University – Imaginary Sunshine

The end of a chapter; the beginning of the next.

Michelle — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:30:35 +0000

So today I got all of my grades in for the term (the one I was waiting on was one of my harder classes this term – Animal Ethics where the last 45% of my grade was based on a term paper and web-based presentation). I ended off with:

Animal Ethics – A-
Health Psychology – B+
Human Sexuality – A+

I ended off my last term at this school with an A average. It was also my best year (September-April) of my undergrad yet with a B+ average overall.

When I started my undergrad back in 2007 (yes, it took me 5 years to complete a 4 year degree, shuddup), my average for my first year was 57%. I got put on academic probation, I failed a few (three) classes. And every term since then, I’ve gotten my average higher and higher. The only time my grades dipped again was when I retook first year calculus and when I took organic chem (but I passed it on the first go, unlike a lot of my classmates that had to take it twice or more). I actually aced the final of my calculus course (the second time around), but did poorly overall in the course but he passed me based on the fact that I got an A on the final. Me, calculus, an A final. Who would have thought?

That said, it’s kind of bittersweet that it’s all coming to an end. My graduation ceremony is in late May, which I’m pretty excited about. I won’t find out if there’s extra tickets for the ceremony until mid-May. I ordered the cap and gown (paid a deposit). The word “science” appears in the title of my degree four times. Yeah, they really want to emphasize my science prowess.

As for the future? I’ve applied to several schools for their nursing programs. I got rejected by one school (average wasn’t high enough, even though it was well above the minimum average), didn’t get enough “education points” from another school (it’s 0pts if you don’t have a completed degree, even though I was 9 credits away from finishing mine, that was disappointing and felt like a waste of money), I’ll find out about one school sometime in May (but it has 16 spots, so I’m not entirely sure about that one… Depends on my competition) and then there’s school #4. I’ll be finding out on Monday (30th) if I’m in or not. I hope I am… I have really strong references for it, decent grades, hopefully a good Letter of Intent that I agonized over before sending it in.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Guess what I’m good at!

Michelle — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 23:25:52 +0000

One of the components of my online/distance education class, Human Sexuality, was to participate in an assigned group blog. Near the end of the term, we were asked to nominate 5 people (out of ~35). Yours truly was apparently nominated quite a few times, and I got sent an email from the professor with some selected comments from my fellow blog group members.

Apparently I’m good at blogging about sex. Who would have thought?

Michelle has been a HUGE contributor to the Blog from the very beginning. She has countless comments and asks good questions. She includes personal stories in her responses and her posts. She definitely has the most Blog posts out of the group and she nearly commented on all of my personal blog posts. I think Michelle has surpassed the other bloggers by far in her blogging commitment. She was an integral part to Group Blog 1.

I think she did a good job just based on her number of posts. They were numerous posts of high quality ranging from a variety of topics from BDSM, sexual pills, and politics regarding sex. Her posts included funny videos, cartoons, and articles. I found her topics interesting and funny to look at.

Michelle has been one of the best bloggers in my opinion. She has made posts several times a week, and the quality of each post is superb – her writing style is very engaging and her topics include everything from her life experiences, media, and articles she has read. She is also a frequent commenter.
Michelle posted, I believe, the most out of everyone. I believe she put the most effort into this component of the course. Not only did she post relative issues, she also gave her personal experiences to most postings, which takes a lot of guts. She also commented on almost every post, and that being said, always commented on my posts. It is refreshing for someone to trust complete strangers and give their own personal insight, which is exactly what Michelle did.

Michelle of course was the most prolific of bloggers and would definitely get my vote as top blogger. She brought up many interesting issues and seemed uninhibited to discuss any issue that were brought up. While she had very liberal viewpoints she also was not opinionated in a way where she tried to convince you of her views. Through her blogging you could tell she had very strong self esteem and seemed confident in her sexuality. I enjoyed that she was actively aware of the issues being raised by the Republican debate and saw the absurdity of it all. I always enjoyed reading her posts and responses to other posts.

Michelle is my first pick. She posted without fail every few days. Her posts were always thoughtful and topics interesting. Its clear that she leads an interesting life (she often brings up every day life) and she is a skilled writer. I really enjoyed reading her posts, they were always worthwhile. She always mixed it up with links to different articles, photos, videos, surveys… you name it, tons of variety. She also pretty much always made comments on my posts, as well as other student’s posts. It was clear to me that Michelle was really into the blogging thing, and she did a really good job of keeping the blog moving and really contributed hugely to its progress. It would have been impossible for anyone to compete with her!

There were quite a few other comments as well, mostly about the number of posts I did (35) or the number of comments or just about how much I freaking blogged. See, while I wasn’t blogging here I was blogging somewhere else. FOR GRADES.

Three more days until final marks come out!

Studying and pausing to reflect

Michelle — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:26:03 +0000

Do I get some kind of award for being a horribly inactive blogger? Although I’m sure there are other people much worse at updating than I am… I hope so, anyways!

It’s April! Which means that it is spring time and that also means finals season. I handed in my term project (website + paper) last week for my Animal Ethics class (website + paper was 45% of my final grade) – thankfully there’s no final exam for that class so I really just need to focus on my two other finals. I have my Health Psychology final this week and then I have my Human Sexuality final online anywhere from the 11th to the 23rd (thank goodness for online finals!). I’m quite looking forward to being done as it will be the last two finals for my Bachelors! I’m graduating in late May with my B.Sc, which is quite exciting!

Of course, because I’m about to graduate means that I’ve been pulling out my resume and tweaking it and updating it. Just need to wait until after I actually graduate to be like “Yay, my degree is no longer in progress and I’m not longer a B.Sc candidate because I’ve actually got it now!”. Job searching is scary. Sigh. Such is the life of growing up. I’m still waiting to hear back from schools that I’ve applied to for August/September. Getting all my ducks in a row for that, which is fun and fantastic.

I just finished writing the finals for my two upgrade classes (Chemistry 11 and Biology 12) today (wrote them between 10am-12pm!) so I need to wait for my high school transcript to get updated before really starting the application process for that school, but should be soon! I’m quite looking forward to being able to check that off on the list of schools to apply to.

Having scheduled classes twice a week this term has been fantastic. It made it possible for me to volunteer more on a weekly basis (Fridays) and also made it possible for me to go and write the tests and work on the upgrade classes (Mondays and Wednesdays). I’ve really enjoyed Animal Ethics (plus, I got to do a website as part of my term project, how awesome is that?) and I did my term project on the Animal Welfare Issues in the Australian Wool Industry – because I’m a crafter and I like wool products. I’ve also really enjoyed my Human Sexuality class which was distance ed and completely online (including assignments, tests, debates and the final will be online as well!). It’s a different dynamic and I kind of wish I had taken more online classes, but at the same time, it’s all about self-discipline and I probably wouldn’t have been able handle that kind of self-discipline in the earlier years of my undergrad.
Next time that I post, it’ll probably be after my finals for this term. Hope everyone’s been having a good spring so far!

Wait, March?

Michelle — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 03:47:29 +0000

I really did think that I would post more during February, but apparently I didn’t. Hello, March! We’re getting closer to spring (yay!).

Since my last post I have gotten my grad portraits done. It ended up being about 18 shots of me looking incredibly awkward (in my opinion) in a cap and gown holding onto a rather nice looking folder with my school’s name on it in gold. I’m pretty sure the bookstore sells them too, they’re pretty sweet. I’ve gotten the proofs (online) and have been trying to decide which one I’m going to get. I’ll probably only be getting one print, and it’ll be a similar size to the one that my sisters had gotten when they graduated from university. (My ego isn’t that big that I’m going to get one double the size of theirs, haha.)

Reading Week also has come and gone. I spent it studying and working on my upgrade courses (Biology 12 and Chemistry 11) and got a lot more of both classes done. I’m currently getting high 90s for both classes and my grades are based solely on the test scores, which is fine by me. I get worksheets for chemistry and practice problems for biology, but I don’t get marks based on those. I just go in and write as many tests as I’ve prepared for and move onto the next units as I go, which is pretty nice. I’ve gone through over half of each class so far in about a month and half. I’m planning on getting them all done by the end of March, which should be interesting as the teachers in BC are striking for three days (March 5-7) and I can’t go in take tests during that time, and then they get two weeks off (!) for spring break, so no test taking then either! So while they’re busy striking, I’ll be just working to get my notes ready and to just know everything so when they reopen, I can just go in and take all the tests and get it over with.

I need to start working on my term project soon (due at the beginning of April), but we all know how well that will probably go… I have to do a 10-15 page paper on an animal welfare topic of my choice (topic that I’m going to be doing is the justifiable welfare issues with the use of Merino sheep in fibre production) and then I’m doing a web presentation (as opposed to an oral presentation). My school has this blog system where we use WordPress and we have to use it, which I’m fine with because clearly I have experience using WordPress. But we have to sit through a class on learning how to use WordPress (seriously) and I’m not entirely sure if we get to change the themes or add plugins or not (if it’s on school servers, I’m thinking it’s probably a no for the plugins…).

And… yeah. That’s my life and what I did during February. I went to a doll meet in the middle of February and I’m currently on working on restoring two vintage Blythes, which is quite fun and they’re great new additions to my collection (a blonde and a brunette). I’ve been knitting a bunch, but not working on the sock that I started in January (horrible, I know, I’m planning on working on the sock this month though!) and I’ve been doing a lot of doll-sized knits. So some of the knits I did in February:

Classes, graduation, excitement?

Michelle — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 04:53:46 +0000

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?

Say what now?

Michelle — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 06:40:59 +0000

I’ve been getting a lot of mail lately. Some of it was solicited (TEXTBOOKS!!#$%!) and others was not (dear playhouse that I purchased musical tickets from you 2 years ago, you’d think because I haven’t bought tickets in 2 years, that would be a hint to stop wasting paper). Unfortunately, I’m still unable to intercept the mail so my dad always sees it first.

Dad: Why are you getting mail from [insert name of local community college]?
Me: I applied there.
D: long pause. What program?
M: Their 4 year nursing program.
D: longer pause, I can practically see the wheels churning inside of his head. Is it the same program as at [insert name of big university/the one that I attend]?
M: Yes.
D: hands over the envelope, finally. Okay.

Because even nearly 5 years after I graduated from high school and even after he even admitted that trades was an “appropriate” career choice, he still has a problem with smaller schools, or not internationally recognized institutions, even if they’re public, government funded & approved schools.

My sister J started school this week. She graduated from said Big University in either 2006 and is just going back to school now for a trades program. Granted, it’s a medical-relate program, so it’s not like she’s becoming a mechanic. But J is the Golden Child and can never do anything wrong. So because she applied (and was accepted into) a trades program, suddenly trades is the Best Thing Ever.

And my father had the nerve to ask me:

D: Why didn’t you go into trades as well?

Well, dad, maybe it’s because you spent the first 17 years of my life telling me that I need to go to university and get a degree because it’s what I’m fucking supposed to do. That and I get to live rent-free at home provided I stay in school, so it was kind of no brainer. But I have friends who graduated on time (unlike me) and are woefully unemployed. A friend of my sister’s has been out of university since 2006 and just got a full-time job in her field (she has an education degree and spent 5 years being a substitute teacher, filling in when people were sick or on maternity leave and having very uncertain employment). Having a Bachelors, regardless of what it is in doesn’t mean a whole lot these days. Mostly because a lot of people have a Bachelors degree. Which is really depressing to think about, considering I’ll be graduating with one at the end of May. And it’s going to be fantastic. The word “Science” will be mentioned on that piece of paper 4 times in my degree title. Not because I wanted them to emphasize how much I love science, but because of what my program was. (A lot of science.)

But really. Having my dad tell me when I’m 9 credits away from finishing my BSc that I should have gone into some sort of trades instead? Like a knife through the heart. Maybe he should have been pushing that for the first 17 years of my life instead. Or maybe he should just keep his opinions to himself.

New year, new term, new schedule

Michelle — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:06:35 +0000

Hello 2012! I started my second term on January 5th. I’m taking three courses this term: Animal Ethics and Welfare, Health Psychology and Human Sexuality. It’s also my first time taking an online course (Human Sexuality). I’m currently waiting on my textbooks to arrive – I won’t really need them until the end of the month. My courses this term involve a group blog (Human Sexuality), a term project with a website presentation (Animal Ethics and Welfare) and nothing but 3 tests (Health Psychology).

In other news, my application for graduation means that this is my last term for my degree. And I only have classes on Tuesday and Thursday – which means I get four day weekends all the time. Yes, I’m quite happy about that. Maybe not with the sheer amount of work for 3 credits in some of my classes, but still, quite happy with my long weekends all the time (yes, I’m rubbing that in now). I’m going to be retaking three high school courses though, because it’s been more than 5 years since I took them and I need them to apply for one of the schools that I was hoping to apply to. Other applications are going well, just waiting for transcripts to be mailed from my current school to the other ones and to hand in high school transcripts. So I think I’ll be working on those three classes (Math 11, Chem 11, Biology 12) when I can, along with other course work and volunteering and other commitments.

Other than school, that’s all that is currently going on in my life (yay…). School, school and… more school.

Study Mode: On

Michelle — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 08:22:02 +0000

Not a whole lot to report, but I have the urge to just blog right now. Granted, I’m starting this at 11:57pm on Friday… So yay, this’ll be posted on Saturday, of course. I don’t know why I felt the need to mention that, I mean, you can tell by the date stamp when this post goes up. I may schedule posts over at BlytheLife.com (which is the only reason why posts go up three days a week over there, because I schedule everything like a month in advance, because I’m cool like that), but I don’t do that here. Mostly because it’s my personal blog and it seems weird to schedule posts for that? I mean, I used to do ‘sponsored’ posts here, but I haven’t done that in ages. Mostly because people don’t seem to think that bloggers are worth as much money (for the most part), so all my posts are all just written for me now (yay).

And now I’m all rambling…

So I’ve been working on study notes for the last week. I actually got up early enough to head out to school on Tuesday to study in the library. All the other days I either woke up around 8am (when I wanted to be at school already) so I just stayed at home to study. Which worked well, because I love the fact that I can just stay in my room in my pjs and comfy fleecy robe (which is warm!) and just work away on my laptop. I’ve also been watching podcasts during my study breaks (and listening to them as well). Mostly knitting related, because I’ve suddenly fallen back into knitting (I did take a loooong break without knitting a darn thing). I haven’t been able to find any crocheting podcasts that I like. I’m a big fan of the ones with video, not just audio, because I like getting to see the projects. I also caught up on the Savage Love podcast. Because who doesn’t like to listen to Dan Savage answer his caller’s questions about sex? (The answer: prudes.)

I’m actually ahead of my studying schedule. I finished all my study notes for zoogeography & paleogeology. I’m almost done going through learning goals for my climate change class (whoot). I finished the notes for my parasitology take-home final, which is another essay. I did a little bit of outline for that paper, not as much as I would have liked to have done, but I did most of it. I’m hoping to finish the climate change study notes & parasitology paper outlining Saturday morning, because I’ll be going out for lunch with the family and then listening to my sister’s choir sing Christmas carols in the mall (horrible acoustics there, just got to say…).

I got an email from an offlinefriend asking me why I never blog about Clay anymore… Not sure if she was more concerned or if she was just being nosy. I’m going to go with concerned, because being nosy is never cool. There’s not really a whole lot to report on the boyfriend front. We are still together, we had our third anniversary in September of this year. He works a stupid amount of hours (like seriously stupid amount of hours) and I spend a lot of time studying. Well, I always have an abundance of free time to spend with him, but he works what feels like 24/7. It’s probably closer to like 12-16/7, but that’s still a lot of hours in a week and he does need to sleep. I’ve also been using my sadly boyfriend-free time to work on his Christmas present. It’s going to be awesome. And he’s going to love it. Mostly because I say that he will… I’m really trying to put together something thoughtful and practical and useful and all those things. But I always end up coming up with something impractical, but still super awesome. So we’ll see how that goes… Wow, rambling. We also don’t live in the same city (maybe ~30-45min drive, depending on the the traffic, so it does make things difficult at times. But I don’t know, I haven’t been all gushy about the time that we do spend together, because if I did, my blog posts would be like “So, I saw the boyfriend and we did A and he made me B for dinner.” and I would also have to totally censor my blog posts from some of the activities that occur, for obvious reasons… And with that… Change of topics!

This didn’t really get mentioned on the blog, but my dad went away on vacation/trip/whatever for three months. He went to visit relatives and whatnot. Came back with a lot of gifts, which is always appreciated. He was away during my birthday so he brought me back this:

Yes, it is another Blythe doll. (He also got me another one, but she’s under the tree for Christmas.) The doll’s stock name is Simply Bubble Boom. She’s a limited edition doll, at 1500 dolls in this model. She was actually part of a trio of crime-fighting skaters. Yes, I said skaters. She came with some super cute orange skates, not pictured. The other doll that my dad got me for my Christmas present was Simply Sparkly Spark (who has blue hair!) and the last of the trio (that I’m not getting) is Simply Thumpty Thump (who has a bright purple hair colour). I’m really happy with her. Her hair is a neon reddish-orange, so it looks rather pink in some lights and rather orange in others. Which is kind of really awesome. I decided name her Moxie, and she is my 8th Blythe doll and first in the FBL mold.

(For those who don’t really like Blythes or just dolls in general; sorry about the photo and the blurb… But I like ’em! And I do try to restrict dolly talk to the designated blog when I can. But I was just super pleased at getting a new doll for my birthday… and there will probably be photos of my Christmas doll too.)

Oh hello, December

Michelle — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 05:44:48 +0000

Over the last two weeks, I wrote a lab final (parasitology) and three papers (one zoogeography; two parasitology). A total of a lot of stress (lab final) and a lot of research (7, 1 and 10 for the total number of references that I used for my papers) and several thousand words typed in 12-point words, double-spaced with full citations.

My 3 topics of choice for my papers:

Ursus maritimus (polar bear) and Ursus arctos (brown bear) and their sister species relationship (evolution, phylogeography) – 25% of my grade.
Schistosoma mansoni and influences on a mollusc intermediate host – potentially 27.5% of my grade.
Trophically transmitted parasites and the methods of transmission – potentially 27.5% of my grade.

I have a week off between end of lectures and the beginning of finals. Whoot… I’m so incredibly excited for studying, haha. I’m spending all next week (at least, Monday to Friday) at school. Got a whole study schedule planned. I have a paper to write as a final for parasitology. More writing about all the gross things that you can get from drinking water and cuisine?! Yay! I didn’t really how much I’d like parasitology until after having taking the course. It’s fascinating what’s in our food and we don’t even realize. Or what kind of normal ‘hosts’ that the nastier parasites have. So cool to learn about the world still.

And with that, I’ll be online minimally (sort of) until I’m done with finals… Until then, have a lovely December!

Stress happens, and then I sleep.

Michelle — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 05:17:24 +0000

It’s coming down to the last 2 weeks of school (classes end on December 2nd for me) so that it is crunch time! All of my midterms are thankfully done (I have a friend who has a midterm the last week of classes, ew) and I’ve just been working away on research for a few more papers (I have two drafts done and I’m waiting for a professor to review one of them – I have another paper that I have yet to write, but I think I’ve finished all of my research for it). Besides that, I also have a lab final to study for (boo) and 3 finals to start to study for. I’m taking four classes, but one of my classes (Parasitology) has a take home final. I’ve never been able to grasp the brilliance of this concept because generally science courses do not have take home/open book finals. We get two full weeks to work on the final ‘exam’, we’re encouraged to use the textbook and we’re allowed to work in groups, ask the professor questions… Brilliant, absolutely. I just hope he’s making us do incredibly difficult essays as I know it’s supposed to be long-answer type of questions.

So I’m going to be doing a lot of studying… Starting soon. I need to get that last paper written (and then editing the other two) before I feel like I can “really” study (except for my lab final – I need to study for my lab final because that is important as well, even if it’s not worth a whole lot).

I feel like it’s important to note that today was Election Day in British Columbia. All of the municipal elections in the province happen on the same day – we elect for the mayors, city councillors, school trustees and whatnot. I did not head out to the polls today (although my other family members did). I feel bad about this because I almost always go to vote when there’s an election. I had to go out a little bit after lunch to the bank and when I was walking up my driveway to get back into the house, I slipped and fell flat on my back. My driveway is black and there was ice on the driveway that hadn’t melted yet (it was in the shadows casted by the bushes). So I slipped and fell. I’m sure if there were witnesses, they would have told me that my fall was spectacular (it sure felt that way, anyways). But that really isn’t the point. I managed to get back up on my feet and stiffly walked up the steps to get back into the house. I’ve remained indoors for the rest of the day because my lower back is sore. I’ve also been limiting my walking around, because movement is bad (heh). I normally bruise very easily but no (visible) bruising as of yet. There’s also no swelling, I just hurt.

Life happens, I guess. Here’s to the next four weeks! My last final is on December 16th (Friday), meep.