Life Goals

I think that I would make a really good parole officer, therefore doing something along the lines of a parole officer is my goal for school. I haven't read up on it yet but I am not sure if being a parole officer requires me to go to a police academy and become a police officer first. I'm guessing yes because the title has the word "officer" in it. If that is the case, assuming that I can become a police officer (from what I learned in my police community and society class becomng an officer is very exclusive and difficult to achieve) I need to go to a police academy. I think that I will wait until after college to do this, as opposed to going during a summer.

It's likely though that I will not even be able to serve as a police officer because I have been diagnosed with depression and am medicated for it. Even if my depression somehow dissappears and dealing with life gets easier, I think that it is a point against me because the background checks are naturally really intensive.

If not, I'm sure I have other options. Hopefully I will be able to find some of those options once I start doing my community service for my social welfare class.

First Day Back!!

And it was awesome! Both my teachers seem very nice and pleasant and respectful and the curriculum (curriculi?) look like they will be really interesting! My Intro to Social class seems like it will be alot of work. We don't have any exams but we do have a few projects and a bunch of little homework assignments. Oh ya, did I mention THIRTY HOURS OF COMMUNITY SERVICE?!!!! Thats going to be stressful but I know I will enjoy the hands on learning experience.

After I got out of class I am proud to say that I did not go straight to Hilda's to nap! If I had I'm sure I would have stayed there for too long relaxing instead of being on campus in the school state of mind. I hung out in the pride center while I ate lunch and then spent an hour or so in the computer lab as I waited for Monika. I added my professor's emails, office hours and phone numbers to my contacts on my google account and I also picked up a form to declare my minor. Next up tonight is to at least do half of my reading for my intro class and start looking for an article to do my journal entry on for next week!

I'm really really sleepy now so i'm going to just rest my eyes until 8:30 and get on that homework train!

Excitement

I've basically been waiting all vacation for school to start again. I had a really stressful end to the semester because I got myself in a position where I had to study insanely hard to get a decent grade in two of my classes, and I let myself get anxious. Christmas was a nice break from school, I got to buy things for people and see them happy about it, I got presents and I got a few new pieces for my wardrobe. But now I feel like I have everything that I need for now so I can't stress shop to pass the time. I've felt like that for about two weeks, and I've been ready to get back to a schedule and ready to get things done.
Last semester taught me that if I apply myself, I can do really well. Not only did I get two good grades, but I felt really strongly like I had earned them and even weeks after my classes have ended I still have information that I know I retained and that feels so great! Now that I know what I have the potential to do I want to do it all again!!!

Final Exams Studying

As my grades are now:
Intro to American Govt: No idea, probably like a C+ to a B
Drugs in Society: A-
Anthropology of Women: No idea, the grades are on blackboard but they don't make sense to me, probably like a B+ to an A, i'm just waiting for my presentation grade, participation grade, and the grades for my last two response papers
Corrections: HA. C- :( don't want to talk about it
Sooo conclusions:
1. I think I will focus on my Drugs in Society studying for today/tonight and tomorrow

• make flashcards from powerpoints
• read missing information/edit flashcards

2. Intro make flashcards based on study guide and powerpoints on sat night/ sunday

• On tuesday after my corrections final I will look through the book to get more information for those cards

3. Corrections

• I have a C-
• I got a C- on a paper because I used words he didn't prefer, I didn't have sentence structure that he prefered and had all the information that I needed
• I got a 55 on my last exam that I did in fact study for
• There is no way that I can get the grade I need on this exam unless I ditch studying for everything else and just focus on corrections, like fuck I am going to do that because even if I do that I have like a one in a million chance of getting anything over a 60 on the test
• I'm still leading a study group on monday night at 6 until as late as I need to
• FUCK YOU RICHARD WRIGHT YOU ARE AN AWFUL TEACHER

hahaha well the bitching concludes my study schedule, hopefully I can stick to it and not get distracted by the anxiety I always feel before studying.

Group Project

We have a group project presentation today, and sometimes for group projects you can get by fine with everyone in the group being assigned a task with a due date, and just putting a presentation together together. However our anthropological research on the experiences of women in their work and education is not the type of project where you can get by like this.
We are supposed to discuss our findings (the simliarities we found between all of the women/ what we didn't find similar that we were surprised about). While we did have these analysis grids separating different kinds of information and writing the answers each woman gave to our same questions, I don't think that this sheet of paper will be enough. I'm nervous because the information that we got is not as uniform as I would like it to be. I kind of made some assumptions about my findings (not that nicole incorporated them into the presentation or anything) and I'm worried that I will make some sort of statement and someone will chime in like "uh no that doesn't apply to my informant" and then I will look incompetent :(

Group projects just stress me out. I prefer leading people, because I know that I can get things done and assign work accordingly and work with people if they are having problems. I don't like giving all of this responsibility to other people (nichole). I feel like she doesn't really work with the group. It also bothers me that she's leading it because I think she is just doing it because she doesn't trust anyone else to. I don't really like how our whole group doesn't really want to work together, most of them are kind of grumpy that way. Oh well it's almost over, and i'll be sure to try to include as much as I can in my evaluation of them.

Distracted

I think it makes sense that my first blog about pursuing my education (higher/ general learning) is about what distracted me from these goals.

I love learning, and keeping track of my progress (thats why I like blackboard so much) so that is why I created this blog dedicated specifically to my learning.

However, alot of things distract me from it, and I end up saving all of my studying for the last minute, and I get by well, I can maintain B's this way in a normal level class, A's in an easy class and C's in a difficult class. However I want to actually learn from my classes and the best way to learn is to study a little bit each day, but here is a list of things that distract me from doing this in my every day life:

1. Cleaning my room/organizing my things: It is really hard for me to concentrate for some reason if my living space is not clean and neat. It doesn't really matter if I am at a studious library or in a friend's neat room, if I know that things in my room are not in their proper place and in good condition then I have a really hard time focusing on studying

2. Sleepiness: The idea of studying when I'm AT ALL tired really intimidates me. If I am even the slightest bit tired, I allow myself to nap for about an hour before studying (and usually I am good to go and ready to study, however I get distracted by other things when I wake up)

3. New crafts/ projects: I try to balance my studying with my creativity, but so often the creativity aspect overrides the studying part. For example, I LOOOOOOOVE SHRINKY DINKS I made something for Camille, and told myself when I completed it that I would study, but it came out sooooo great that I wanted to make more and see what I could do with the scraps. Here is what I made last night:

                                 

Yup I am proudly sporting kyle and butters earrings

Ironically, an other activity that distracts me from doing my schoolwork is blogging. So to get back on track I'm going to post the studying that I would like to do today:

1. Create slides for my case study/ findings for my anthropology of women final project that is due tomorrow (shouldn't take me too long and it should be fun for me)
2. Spend at least an hour (preferably 2 or 3) studying for my drugs in society final, make flashcards, using the study guide/book

And I think those are some realistic goals for today, I have no more shrinky dink paper left from my first order buuuuut I have TEN MORE 8X10 SHEETS COMING FOR CHRISTMAS GIFTS/ CHRISTMAS GIFT MAKING!!!!!!! good thing by the time they come I will be done with finals LAWL