Class Registration

Last Thursday was my registration enrollment date for Fall 2013! I'm glad that my final schedule worked out after a bit of emailing and constant pestering of other departments.

Something that I hate about SU's registration process is the fact that you don't always know whether or not you can take a class until you click enroll and find out on enrollment day. Granted, you can get around the roadblocks that revolve the administration after a bit of persuasion.

Fall 2013: Presentational Speaking, Reading Popular Culture, Photography in Broadcast News, and various news and media related classes?! I'm psyched!

Late

Today was the first time EVER that I was tardy to class. Seriously. This is so unlike me. When planning to take my nap, I set my alarm to 5:40pm so I'd have a full 20 minutes to prepare and get to class.

I woke up at 6:40pm and arrived at class an hour late. Funny the teacher didn't care much when I began to fabricate the excuse, "Oh, I probably should've told you I was going to be late today..."

Anyways, 2 hours later adding up to 4 hours total on this piece, this is the progress.

The Georgetown Game

I told our mascot, Otto the Orange, to strike a pose. He did.

So we lost the game, but that's ok. What mattered most was the experience. The hype. The first night I ever spent in a tent with my friends. The long wait for what is to come. What mattered most was forgetting yourself for a while, and spending time as a collective unit.

That was pretty cool.

Teacher's Pet?

I don't like my sociology teacher much. He mumbles, "mmm right?" after every other sentence. His presentation is long-winded, and he tries to garner student participation through questions that don't even pertain to sociology. He'd ask us to give examples about where we shop to fit a scenario he would make up, which frankly means that our participation does nothing to further our understanding of sociology.

But my biggest pet peeve is when my sociology teacher watches the clock. Wait, scratch that; there's no clock in the room. My biggest pet peeve is when my sociology teacher awkwardly stares at the students' wrists for their watches when lecturing at the front of the class. I understand if you want to keep track of the time, but staring at the clock 10 minutes into a 55 minute lecture is ridiculous. After a month of this disrespect, I felt sassy.

Today I brought my alarm clock to class. I set the alarm to 1:40pm and placed it on the desk in front of me right before the professor. I think I wanted it to be seen as a bit rude. I wanted to make a point: I will disrespect the teacher by sarcastically placing the clock in front of him since he desperately wants to be out of this classroom.

I still don't understand how unfazed he was by my act of rebellion. He even thanked me for the clock and used it twice to keep track of time. WHAT THE HECK?!

Jumbled Essay Thoughts

Some days life seems dandy and you know exactly what you want and where you want to go.
Other days can only be represented by a scribble.

Today is a scribble day.

As the years go by, I find it more and more difficult to focus on whatever it is I need to get done. Nowadays, there are too many distractions-- friends, the internet, life passing by my window... It's hard to just let things go by without wanting a taste of it all.

More and more often I find my thoughts jumbled up in a giant scribble, and to some extent it really does help to jot all of it down. Only when I "word vomit" can I truly organize my ideas and edit them to become sound and valid... Which brings me to my 4 page sociology paper I need to write tonight.

This scribble? Yeah. Those are my thoughts for my essay. Disorganized. Confusing. Heck I don't even know what I'm going to argue really until I write it down. So in my effort to stop procrastinating... Here's some advice for myself:

1. Stop complaining and just do it. I'd say 90% of the pain and anxiety is thinking about what is to come rather than the action of doing it itself.
2. Don't be afraid of a blank piece of paper. Just start filling it up with words. Good thoughts, bad thoughts? It doesn't even matter. Point is, get your ideas down first, and then organize them. Don't overestimate your ability to write a clear and concise essay without revising.
3. Breaks MUST BE CONTROLLED AT ALL COST. I know myself. I know breaks are good. I know my lack of self control makes my over-indulged relaxation bad.

Let's get to work.

Studying in the Library

Today was the first day I stepped foot in my school's library. No joke. Somehow I was able to avoid the library the entirety of first semester. To be honest my motivation wasn't really studying at all. I just needed a place to kill time before class without stepping out into the pouring rain.

Strangely enough, the library was nothing like I thought it was going to be. There were a lot of people there. Especially on the floors with more study tables, it was animated and lively, not the quiet serene place I had imagined the library to be. It was fairly difficult to hunt for a quiet place alone with a table to myself... I eventually found a lonely table and got to studying.

Despite the background noise where the tables and computer labs are situated, the endless rows of books were quite amazing. Maybe it's been too long since I've been in a large library, but running up and down the stairs to find floors and floors of book was more amusing than it should've been.

"Living Independently"

College. It's a golden opportunity to become an independent individual (or so they say).

I find it quite amusing to receive this letter that says one should, "help your student adjust to living independently with Syracuse University's endorsed laundry service"... because everyone knows in the real world you have laundry services like Lazybones to help you with your dirty clothes.

I find it quite funny how ads like these probably work in the real world. Despite how ridiculous I find this, someone must use Lazybones' services to keep them in business, right?

Dining Hall Food

All throughout elementary, middle, and high school, I thought crappy cafeteria food was a myth. Sure it wasn't the best quality food around. It definitely wasn't a 5 star restaurant, but it served it's purpose and was edible. Then came college.

Maybe I've just been oblivious to the quality of cafeteria food because I was never subjected to it almost 24/7, but now I do see the horrible qualities of cafeteria food. Why does cafeteria food suck?

Schools need money for food [I have no idea why my tuition/housing money for an expensive private institution does not pay for better quality food, but that's beside the point]. And because they don't have the funding, we get starch. Potatoes are always served in some form. Seriously, the cafeteria just serves starch to fill up the stomach whether it be potatoes or pasta. The meat is dry. The only clear side dish of vegetable is the salad bar which gets old after a while or a small bowl almost empty of peas and carrots. The freshness of fruit varies from day to day. Finding a combination of delicious and healthy is almost impossible.