2.04.2009

Updates

I really am terrible with the updates. Last year as far as my apartment situation was concerned, was a train wreck, but unfortunately, I'm sure there are plenty of others out there with college horror stories. My apartment this year has worked out much better, and I have an amazing roommate (Tina) who's one of my favorite people in Salem. We all get along, the sponges don't smell, and no one considers me "mean and confrontational."

(As a side note: While I wouldn't call myself mean, I don't pretend to be a nice person. Hell, I don't even consider myself to be a nice person. Also, had I been confrontational, she'd have been sure of it. I'm perfectly happy with friendly debates and arguments over opinion. Being confrontational would involve my actively seeking to argue, which has never been the case.)

First semester was interesting. I spent a great deal of time mutely arguing with my senior thesis advisor. She saw fit to 'have [me] consider' changing my data set several times. Twenty-five scholarly sources was not enough for her (and please, keep in mind this is just an undergraduate paper, we're not giving me a million dollar grant for this work). Eventually I just decided that the whole project (which I've hated since day 2) was a waste of my time and effort. I had reached a standoff with my thesis advisor, and I'm not even considering going into the field. (I find that it is typically important for a psychologist to like people. Let's be honest here: I give great sarcastic commentary; I'm shit with advice). So, after 15 or so years of 3.0's or better, I took my first 'F.'

'F.' It was such a liberating letter. Perhaps the best decision I've ever made in college--admitting that I had a limit. By realising that I could fail, actually fail at something, and still be okay (my GPA is still over a 3.5, which shows you just what kind of a gung-ho, shuts-herself-in-her-room-all-the-time-in-order-to-study kind of student I've been all my life), I allowed myself to let go of all the ridiculous expectations (like still being bitter that I never went to BU, or applied to Brown, or that I would end up 0.004 points off from a clean 4.0). I'd never slept better than I did that first night after I decided to say "Fuck it!'

This semester, I'm still kicking myself for taking 6 classes, but for the most part, these are all classes I'm genuinely interested in. Which doesn't mean that I'm in love with the fact that my Cognitive Neuropsychology class (which I legitimately love, because any time I can talk about poking around in someome's brain...I'm interested. That's just plain cool) meets at 9:30 in the morning. I'm still convinced that the day should start no earlier than 10am, but I'm back to taking courses that I actually like. My Vietnam class has only furthered my opinion that American foreign policy is decided by people who must be on crack, but the professor is amazing. Hell, he even looks like George Carlin, circa 1988. Both of my psychology classes lead to discussions about PET scans, fMRIs and massive brain trauma, which is fantastic (unless it's you with the brain trauma). My history classes are Euro-centric, which is nice (only 6-10 real people you have to know, just change the number that follows their name), and cover much of the same material at some point during the semester. Phenomonology still continues to boggle my mind, but I think that's rather the point, but I'm not entirely sure.

Work is great and awful at the same time. I've explained at least 10 times in the last week how to properly use a semicolon. Please kill me before I commit homocide for crimes against grammar.

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