What has Michelle been doing lately? That is a very good question…
I had my first midterms for both Human Sexuality & Health Psychology (just this week’s Monday and Tuesday). I’ve also been working on my ‘upgrade’ courses for Biology 12 and Chemistry 11, so yay for that. Animal Ethics is heavily involved with class discussions, we also get assignments right after class for the next class, so there’s quite a bit to do for that course. I’m not a fan of needing to speak in class, I will if I have something that I feel that I need to say, but it sucks when you’re being graded on participation and therefore end up feeling like you need to say something.
I’ve been working on knitting a lot lately, it’s what I do when I procrastinate (at least I’ll be stressed and warm? I don’t know how that’s suppose to work). I booked my appointment for getting my grad portrait done, which is kind of exciting. It means that I’m nearly done (!) and I’ll have both the degree paper and a photograph of me in a cap and gown to show for it. It almost doesn’t seem as big of a deal as graduating high school was. In high school, everyone was getting cap and gown photos, trading the wallet-size photos and there was just this huge sense of excitement in the air. For university, there is no time to pause and really go “Yeah, we are graduating this year” because not everyone in my classes is graduating. Even though I’m taking upper-level courses, not everyone is in the same year level as me (there’s even a 2nd year student in one of my courses).
Maybe I just don’t find it as exciting because I’m taking courses that involve so much more work, hah. That and I’ve been applying for programs for the upcoming school year so there’s no definite “ending” to it. It’s not like when I was graduating high school because I knew from January on that I had already been offered spots in my top 3 schools with my interim grades so I didn’t really need to worry. Plus I had been offered entrance scholarships right off the bat (it wasn’t a huge scholarship, mind you, but it was better than nothing). This time around, it’s all nerves for me because I won’t be hearing back for final enrolment decisions for August/September until about April-June and that’s still going to be a while.
And… yeah, that’s all for now. How have you been?
As a teacher, I have to say I hate the whole participation grade. I really do. If someone wants to sit in my class and learn in their own way, then I say let them. Maybe they don’t want to ask a damn question and by university level they shouldn’t damn well have to do that. It makes me so angry. At the high school level, students should be encouraged and even “forced” to participate on some level so that they understand that asking questions when they don’t know something is vital to their comprehension of a topic but when you get past that and you’re in school by choice? Well then participation should not be part of your grade.
Sorry for the rant.
It just irks me.
Anyway.
So what kinds of things have you been knitting? You should post pictures! Grad portraits sound exciting! My college graduation didn’t seem like as big a deal as my high school graduation either which was quite strange. It’s funny how that goes, isn’t it? I guess there doesn’t have to be such a big hullabaloo now since we’re adults and all and the diploma is the biggest gift of all.
Meh, midterms. It’s already the 4th week of classes for me, so I should probably figure out when mine are… Anyway, I hope yours went well. As for participation grades, I agree that it sucks to feel like you are FORCED to say something in class. While most of my classes in which I had a participation grade, I did not mind too much, there is definitely one that comes to mind in which the other people seemed to be so dumb (not to be pompous… like, really, I didn’t know how they were 3rd/4th years) that I did not wish to associate with such conversation at all.
Oh, grad portraits… I was trying to avoid getting them done, haha. I hope yours turn out awesome! I just sat for mine last week, and I’m pretty sure I look weird in every shot. It’s those weird angles they make you sit and awkward cap-and-gown poses, I swear.
Senior year of university definitely has a different feeling than it did in high school–I agree with you completely there. The highest level classes are no walk in the park! Applying to post-grad things is stressful! I feel so sad for people who have to wait longer to hear back for their admissions decisions than I did… Even my 1-1.5 month wait was kind of excruciating, lol. I am so glad chemistry grad departments here seem to be pretty efficient, so at least I can breathe now, knowing that I have a future. So, BEST OF LUCK with your admissions decisions. I hope you get to go exactly where you want!
I think I’m more excited about getting time off than actually graduating (which is 2 and a half years away if I don’t fail). It’s just scarier now to me that I’m going to have to go into the real world rather than going on to more education. Scary.
Have fun getting your grad portrait done, I can imagine that’ll be a really cool thing to have! I always look awful on planned pictures (most of my class pictures are terrible), I hope yours end up looking lovely.
What have you been knitting?? At least your form of procrastination is productive, I usually just waste time on Facebook or watching television. (Oh dear).
Good luck with what you’re doing next. Hopefully you get in where you want.
x
Oh, wow! It sounds like you have been super-busy and I feel like such a lazy bum. Although, I have been sick for the past couple of days…so I guess I’m busier than I think?! LOL The Human Sexuality class sounds interesting…they always go into such technical details. 😛 Health Psychology sounds like a class that I’d take…but then again, I’m debating getting my doctorate in Sports Psychology. 🙂
Good luck with graduating this year. Yay, for us both graduating. I just started knitting. It’s very good stress relief 😀 Good luck with your school applications. You can do it!