It's been a month since my last visit. And because this is as close to a diary as I have, I'm going to address you, but talk about things that might only be important to me.
It's been a month. This whole process is testing me. Pushing me to my limits and challenging me to throw in the towel. I thought the summer was hard. Oh, dear GOD, was it. So hard. But somehow juggling 3 classes, 11 credits isn't much easier. I have elevated time management to a religion. Times like these feel like venial sins. Forgivable, but still, these moments of unwisely used time mar the surface of hard work. They make me think: "you aren't working as hard as you could be..." Never mind I've traded working late for getting up early. Never mind that I'm so fried that opening a book wouldn't actually do any good anyway. I'm not working: sin. Ugh. Sometimes that Catholic upbringing haunts you in ways that you never could have foreseen.
Right now I'm taking three classes. Calc III. Linear Algebra. Statistics. Statistics is online, and not...er...how should I say this? It's not a "real" math class. For a math major in a 'real' school, statistics has a basis in Calculus. It's a royal pain in the ass. I took both Statistics and Probability as two classes the first time around. I remember hating them. This time it's just statistics, and it's the version that psychology majors take. And nursing students and the like. I'm not knocking what they do, because I can't do it, but it's not the calculus based class that I remember. And I'm thankful for that. Although, I'm taking it online, and it's entirely self taught. Read the book, take the practice quizzes, take the test, post on forum. It's time consuming. And frankly, I'd be mortified to get anything less than an A in a class that isn't really a math class. Which means I put even more time into it. The upside is, the class is only 8 weeks long and we're on week 5. The bonus upside is that I've actually completed all the work for week 5. Three more to go, baby.
Calc III is easier than Calc II.
LOLOLOLOLOL
Calc III is NOT easier than Calc II, but Dr. Stitz isn't quite as hard as as Prof. Smolko. And he cracks jokes. On Tuesday he spent 5 minutes setting up the opportunity to say z-rho (the Greek letter). There's something so stress relieving about laughing in class. He gives these insanely hard take home problems but has office hours from noon to 2 every day. I'm a Tuesday regular now. He wrote a test that he thought would take us an hour. It took us 3. I respect Prof Smolko, but it was almost as if he went out of his way not to connect with us. Dr. Stitz likes us. It's not easier, but it's different. Challenging, but somehow doable because of the accessibility of the professor. I'll be happy to cross it off my to-do list, but I'm sort of enjoying the process, as well.
Linear Algebra is just going to be a mess. After a fiasco and several hours on the phone with Notre Dame, at times being extremely strong yet diplomatic, I managed to un-enroll in Notre Dame's Linear Algebra and joined Lakeland's class. By the time I got there, I'd missed three classes, but with a ton of work, I managed to catch up. And somehow I still don't understand a damn thing. :P I took this class at Immaculata and it was it my favorite class. We studied it from a super practical perspective. Yeah. They don't do that any more. Now they go out of their way to be abstract. Yay! Only...not at all. I've actually discovered that MIT has a Linear Algebra class online. Seriously. I can watch an MIT professor teach Linear Algebra. That's pretty friggen cool when you think about it. Also, it's sort of lucky for my professor...since he sort of sucks. :P
So that's been the last month. Lots and lots of reading and problem working and stress. Oh, dear sweet baby, the STRESS.
And I have this gig. I'm supposed to be making kick ass layouts based on sketches for Cord Camera and Scrapbook Studio but that is suffering like crazy. But I'll tell you what. There was a day a couple of weeks ago where I just couldn't take it anymore. I had a little window of opportunity to use about two hours any way I saw fit. Truly, I probably should have worked a couple of extra problems, but I had this very cool paper from Bella Blvd from their Birthday Boy collection. And nothing makes more feisty than telling me what a line is to be used for. What do you mean "Birthday BOY"?
That there is a birthday page about a girl. And it works. So there, Bella Blvd!
What really slays me about this page is the fact that it came together in the two hours I had allotted, and that included hemming and hawing on the font for "july" and some paper choices. I love that everything from Bella Blvd works together seamlessly without that blah grrranimals feel.
And to my friend and DT coordinator, Stephanne: I hope I'm not stressing you out too badly. And THANK YOU so much for being as flexible as you've been. You have no idea how much that means to me. You're the best.
