ho-hum

had my very first college midterm today. it was in the same format as tests i would take last year in highschool AP english. i think i did alright, although we only had 50 minutes to complete it, which needless to say, isn't very much. got my first essay back wednesday and recieved....a B+. disappointing, yes--but when i talked to her about it in our little discussion, she said i basically had a very good and very strong essay, but one paragraph on the third page brought me down considerably. i knew it too! i knew when i wrote that paragraph that it was the weakest and when i tried to revise it later on, i knew i wasn't doing it justice. i knew it, but there was nothing i could do! i made revisions, but i kept racking my brain for more adequate corrections. there is something about me that just can't organize some of my thoughts. or as she pointed out, i seemed to lose focus. on that one damnable paragraph!!! goes to show how the pebble can really instigate the avalanche.

i hope to do better with my next essay. unfortunately, i haven't started it and i have another midterm the same day. no sleep for me sunday night. although i suppose i should be working on that at the moment...

well, then, here's the ploy. we are to write an essay based on Itard's report on The Wild Boy of Aveyron or on Francoise Truffaut's film The Wild Child. we are to focus on one sense mentioned in either report or film and show how this sense affects the wild child's (victor's) education and consequent civilization. our sense is that of sight. i have already filled out a grid for the film which i have watched more than once, but i can't seem to finish reading the report. i fall asleep or loose focus and whatnot, which hasn't happened with any of the other texts we were forced to read. i don't know what it is. might be the genre. i don't do well with reports, although the basic content is interesting. after all, how often do you read about a wild boy who spent almost 13 years in the forest? he can't speak, can't walk, can't think like a civilized person or use his senses such. but as its in report form, i find myself dozing...i might need to look to the film for the basis of my thesis and support.

five weeks up, five more to go. i cannot wait for winter break.

some things

i don't know what's worse: being forgotten by your best friend, or wanting to be forgotten by your best friend. in any case, what kind of friendship is with either party? so many things have been changing about me and sometimes i feel older than i really am. for the first time in 12 years, my best friend and i are going to different schools. i was actually looking forward to it (if i were sad i definitely would have mentioned it here before). she is one of the most loyal friends you could ask for, but we aren't exactly peas in a pod. last year (senior year in high school) she would hang out with people and go to parties and what not while i continued to live my quiet life. now, thankfully, she goes to more concerts than parties and sleeps over at some friends of hers out in yorba linda. i, on the other hand, go to work and school and am so exhausted after both that i refuse to do anything but stay home and rest. but there are times when i feel like going out and there is usually no one around to accommodate me. something simple is all i ask, i don't want to go to dave and buster's at 11:00 at night, nor Knott's scary farm at 1:00 in the morning, i want to keep it simple. what's so unacceptable about wanting to go get some coffee? or sitting somewhere nice and having good conversation and laughing your ass off? why must we always be doing something?

its things like this that make me wonder what others think of me. i know i'm too old to care, and in most cases i don't, but when it comes to friends and close acquaintances, i wonder. i wonder if they only seem to like me because they fear i'll break down if they don't. i wonder if they underestimate my ability to reason and at the same time have fun. i wonder if they are in their right minds when they insist having fun is doing something ridiculous or illegal. and whenever i decide to decline their invitations, i wonder if they think i have no life, that i'm boring, that i'm an old soul.

as i am changing. i didn't notice it, i think, until i started college last month. i've always been alright alone, but i found myself avoiding the Mater Dei Set at university. i didn't want to be chummy with them and cling to the past when there are so many other opportunities now. i only agree to sit with them or laugh with them when i know they have no motive, when i know they aren't sitting with me as a last resort, since they didn't want to be seen alone. and there are some from the old place that i still enjoy being with, but the others...i would rather avoid. i recognized another difference in me in my college work. my writing style has changed. not this here, but my essay style and the way i respond to questions. i compared what i do now for class with what i did last year for AP english, and it is noticeably different. better, i'd hope. then there is the way i'm not afraid to participate in class. a substantial class, mind you, i never cared about answering easy questions in classes like religion last year. and there are other things i notice daily that are different about me, but the change either happened too quickly for me to notice, or gradually while i wasn't paying attention.

i'm not scared. it just disorients me. i'll have to get used to myself first, which seems odd when you consider that you should know yourself explicitly. but what will be the end-product of all this change? will i still be who i was? maybe i should make it a point to leave myself a memo...

Storm and Tempest

well, i'm about three weeks into the fall quarter at my university, and let me just say...it is different. i knew it would be, but not different in this way. i can actually work and go to school without stressing too much. they say that since UCI's on a quarter system, the work goes much faster, but i suppose since i'm only taking 12 units, its not that bad. i have no school on tuesdays and one class on thursdays. mondays wednesdays and fridays are my full days with work and school. as its a tuesday, i have the leisure to post here.

i am not impressed with the faculty, however. that's not to say that they aren't worth their degrees or they don't know their material, but their techniques of teaching aren't exactly what i expected from college professors with their doctrites. our lecturer last week actually made us read aloud! as if we were still freshman in highschool reciting Romeo and Juliet! this same lecturer makes us print out her lecture notes in powerpoint form with the slides and all, leaving us no room to take notes and wasting lots of paper. i don't doubt she's an intelligent professor, but she is not a lecturer. and she'll be with us for three weeks!

our discussion teacher has a doctrite in French poetry, i believe, and she is not so bad. although, like i said, i wasn't impressed. i thought college discussion sections would be more...inclusive instead of her asking the questions and us having to answer them. that's not discussion.

they say that college isn't really worth anything until you start taking classes for your major. i suppose, i'll have to believe them. i haven't learned anything so far and the money we're using to pay for my tuition could go to something more useful. especially since its so much. a mother of another student at university said that we're basically paying that much money for a piece of paper: our diploma. i believe her. i've learned absolutely nothing, except perhaps, to underestimate college since it really isn't worth much. its ridiculous.

the reason i was expecting so much from this university was because it was said to be prestigious. one of the UC's, the formidable college chain in california. sure, i had to go there because it was close to home and i couldn't dorm, but still, so many great people have come out of this school--especially writers--and i hoped it would live up to its graduates. but so far, it hasn't. i wonder if i really could have gotten into an ivy league school. wait. no, i couldn't've. getting into college is much harder than going through it and i think this outrageously unjust. to think that i might be ivy league quality, but since i do not appear as accomplished as other applicants, i am denied the education i would have truly appreciated.

when i applied to this university--and was accepted--i was told that to be accepted was a great honour and that because of the budget cuts, the students accepted had to be of the greatest quality. i see neither the amount of quality, nor intellect they said i was being accepted into. they squeeze the life out of you during the application process, but once you get in, the degree virtually means nothing. sure, i would not have gotten into an ivy league school, but if the application process weren't five times as grueling as the actual day to day lessons, i would be absolutely fine.

it is unreasonable and a complete waste of the talents we are given. it is an all-encompassing waste of time, of paper, of energy, of gas, and of money. a waste. i'd learn more if i visited the library at least once a week.

and this makes me sick.