ack, haven't posted in a while. well, in all recent news, math is a.....you-know-what again, and english and art are going pretty well. i got aaa...90%, i think, on my last essay, and a 95% on my art project (woohoo). so yea, that seems to be alright. i got good remarks from the teachers and all. so now my second essay is coming along, and it seems to be doing alright so far. my second art project is coming along too, but very slowly and tediously. i see a lot of long hours in my living room in the near future. and math, well, i'm back to an understanding level of perhaps 65%. while everything is pretty straightforward, i'm having trouble piecing all the pieces together so that it all makes complete sense. wish me luck.

in other news, i'm taking the SAT's on saturday, and judging by the studying and the practice tests i've been taking, i'm going to do miserably... luckily, i have plenty of witnesses to tell me that although the SAT's may be tough, they don't determine the rest of your life (phew). anyway, wish me luck with that too.

Things have been going alright with school. Still going steady and all, doing most of my homework, and participating in class. But outside of school has gotten a bit more difficult. I'm not sure what it is, but the past few days have just been taxing on me. It's probably a mixture of family life, anxiety for the present, and anxiety for the future. I've never been good at the whole planning thing. I'd say I've done a pretty good job with school in general up till now. But this whole planning for college thing, where I want to go, how I'm going to pay for it, what I'm going to study, and whether or not its going to take me through life has always been a source of anxiety for me. Ever since I interned at Wonderful! Graffiti, I've felt I want do something in Graphic Design. But even that direction doesn't seem to be enough. Where will I learn what I need to learn, and what about all the competition? What will I do besides make money to support myself and my family? What kind of meaning will my life have?

Anyway, these are just the things that I've been thinking about recently. Schools taking a bit of a back seat in my mind at the moment.

I don't have too much to say about Friday. I only have two classes, and each one ended about half-an-hour-early, so that was cool. I went to my friends house afterwards, and we just enjoyed the rest of our Friday exactly the way we wanted to.

It's Sunday evening now, and I really don't like going to sleep knowing that I'm in for a wake-up-at-six-o'clock-for-eight-hours-of-school-with-little-food day. It's not the best feeling. But, it's just like they say, you gotta keep on.....trucking, or something. Just suck in your stomach and swallow. Just close your eyes and jump. Just pinch your nose and shove it in your mouth, and know that it'll all be over in a week.

Last Wednesday, I took a Math test and turned in an Art project. The math test went really well, and I just found out that I got a 95% on it (woohoo). Plus, the night before I started understanding my homework 100% better. I think I surprised myself most of all when I was able to do all the really really complicated problems. So yea, to sum it all up, math = pretty cool right now.
As for my art project, I ended up completing it at 9:30 the night before. However, arriving in class I found out I did a lot better than the majority of the rest of the students, as they started quickly finishing theirs before class started :P So art project went well. I'm happy with the work I did, and I think my teacher was too. We did critiquing for like, three-and-a-half hours, and I got pretty good reviews. So, Art = awesome

I like the independence of being at Columbus State. I like the fact that I have more responsibility on my shoulders, that I am getting through my classes alright, and most of all, that I'm getting a free college education. So far, my classes are going well. I'm just getting an art project done, I'm halfway through writing the first paper in English, and math...well, math is alright.
I feel a little frustrated in math, seeing as half of it is review for me, and the other half is review for everyone but me. It seems that there are certain parts that I never really got down that everybody else learned thoroughly in math 104 or something. I'm a little bit scared to ask too many questions though. I feel like...I don't want to be the one in the class that stalls the lesson to learn something that everyone else knows. Usually, I'll wait a bit and see if I get it as we go along. Then I'll go home and swear up a storm as I try to understand my homework. If I don't understand it by morning, I'll just ask my teacher to do the problems on the board and pay a heck of a lot more attention than normal.
So all that, coupled with the fact that math feels like one of the most useless subjects to learn so thoroughly, makes the class a bit frustrating. In English, we were asked to write a six-word memoir. I wrote "Took math. Learned math. Now what?".

So, time to update about PSEO. So far, all my classes are going well. I'm keeping up with homework for the most part, and I think I'm doing a pretty good job of participating in class. I think the most difficult part is waking up in the morning. I have to get up at 6:15, and I have to absolutely force myself to get up. It's not easy at all :P

But actually, I'm really happy with the schedule I picked/got. My Mondays, Wednesdays are pretty full, and on Fridays I only have classes till 11:30. Plus, I get Tuesdays and Thursdays I get completely off. So I usually take those days to sleep in, relax, and get my homework done. (Thankfully, contrary to what I heard in PSEO orientation, there isn't two hours of homework for each hour of class)

I've now completed my first week of being a full time Columbus State Community College, and no, it wasn't as bad as I anticipated. Wait, let me correct myself. I didn't expect it to be bad. I was merely anxious, worried that I wouldn't understand a word of college language, and that I would embarrass myself within the first class. But so far, no such thing has happened, and I've survived, and things are definitely not that bad. It feels like high school without the familiarity and friends, but twice as much freedom.

Well, a bit of worry does creep in here and there. For one thing, in math 148, we went over something I've never heard of before in my life, and it seems that most people all know about it. That definitely inspired true panic in me, which made listening all the more difficult. But things quickly got back on track with me, and I made it through the rest of the class alright.
Another thing is keeping up with homework. Certain homework assignments, the teacher doesn't announce, so I'm going to have to get used to looking it up online.

I started classes at CSCC yesterday, which marks the start of my second walkabout. I'm taking Math 148, English 111, and Art 122 for a total of fifteen credit hours.
I have to say, I was extremely nervous, especially the night before. I received plenty of reassurance that college was just like high school. But even so, I was nervous.
I took the COTA bus at 7:00 in the morning, and arrived on campus at 7:30......alright, to make a long story short, each class was pretty good. My teachers all seem like friendly people, and aside from the length of the classes, it does seem very similar to high school. I'm still a little nervous for tomorrow and the rest of the quarter, but I'm a worrier, and I know it, which makes me feel a little better.
One thing I noticed is that the teachers were all friendly, and the students were all stone silent. It's kind of sad. I have a feeling that the teachers are going to get bored/boring.

Oh yea, I have Sally Polk in one of my classes (woohoo)