.

Now that it's coming down to the very end I'm really getting a perspective on what I've gotta do to pass my classes. Week 7 ends tomorrow, I'm PROUD I actually did everything on my goal list this week and really got to enjoy the rewards by having two almost stress free midterms! 

What I've really got to do is study math. My next important test is this Thursday so my goal is to study math an hour a day between now and Wednesday night to better prepare myself for that. This test shouldn't be too bad, I've got a decent hand on logarithms so if I really bite into it tonight I should be okay. 

That's all I gotta say, gotta get to work! 

peace. 

6 hour study day.... go!

I decided today is going to be my BIG study day, my goal is SIX hours total.

My to-do list today is pretty crazy so I've got to get started early. Math has me extremely paranoid and frustrated because my instructor never writes out the steps of anything-- I have to annotate everything he says and I end up missing other steps. It doesn't help that the textbook is completely useless.

But if I do these six hours of study today I should be a lot better off for next week and I'll feel more prepared than I did this week. Most of my first tests are in this upcoming week as well so I should definitely be re-saturating the information in my brain, getting a chance to sleep on it, and re-studying it the next day to get a better understanding than the previous day.

This has been working with my legal class. I've been studying that for a couple hours each day and I've already got a better understanding of the court system than when I started. I printed out one of the old legal tests for the first unit-- 108 problems full of legal terminology and rules, it's incredibly difficult and if I don't prepare for this diligently I will inevitably fail this test. So wish me luck on that.

So today's goals are:
- Do laundry
- Annotate ch. 2 of my legal textbook
- ...Then take the Ch. 1/2 quiz for my legal class.
- Math for at least two hours, going to meet up with Patrick and he's going to help me out. Maybe we'll also hang out this evening after I get everything done, who knows.
-Annotate chapter 2 of accounting book.

As you can see, lots and lots of work, but if I get done with this I'm going to be SO proud of myself. I don't know when I'm going to be able to squeeze guitar in today. Yesterday I only got to play a half hour, it sucks! But I guess that's what I expected coming here, I was so blessed to be able to sit around practicing for 3 hours a day back home but here I have to earn that time.

peace.


Later....

Patrick came over and helped me with my math for almost two hours, AND brought me a bag of bagels when I asked him to pick me up one on his way back from the SURC. That was super sweet of him and he got major brownie points to spend time with me again if he wants too. 

Jason hasn't talked to me all day, this is the second day in a row. I had told him earlier this week that my birthday was this upcoming monday, asking if he wanted to spend time together. I mean obviously, why wouldn't we? He told me he's got other plans this weekend and that he'll let me know if he can get out of them. 

I've already got plans, my parents and Katelynn are coming up on Sunday, we're probably going to have dinner and it'll be a chill time. I'm not worried about if Jason's involvement anymore, I just always feel like I'm an inconvenience to him now and I don't want to feel that way about anyone. I want to feel like that person is enjoying spending time with me, doesn't everyone? 

So because Jason told me that he is going to let me know if he can get out of plans or not, I'm going to wait it out. If he seriously has no regard for my feelings what-so-ever, he will text me AT ALL this weekend. If that is the case, that will be the end of Jason and I's run. So if he's like almost every other guy that I've been involved with romantically, he will follow that hypothesis, ignore me, and I'll have to cut things off which I really don't WANT to do because I like Jason but I can't just wait and wait if he's just going to blow me off like that. 

I'm satisfied that I now have a verdict on this. I'm not going to text Jason first this weekend at all and we'll see what he does. Until then I've got a lot of stuff going on so it doesn't really matter. 

peace. 

Noise discretion has never been my strong suit

So apparently my clumsiness and constant activity around this apartment earned a complaint from our downstairs neighbors. I feel bad because I know it's my fault, she said I wake them up at 6 in the morning because of the footsteps. I've really got to be more conscious of how I'm behaving in the morning so that I'm not making so much noise. I need to start learning to be more cautious.

Correction, I wrote this last night after a couple glasses of wine: I don't really care, my academic needs are much more important than my neighbor's ability to sleep in. I'll try to walk more quietly but there's nothing I can do, they're just going to have to deal with hearing footsteps at 6 AM because it's not like I can change that. 

My new friend Wei Li had a dinner party where they made traditional Chinese food. First of all, let me say I was incredibly flattered to have such a big dinner cooked for my company, secondly, there's a lot of stereotypes that aren't true. I was able to ask a lot of questions about their culture and how they are liking it in America. They were pretty surprised how much I knew about Chinese culture, and I guess Asian cultures in general. Thanks YouTube for broadening my perspective on life.

I met a guy named Patrick whose 25 and spending his last year at Central before he graduates. He's cool, he's taking linear algebra like Jason is. I haven't heard from Jason all day. Patrick said he'd be willing to help me out with math too, I really just need a one on one tutor... He's majoring in electrical engineering. Blegh, why anyone would want to do that is incomprehensible to me. I just need to get through this math class, go with the flow and try not to get too stressed out but still work hard.

I drank some wine with dinner, I'm actually feeling sort of tipsy. Wine really drains me.

peace. 

Wtf is the point of calculus for a business major, can someone please explain that?

I feel pretty satisfied because I got 14 hours last week, that was my goal upon moving here that I'll cut down my regular three hours a day to just two, that way I still get an adequate amount of practice time but don't completely cut myself off from the outside world. There's a lot going on here so I need to be careful to not let my guitar be the only important thing in my life besides school.

Today I had to come home because I was frustrated. Math class itself went well but when I sat down to do my pencil-paper homework I found myself really unsure about my answers. I'm going to make sure to try and do the online math assignment if I can get into the system to be able to check my answers, but if that doesn't work I'm just going to have to cross my fingers that I can still do some of this stuff. I had a pretty hard  time with it this afternoon, and this is the review material... makes me wonder how in the Hell I'm supposed to dive into this new stuff.

That's why I've really got to buckle down.... Hypothetically if I were to fail this math class I would lose all sense of hope, drop out of school and kill myself. Not really, of course, but this really is going to be one of my main hurdles here that could destroy my life very quickly if I don't keep on top of it. Once I get into my major itself I'm not as scared but this stupid pre-calc class, finite math and statistics are probably going to fuck me up pretty hard this next year. That's why I just have to take it day by day, work my ass off and hope to God that's enough.

Usbank would actually be my LAST choice in banks. If I had to switch from Sterling I'd probably use Gesa. At least it's better than like, Wells Fargo or something... But still, not a fun decision to make today. I would have liked it to smoothly.

I had to get my new debit card today, which is an uneasy decision for me to make anyway because I really don't like that my money is now in two separate accounts. It was the smart decision to make because every time I would take out money they would charge me $6 so I'd be spending a fortune if I continued to use my Sterling card everywhere. When the bank teller was filling out the paperwork for the new card, she needed my student ID. She didn't give it back to me and I ended up leaving without it.

I went allllll the way to the library to do my math homework (big mistake, I think I'll study somewhere else next time, it's way too hot in there) and when I tried to log into a computer I reached into my wallet and realized the ID card wasn't there. Pissed off, I trudged all the way back to the student union building and asked her if she had my ID card. The bimbo didn't have it, I left her my number and told me to call me when she found it.

She will never find it. I'm going to have to go to the office and get a new card tomorrow, even if I really liked my old one. Hopefully they've got that picture stored on file so they can just use it. I absolutely refuse to pay for a new one, a card is something I NEVER lose-- it was 100% the bank teller's fault. This might seem like a minor thing but with me it's a huge inconvenience.

I'm going to meditate and play guitar. I feel so angry today I could just scream. There must be other reasons for it... other reasons for my frustration. I don't think it's loneliness because I don't feel that sense of longing. Come to think of it I wouldn't want anybody here either way. I think I'm MORE angry that math is going to be such an issue this quarter; the review page just didn't click to me today and that scares me. Algebra has never been my strongest subject, it's always just been something I've scraped by with and always wish that it'd be my last. This quarter FOR SURE is my last ALGEBRA class, but then I've still got finite math.


peace. 

Maybe I'm not even close to being done with math.

Thick fog on the highway last night almost completely froze my windsheild. It made driving really scary and I really hope this doesn't happen to me when I'm driving to school this winter.

Today I'm gonna do a really quick overview of what I've taken again to make sure that I'm graduating after this next quarter. I do this before every quarter to keep track of everything and make sure there's no loopholes that I'm missing. Plus it's sort of nostalgic for me, haha. I also need to think about what I'm gonna take during Spring and Summer to start working on prerequisites for my major.

Communication (13 Credits) 13/13-English 101 with Figueroa, 3.6. 5 credits. Hardest English class I've ever taken, and it seems like FOREVER ago that I took this. Fall 2009.

-Speech Essentials, 3.2. 3 credits. Learned that I really hate speech classes and hate presenting things. Did a bunch of weeaboo presentations on Japanese things. Spring 2010.

-Technical Writing--English 235, 3.9. 5 credits. This one looks really nice on my transfer degree. Winter 2011.

Quantitative/Symbolic Reasoning (5 Credits) 0/5
FINALLY getting this crap done this quarter with CS 102.

Humanities (15 Credits) 15/15

-English 111, 2.5. 5 credits. Some stupid intro to literature class that I took as a highschool requirement for my senior English. Required a ton of reading of boring ass material and the teacher was way too strict. He didn't like my writing, he would get on my case about not getting the symbolism. This class is why I decided not to be an english major. Lowest grade at CBC. Winter 2010.

-ICS 130. Survey of Asian American Culture, 3.2. 5 credits. For a class that could of been fun, this was really boring. Luckily it held my interest enough that I read the material and did the work. The teacher wasn't very nice. Spring 2010. Running Start.

-Japanese 121, 4.0, 5 credits. My first ever Japanese class! Fall 2010. Worked so hard to learn that damn hiragana alphabet, the set phrases, super basic grammar, and about 20 kanji.

Social/Behavioral Sciences 15/15

-Anthropology 100. 3.2, 5 credits. This class was HARD. So much reading!! I bet Michael Kelmel in this class, who's now transfered out of CBC. Liked him for awhile and used to sit next to him before class and play pokemon on DS, haha. I said some stupid crap in this class and I feel sort of embarrissed by it even today. I've hugely become more mature and less obnoxious since then. Fall 2010.

-Sociology 100. 3.3, 5 credits. This class had hard tests, but overall it was really laid back because there were a lot of extra credit opportunities. Jared Johnson was in this class. Fall 2010.

-Psychology 101, 3.7, 5 credits. I was such a dumbass in this class and used to participate way too much because I thought that's how you get a grade in there. I'm pretty sure anyone who had a class with me in there thought I was a complete moron and needed to shut the fuck up. Again, I've matured since then, thank God. I was like the Jaime Vera of the class..... Fall 2009. Running start.

Mathematical/Natural Sciences 15/15

-Nutrition 101, 3.7, 5 credits. Met Shavonne in this class. Learned a LOT in this class, even if it was pretty ridiculously easy. Also met this guy named Taylor Knipp that was awesome. I remember being really disruptive unintentionally once and felt bad. Spring 2010. Running Start.

-Biology 100. 4.0, 5 credits. Totally humiliated myself on the first day, and felt like depressed and HORRIBLE for like 5 days because of it. This was during the time of Wellbutrin, where almost everything I said made me feel like people were staring and laughing at me every time I walked in. The paranoia was too much and I ended up dropped Wellbutrin shortly after. I did well in this class and kicked ass at Jeopardy. Summer 2011.

-Environmental Science, 3.9, 5 credits. Again, humiliated myself. Learned that I need to grow the fuck up. I was a super perfectionist in this class and worked really hard, and did extremely well on every test/assignment. it was a really depressing class though. Winter 2010. Running Start.

Math Proficiency: PASS MATH 98 WITH A 2.0 OR HIGHER. 5/5 credits

DONE. Got an 87% in Math 98. That's like a 3.3. I feel fortunate that the 2.7 that I got in Math 97 will NOT count on my GPA. Fall 2011.

Health/P.E., 3/3

-Fitness Center I, 4.0, 1 credit. I didn't like this class because I had to get gross and sweaty before going back to Ki-Be, so I didn't work out TOO hard. Fall 2009. Running start.

-Fitness Center II, 4.0. Two credits is a LOT of hours. I was in there a LOT. I always worked out with Nathan Ling, and got pretty bulked up unintentionally. Fall 2010.

Electives 24/24

-Music Appreciation, 4.0. 5 credits. I loved Mr. Bourrough's class! Learned so much about music, and spent a lot of time working on homework from other classes during the reallllly long videos where he'd just bail into his office. Great lectures though, loved it. Winter 2010. Running Start.

-Japanese II, 4.0, 5 credits. I remember this class was pretty difficult because we really got into adjective/verb conjugation. I feel like I studied harder in this class than I ever have before. Winter 2011. Didn't have Japanese with Hannah and I missed her. I sat next to Jon Stewart, which was good because he studied as much as I did.

-Drugs and Health, 4.0, 3 credits. Just an easy class that I took to make my credit load 13 instead of 10. Spring 2011. Spring 2011 was probably my easiest quarter because Math 96 was cake and Japanese III wasn't horrendously hard either. I had a LOT of fun that quarter.

-Japanese III, 4.0, 5 credits. The class size weened down to just one big class instead of two, and overall this was the most fun quarter of Japanese. We all got to be pretty close friends in this class, and this was when me and Brad became good friends. I remember going to a bunch of events and things at Brad and Chris's houses. Spring 2011.

-Japanese IV, 4.0 (hopefully), 5 credits. This class was hard because I was so focussed on passing math this last quarter. I had to cram at the last minute a lot, and Hannah had to put up with my less than perfect proficiency. Overall, I still worked really hard though and managed to get great grades on my tests and quizzes. Even kept up with my homework. According to sensee, I'm the best at keeping up with homework in the class which makes me really happy. So technically, credits were done this quarter.

-Jogging I, 4.0, 2 credits. This class drove me CRAZY because the teacher never responded to emails! Actually DID the running though, and got in great shape. Spring 2011.

That being said, all I technically NEED this quarter to get my AA is Visual Basic. I have 90 credits as of this quarter, which is the "at least" value to be able to graduate. I'm not excited to take visual basic at all.

So accounting 201 and Japanese V are just going to go to my business major and Japanese minor.

On the Western Business Degree Requirements:

All students intending to earn a degree in accounting or any area of business (except economics) must complete the foundation courses comprised of ACCT 240, 245; ECON 206, 207; MATH 157; DSCI 205; MGMT 271, or their approved equivalent, with a grade of C- or better.

That being said, in the Spring 2012 and Summer 2012 before I transfer, I really need to choose wisely on what I should take.

IF accounting this Fall goes well, and I don't completely hate it and end up changing my course, I plan on taking Accounting 202 and then 203 in the summer. Math 157 is Calculus with Applications to Business. It requires a prerequisite of Precalculus I. That... looks extremely hard. I honestly don't know if I'd be able to do it which makes me wonder if I'm just wasting my time. Maybe I should look into Finance and Marketing. I don't know. I need to talk to a councilor or something to figure out what I need to do.

I think taking pre-calc during the spring or summer might be a good option for me.I'll think about it more when the time comes.

yours,

Emily

Finals Day!

My slow ass computer is making me mad tonight. The internet just hasn't been running properly, maybe because it's a busy night or something. Who knows.

Anyway guess what?! We can all (well, I..) rejoice now because MATH 98 IS OVER! Which means that ALGEBRA is over and I am officially college level, which means I can get my AA! Aren't you all proud of me? It's pretty fantastic. Studied for hours and hours and hours this quarter, and I passed my final today and it almost brought me to tears. Granted, I haven't taken it three or more times like some of the other people in my class that I'm sure were happy that they passed, but it doesn't matter. I worked so hard, and Mrs. Lambert even said she'd be surprised if I didn't pass it. She's so sweet to us, she used the scantron to match answers before we left so that we didn't have any rude awakenings next week.

Also, Japanese IV is now complete! I took the final this morning, it wasn't too terribly hard and I almost wung it. Like, I didn't overstudy too hard because I was too concerned about my math.

I'll just back up to this morning with a play by play.

I got up somewhat later than I'd anticipated, and got to school around 9:30. I sat down with Betsy, Caitlin and Nathanael, and started making random chit chat until I finally decided to stick in the earplugs and start studying. That didn't last long before Hannah showed up and sat down, saying she was nervous. I asked if she wanted to practice, leisurely looking down at my phone thinking we had an hour to study at 10:15. Then Hannah says, "We have 15 minutes.." WOAH,WOAH. I suddenly frantically start going through things like "Crap, speaking activities, now." haha. We worked together for about 10 solid minutes, which is a lot more than 40 regular minutes of study when it's with Hannah, before "Tay Tay chan" showed up blaring some rave music.


Not to mention he was wearing stockings and a headband? I have no idea. He always cracks me up but this morning I wasn't particularily amused when I needed to cram. Me and Hannah ended up getting another good 10 minutes of study in the classroom before sensee handed out exams.

Tay Tay chan is always trying to out-TayTay himself. Check out my sexy arm there on the desk. Lol you can just see the intensity.

たくさん難しい試験だ！あとで、眠いです。。１００点でください！！！

Anyway, got that done, even if I was the very last one in class to complete it and felt like a boob. Oh well, I bet I got a pretty good score so that's all that counts right? The kanji on this one got me though... I could barely remember anything and had to use deductive reasoning to figure them out.

Okay so onto math. After Japanese I headed over to the S building with Brenna, and ended up taking to this Mormon kid who was sitting at the couches. No Shavonne or Lily today, though I did give Lily the present I made her. Neither the necklace nor the bracelet fit fantastically, but I hope she likes it regardless. She made me a bracelet and caught me not wearing it... shit. i'm sorry I just can't wear too many things or it'll bug me! I've already got my hemp necklace that I'm still getting used too. It's sort of itchy right now.

The conversation with the mormon guy was interesting, and turns out he's related to the Norman family here in Benton City. He reminds me a little of Lindsey, super gung-ho (enthusiastic, never actually wrote that word before) but also very sweet. Didn't talk to Thomas much because he was talking to Colin about... something, weapons.

I went to the S building, and about halfway there I realized I'd forgotten my math book at home. D'oh! I didn't take too much notice though, went into the tutoring center, and got the last bit of instruction on the last few things. They always help me so much, though one method they used today confused the Hell out of me on the Final later, but it's just one problem. Without them, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't of passed this class. Them and of course Brad Pitkin who showed me all the math rules initially.

So yes, very happy and accomplished that I got through algebra-- math 96, 97 and 98. And I must say, I did a pretty damn good job. I got an 87% overall in the class, which is almost an A and won't bring my GPA down! So I didn't just barely scrape by, I kicked ass.

In other news, looks like as expected I'm postponing my college goals again. I'm going to go to Western in the fall to give my parents more of an opportunity to save money. I just realized that the only reason I wanted to go so bad is just... to GO. To get out of here. And that's not a good enough reason to up and leave when nobody else transfers in the Spring. Brenna had the same plans, and just like me she comes from a white middle income household and it's hard for us to get anywhere without a lot of saving. I am very happy though that my parents are supportive of me, because my life would be a lot harder if they didn't. I don't even know what I would do... it's not like financial aid is easy to come by, middle income or low income. So i'm just going to enjoy my time here. Enjoy my last year that I don't have to pay bills and such and have food in the cuppords without having to think about it.

So it's Christmas break now. For at least the next week I don't have work, that is unless my boss calls me to add hours to my schedule which I doubt he will. Jodi asked me if I wanted to be part of the secret santa. Yeah, on what money? No I don't think so. The only extra money that I'm getting is going to my actual friends.

In totally unrelated news, Guy added my sister on Facebook and today he "liked" a comment that I made to Daisy. Interesting. Of course at the time I commented the photo I didn't realize it was his promotion page, thing... or at least I think it is. Again, I don't get the whole raving thing. I don't even think that picture was taken on halloween. But yeah, really strange that Guy added my sister. Probably just because she's involved in the clubbing scene, but Avery does hip-hop dancing instead of raves. I've honestly been kind of wondering what he's up to, where he's living now, how his daughter is doing, etc... but I'd be pretty weird for me to message him when I pretty much told him I don't want to be involved with him in ANY way back in August or so. I don't dislike him, we had some really fun times this summer (and some *not* so fun, the Abby situation continues to make me feel a little sick) and I'm glad he kept me busy.

But yeah, errm... He's got a lot on his plate. All the time. Though it'd be interesting to know what he's been up too, and why he's adding my sister. Probably because he's adding everyone in the tri cities to promote his thing. Just weird that he's popping up everywhere suddenly.

I'm too lazy to continue my count tonight but I will again tomorrow. i'm excited, me and Katelynn are gonna hang out and I got some KILLER tilapia that is just, sticky and insane. The person that gave it to me surprised the hell out of me today.

I'm gonna get some rest, can't get on too vicious of a sleepless cycle.

yours,
Emily

Meeting a brilliant person is a rarity. ~7~

I met probably the coolest person today.

His name is Thomas and he's my friend Lily's (or Cece's, either way, she goes by a couple names) boyfriend, and we got into a conversation today and ended up talking for two hours on all sorts of philosophical things. Lately, for some reason, I've become really philosophical... wondering why we're here, how people interact with one another, how people get ahead, why people associate with others the way they do.. And nobody really wants to hear me rant on about these things though I find myself doing it all the time. But this guy Thomas was totally interested and we had a fantastic conversation. He's a really good listener and talks about as much as I do, so you can imagine it was just.. talktalktalktalk. He's a person that *always* has something to talk about and told me, "My brain doesn't have an off switch. I'm always thinking about something..." That's just like me!!! It was exciting. I am sure we are going to be good friends.

Subtle things like this in my everyday life are what keep me going. Knowing there are people I can relate too. Knowing that I'm not alone. That I'm not a complete weirdo. I'm intelligent and being around other intelligent people makes me happy. No, I'm not saying I'm particularily "super smart," because that would imply that I think super quickly and can regurgitate a bunch of facts because I can't. But meeting other emotionally intelligent people makes me really happy.

I'm so thankful for my friends and I'm happy that occasionally I make new ones. : )

Man, what am I going to do today. I should of been studying Japanese earlier but instead I ended up in this huge conversation. I've got time, considering I go to bed at 11 pm my day is just starting.

My must do list for today:

1. Check out this book that Thomas just told me about that I really want to read.

2. Play for an hour.

3. Study Japanese for an hour and a half to two hours.

4. Work on math finals packets for an hour or so.

yours,

Emily

Your breathing sounds like snoring.

I'm in the CBC library killing some time. I have class at 5' and I should probably be studying but instead i'm messing around on facebook, writing this blog entry, and talking to this guy named Edward that looks a lot like Connor Arens-- except my height. It's interesting when people add me on facebook and take no initiative to actually talk to me unless I go out of my way to do so.

CBC's parking made me mad this morning. I showed up "Early," well, early for Japanese class, meaning 10... and I think the parking situation was worse than when I come at 11. There was ZERO parking anywhere! Not in the W building gravel, not in the overload parking... nowhere. I had to park over by the softball field, in the LAST parking space available. It made me so irritated because I had to walk about a quarter mile to get to class.

I'm designing my cover for my Japanese IV binder. This one is going to be sort of boring because I feel like I should be leaving the library soon... I have to finish that math assignment. Math class is going to be so boring this quarter, I'm so sick of it. It's the LAST hurdle.

Well hey I gtg... Gonna make like a fetus.

yours,
Emily

I'm afraid I'll be stuck here forever if I keep pursuing this goal.

This quarter is so close to being over I can almost taste it, with only nine more days. It's sort of scary, but at the same time a huge relief that I'm going to be done with it and move on to another clean slate. I have my math final on Thursday and my Biology final on Wednesday. I also have a councilors appointment on the 19th to work out everything that I need to get taken care of before I graduate.

I have pretty bad news though. Fucking Symbolic Logic credits-- UGH. Turns out I CAN'T take C++ this next fall because it REQUIRES you to have math 98 under your belt. That being said, I'm probably going to be taking just math 98 and Japanese IV this next fall, then taking JUST C++ during the Winter... unless of course CBC forces me to take math 95 in order to graduate as well. That being said, I feel like I'm going to graduate sort of late in comparison to how long it typically takes people to get their two year degree, and it's all because I've waiting until the last minute to do my math and didn't do a very heavy work load during my senior year of highschool. So much for saving time. But hey, who's really judging anyway? If anyone has anything to say about how long I've been stuck at CBC they can fuck off. I have a goal, and unfortunately math and this pointless symbolic logic bullshit has put me out a bit.

Another option, of course, is to transfer over to Central in the winter ANYWAY without my AA and just get those two credits at CBC next summer when I come home to live with my parents again after the schoolyear. Though this is an option, so badly I want to be able to put my AA down as an accomplishment. I just want to take one thing at a time. First my AA, then my BA, then maybe my masters down the line once I pay back my student loans... sort of depends what I'm going to do. Because I've only been taking 10 credit quarters, I feel that I am partially to blame for my own failure to finish my AA as quickly as I wanted too. I should of never taken stupid CWP in highschool and should of taken a full schedule instead. : (

But I continue to ask myself if I even want to go to Central afterall... Everything in my life has come to me so fast that I haven't even been able to stop and think about what it is that I want. All this information regurgetation, studying my ass off, flashcards, hauling around books, selling those books and buying new books about subjects that I have no interest in... have I actually learned anything? I wonder if I am actually any more intellegent now than I was my Junior year of highschool. Like if I sat next to 17 year old me and took a big test with a bunch of different subjects, would I get a better score now or would it be the same? I don't feel like I've learned much of anything here, but I could be wrong.

...Well, I've certainly learned the basics of Japanese. That's something.

Maybe the reason why I'm feeling so inquisitive is because I hung out with my friend Mitch Missett yesterday. He's one of these people that when you talk to him, you really start thinking about your life because he tends to talk about things that I think about a lot-- like what my "plan" is to achieve success, and if success really is the ultimate goal to all of the work that we do. He's been through some really rough shit in the past few months. I won't go into detail, but my predictions for why he wasn't around (that he'd moved back in with his ex girlfriend or something) were very wrong. I'm pretty concerned for his brother, too.

I recently learned from Mitch how prominent meth is in benton city. I really had no idea.. I mean, I figured some people used it but the amount of people that use it that are around our age is pretty damn sad. I guess our town is #5 for most meth labs per capita in the United States or something like that, and Finley is #3. I don't know where Mitch got the statistics, but I trust his judgement. Regardless of it being true or not, it seems to be a pretty big problem. Not really a concern of mine though, considering I'm not involved with people that use it.

Anyway I'm gonna go, I've been in this computer lab way too damn long.

yours,
Emily

Extension handles make things a lot easier. AND MY PLAN.

Okay okay, time to get really focused and crack down on school because I only have....

12 more days!!!

This shit is coming down to the end!

This is gonna have to be a pretty quick entry because I need to get started on the shed again now that it's cooled down a bit. I already spent like three hours on it this morning but now I have an extension handle so it makes things a LOT easier. It'll be nice to get paid for this. My dad said he'd kick me $60. Which will get me out of the 0 hole. Not by much, but enough to last me for gas for a couple weeks. It's gonna be nice to not have to ask for gas money for two weeks. That's the most important thing. Gas is the only thing I can afford to spend money on. Speaking of which, I need to go to the school and see how much I owe on the stepp plan. I'll have to do that on monday when I go in to get math tutoring and get one of the two labs done.

I did NOT do very well on my last math exam, so my overall grade currently is about a solid C. In order to survive and pass this quarter, I could really use a better grade on the next test and a GOOD grade on the final exam. I need a gameplan! I can do this, I really can, I just need to plan it right and crack down on it 100%.

Daily Homework for the Next 12 Days:

-August 7th: Quiz 5 & 7.4
-August 9th- 7.5. Study 2 hours.
August 10th. Study 2 hours.

-August 11th. 7.4-7.5 due.
-August 12th. Quiz 6.
-August 13th: REVIEW-- STUDY 2 HOURS
-August 14th: Review what I learned yesterday.
-August 15th: Exam 3!
-August 16th: Review! Study 2 hours for final.

-August 17th: Study all I need for the final.
-August 18th. Final Exam. The most important day this summer.

I also have to think about Biology, which I will take as it comes. Biology isn't that hard, and she keeps us very updated via e-mail on what we have to do. I've got two labs due on Wednesday, which I'll start working on Monday before class. I'm probably going to get a pretty good grade in that class. I have gotten A's and B's on every assignment.

I've been trying to get a math tutor-- but it's harder than it seems. Not very many people know how to do math well enough to teach it, and to make it worse I want them to be able to come to Benton city or be able to meet up with me in Richland. So more than likely my efforts will be futile and I'll just have to go to CBC more than I'd like too, but that's how things go. I have to be aware that my parents do NOT want to pay for another quarter of Math 97-- so I really need to TRYTRYTRY. Michael Fuller is in the same boat.

So I am going to study and get help all that I can... I can't be lazy or I will be kicking myself mercilessly during my time off.

God I've been getting major school burnout lately. i'm not looking forward to fall quarter at all. I really gotta study some massive Japanese when I have my break here, too.

yours,

Emily