So, back to school

I am going today to my fourth day of school this semester.

On Monday I went and was relatively excited.

It was cool, brisk, and campus was filled with little people asking directions and studying their freshman planners with maps in the back.

I thought "This is my last fall on campus!" and then felt sad, nostalgic-like.

Tuesday morning I woke up thinking that it was Thursday. Already.

I cannot keep track of the days during the school year.

I went to my first class and after ten minutes I decided I couldn't bear it anymore, and I had the syllabus and I would just get up and leave for the rest of the day.

That's how desperate I felt.

Immediately.

Luckily my prof was on the same wave-length. "You all know how to read, so go read your syllabus in peace. I won't read it to you."

Class dismissed 12 minutes in.

Good thing I stayed those extra two minutes.

I would have felt foolish if I'd left two minutes before being dismissed.

But I was literally packing up when he said that.

By Wednesday, I'm back into the resigned rhythm of things.

I get up. Meh.

I go to class. Meh.

I sit in back by a boy I used to have a crush on, even though I had previously decided not to sit there.

But there were no other seats. Meh. Of course not.

Then we get out of class ten minutes late, since the prof says as the bell rings "Oh, don't leave without your assignment." Then talks for eight minutes and says, "And just start reading, no real page number to get to." Meh. Professors. Bleh. Assignments.

I escape into the serious fire hazard that is the JKB and fight to the back stairs with four hundred other people, while another four hundred fight their way in. Meh. I blame freshman for all of my campus problems.

Freshman are the reason Professors treat us like babies, right? (I like being a Senior and getting to rip on Freshman.)

I make it to my next class late and our professor doesn't understand any of the jokes we crack.

It's a good class.

And it's full of other English major seniors. I know them all.

I like when people say "Hey Becky, how was your summer?"

I find it comforting.

Our prof says "Has anyone ever died playing video games?"

"Socially?" asks someone; we all laugh and so does our professor. But then she says, "Not kills you've had in your war games. Actual deaths."

And then we all laugh again.

Because she didn't actually understand the joke.

But she doesn't know that.

Then work. Meh.

Then another class where I go and sit and get the syllabus and literally do not know whether or not it's the classroom I'm supposed to be in.

People say "We've had a class together. Did you take whatever with Professor so and so?"

And I don't know.

Because all of my English classes from past semesters have blended into one long literature class by this time. Meh.

I have a hard time even picturing different professors I've had, let alone remembering what class I had them for.

I usually just remember whether or not I liked them. Meh.

You're sick of this, too.

Aren't you?

That's okay. I'm getting bored and discouraged just typing about school.

Meh. Bleh.

School.

I hate school

I feel like a child saying that, but it's true.
It has always been true.

I used to cry in the nurses office for hours every week in Elementary school, trying to get sent home.
Yes, there have been many classes, individual classes, that I've loved.
Like Novel or Yearbook in high school.
Chemistry, both in high school and college.
Quite honestly, I loved Alegebra.
I have loved every writing class I've ever taken at BYU. LOVED it. Never wanted to stop.

I love to read, and write and just learn.
But I hate school. I hate tests, grades, group-projects, absence policies, required credits and pre-freaking-requisites for classes I want to take merely to TAKE.
It drives me to frustrated cuss-word filled fits of tears.

I have a very low GPA.
I mean, not VERY low, but way lower than anyone I know... my husband got all As last semester and I got an array of Cs, Bs and maybe an A, but I don't remember. That's because I don't care. Grades mean absolutely nothing to me. Even those classes I loved... I doubt I got an A in more than one or two of them, more often I got a C.

I want to take Nutrition because it sounds super interesting and it could help me be healthier.
I want to take Family Finances because then I will understand why I am poor, or what the heck a CD is or maybe how to do my own taxes.
I want to take a computer course on Illustrator because I don't understand how to use it and I want to use it almost daily.

And I can't.
Because I'm the wrong major. Because I could fail and then have an even lower GPA. Because it's not just about learning, it's about everything else that I hate (see the list above).

I had a bit of a melt-down today when I learned that I might not actually get to graduate when I thought I did because maybe I couldn't take summer classes due to Africa.

"I hate school!" I yelled at Travis (poor Travis gets the brunt of my melt-downs.) "I don't want to be here any longer than I have to! I just want to get out!"
"So quit!" He may have yelled, but I doubt it. He's not the yelling type. "Just quit school and find a job."

and the thing that I hate most about school is that I can't quit.
I can't just decide that I am done. I need to have a college-degree to survive in this world.
and really, to face myself. So I can at least say, "you got through that hell-hole, Becky. You did it."
I just have one year left.

One year.
One itty bitty little year.
Just one seventeenth of my schooling left.

And I'm done until parent-teacher conferences with my kids come around.
And I can't stop counting down the days.

GEs are usless to me

Today after another spectacular 48% on a Geography quiz, my brother-in-law professor tried to startle me straight.
He got out a calculator and looked up my grades and told me that if I kept it up, and only did half of the rest of my assignments and only got a 48% on the final, I would drumroll please get a C-.
WHAT? A C-?

"You might have to retake this class," he said.

No way, Jose.
C, minus or not, is passing.
Which means I am one general closer to leaving college.

Plus, let's assume that I do all of my assignments, not just half.
Sounds like someone's getting a hefty B-.

That's better than a few of my other generals (need I mention Chemistry, American Heritage, or Biology?)
I'll also probably get poor grades in History 202.

So yeah, I hate history and science classes.
They are important.
Sure.

But they are useless to me.

Graduation

Remember how I broke my foot freshman year? Luckily that was before this blog, or else the whole server might explode with an overload of angst.
(That was a very hard time for me, I was happily adjusted. I had friends who were girls for the first time ever. I loved college.
Then I was sent home to cold Minnesota winter to stay in bed with only my very-not-college student family for company. Even all my friends from home were gone, off at their own schools.)

Not to mention that I had to miss an entire semester of school. That meant I would graduate one semester late.
Add that to the fact that I do pretty poorly in lots of things (lets not discuss failing my religion classes.)
And to the fact that I usually take about 12 credits a semester because I'm lazy and have a 20hour a week job and a husband to spend time with. Remember, Dad, how often you like to remind me that if you only take 12credits a semester you will graduate years later than you should.
Aaand to the fact that before last semester I never once did a grad plan or looked at required classes and only took what I felt like taking. You know, like writing poetry (not required) and chemistry (not required), creative writing (not required), and Writing YA literature (not required).

I fully expected and had accepted the fact that I would be here for another 2 years. I would graduate after 5 or 6 years at college, maybe.

But the other day, I laid out a grad plan. And miracle of miracles, I can not only graduate on time,
I can graduate a semester EARLY.

Whatwhatwhaaat! I don't even have to work extra hard. I would just take 6 credits each during spring and summer and then my last 15 creds during fall. I could graduate in December.

I will not however, be graduating a semester early. I just want you all to know that I can.
Because if I take Spring classes then I wouldn't get to go Africa.
And I wouldn't get to take those last few not-required, much-desired classes, like Writing YA literature (again- and not because I failed it, but because I loved it), and Children's Media, and Children's literature. (You see a theme, you say? I don't know what you mean...)
Anyways.
Just all of you think and realize something to yourselves, where ever you are: Cs get degrees and slacking gets you exactly where you would have been if you did not slack.

Maybe thats a bad moral to my story.

Here's a new moral: Even if things are hard and bad things happen to good people, everything will work out for the best and you can graduate college early if you want to.
:)

Have a good Hump Day. (Not, of course, referring to the film or anything dirty. Only to the fact that it is Wednesday and Wednesday is Hump Day.)

Major Frustration

I was a cocky eighteen year-old. I knew what I wanted, where I was going, what classes to take, and never had a doubt about my major.
My other friends took generals, experimented with different classes and slowly decided what they wanted from life.
Now most of them are on the right track to their ideal life.

I however skipped most of my generals, because I only wanted to take English classes.
Now my junior year in college, I have 18 GE creds to take, and I have changed my mind. Suddenly, I do not ever want to take another English class again, unless it's Children's Literature or poetry.
Dang it all!

Katie said, "You could do an advertising major, it's like 50 credits."
No Katie, it's like 36 credits and an internship.
It's like, my new major.

I am legitimately excited and happy to study communications, and I believe that I could totally get a job in advertising.
But here are some pros and cons:

PROS:
Could be completed in two or three semesters
Does not require a foreign language (Huzzah!)
I could easily work from home
I could easily work in New York (where we're planning on living for Grad School)
I could totally find work with a publishing house, and work with Children's Media or literature (Yippee!)
I could work with Travis.

CONS:
The College of Communications is on the opposite side of campus. (Freaking Brimhall Building, NO ONE LIKES YOU.)
Starting a new major is scary
Because I am no longer taking French, I might have to take *sobbing and fear* a math class!
Communications might be hard.
There are two tracks: Creative and Management. Creative is hard to get in to, but Management sounds boooring.

And to share with you, this is my favorite advertisement. I could make beautiful ads like this.
What it says literally is that you could find a beautiful asian wife. Underneath that it actually says "Are you a nasty fat lazy slob and pervert who could never find a girlfriend, let alone a wife, because you spend all your time playing WOW online? If so, send us your money, we'll send you a slave!"
It's all about changing the words up.
I could TOTALLY do that.

TRAVIS JUST INTENTIONALLY POKED ME IN THE EYE WITH HIS FINGER.

BYU

Dad says, if you hate going to school, you’re taking the wrong classes.
He said drop French and take a class where you take pictures of food.
But I have to take four more semesters of French to graduate,
even though it’s not my major or my minor.
I have to take five more semesters of religion, and one of physical science, and geography, even though I already passed Chemistry, and all I want to study is writing.
I want to minor in film, without adding another year of school.
Because every class I take, except maybe one a semester, even within my major, is pure torture.
Now that I’m married I understand those women who drop out of college after they get hitched.
I want to be among those women, even though I know a degree is important.
Even though I want to do something with my life and have more than just a high school diploma.
But they won’t let me take cooking or photography unless I change my major,
and I have yet to hear of a class where I just take pictures of food.

i made a picture

in storyboarding class today.
it looks like this:

hate

I hate languages.

I took two years of Spanish in high school, and semester another at college and I honestly cannot say anything besides: hola, puedo ir la baño? and como estas?
and are those even correct?

I am in my second semester of college french, and I still cannot understand a single word that my professor says.
I cannot even properly introduce myself.
At all.
Every day I sit through an hour of French and wonder what everyone is talking about.

I am honestly considering changing my major.
I love English. The idea literally makes me cry. I want nothing more than to study the beautiful English language, its literature, its poetry, its grammar.
and yet, I have to take and no doubt pass, three more semesters of a language besides English.
Spanish wasn't easier. Please don't tell me to choose an easier language than French.
If I have to learn a language, French is the one for me.
I love French poets, French film, French culture.
I hate French.

I'm going to try to not cry through today's French class. But every time the professor looks at me, all I can say is je ne sais pas.
and I know that I'm pronouncing it wrong.

I'm sitting in my poetry class

and I can't decide if I should drop it.
My teacher is clearly crazyish.

Her class will be super hard.

BUUUUT, I WANT TO TAKE THIS CLASS.
This class is writing and studying contemporary poetry.
I want to read the books that we have to buy. I want to write poetry and have it be critiqued, because I am good at reading poetry, but I'm not very good at writing poetry.
I love to read poetry, and I love to write it, but this class seems to go beyond what is okay, or sane.
Sane at all.
Crazy.
I think after I check out my Hemmingway class that I will choose between them, and decide which class will be harder and which teacher is more crazy.

Also, that is a picture of Mary Oliver, one of my favorite contemporary poets.