bored in college station -_-

Well, it's February, amazingly enough. I'm still here in College Station, just working on my second semester of freshman year. To the right shows just a glimpse of my glamorous lifestyle... So far I feel that I am bored and moseying around with not much to do between periods of absolute scramble (usually from Monday to Wednesday, since I get homework on mon due wed) with barely enough time at all to try and finish all that needs to be done. I'm either super busy or not at all. Probably could help that with a little better time management, but I don't think that's the only cause.

Anyway, updates on my classes. Math is going pretty well, still in the realm of Algebra 2, 10th grade stuff. My teacher, Ms. Allen, seems really nice and teaches it well. I just took my first quiz yesterday though, so that may change my tune.

I've only been to my design seminar twice, so not quite sure if it's good or not yet. Either way, it is totally different from last semester's seminar. Last semester I had to make a mini art poster for homework each week with a portfolio for the final. This semester there is no homework. Instead, we have a small weekly writing assignment in class on the day's lecture, with midterm and final essays in class. So while it is great not to have anything outside of class to complete, I'm not so sure about this writing stuff. And to make matters worse, the teacher, Professor Nishimoto, is Chinese with a very thick accent, so I only can understand a few words here and there. Hopefully as the semester continues I'll be able to understand him better.

My computer class is going really well. I'm learning a lot of new stuff and enjoying it too. We've been working with Auto VIZ, a computer 3-D rendering program, which is really neat to see real 3-D objects that I made from scratch. The teacher, Ms. Jackson, is really laid back and friendly and knows a lot about the programs. The class only has 20-25 students, so she can come around to each student individually to help with problems or questions. I'm excited for the rest of the semester of this class.

My studio is definitely ... different. If there could be an opposite to Prof Fairey (last year's), it's Prof. Hill. He doesn't talk nearly as much, and what he does say is very random and full of stuff like "getting into your flow of creativity" and "that stifles your flow". He teaches the ENDS 101 class, aka Creativity 101, the class that all non-ends majors take if they need to take an ends course for fine arts credit. He is a very interesting though strange man. He also likes to tell jokes or show random video clips that have absolutely nothing to do with the class or material just so he can make us laugh, or "stimulate your creative thinking". He is also very different from Fairey in the fact that he gave us a day-to-day syllabus of everything we are doing for the entire year, every single project. And, we are pretty much working on every single project at the same time! Fairey would not even tell us what are other projects were, let alone have us work on all of them. Hill also seems to assume you have memorized this 12 page syllabus word for word, because he never announces assignments or homework, just merely assumes you'll have it because it's on the syllabus. That will take time to get used to; I much prefer being told the assignment and due date, and then having the syllabus to confirm that said date. One thing though, he seems much more laid back, I've heard he gives out a lot more A's than Fairey, and I haven't had to work nearly as hard in there yet. Plus, I already know most of the other students in the class, since they're in all my classes. So, for now, it's neutral ground.

Construction Science... is definitely more intense. In the entire time I've been here, we are still discussing chapter one... which is the history of building codes, not (what actually might be interesting) what are the different requirements for say number of stories or fire walls or such, the actual history of the companies and agencies that produce model building codes. -_- for over t w o w e e k s .... *blah* I will admit, he knows his subject. I just wish we'd get to what the class is supposed to be on, construction materials and methods. I'd rather learn about that. One good thing though, no project! :) That's what killed my grade last semester. Just reading and reading and more reading and then re-reading really boring stuff and hope that his tests aren't as horrendous as everyone makes them out to be. Since we are still on chapter one and have not had any tests yet, no saying on this class... yet.

Architecture History is interesting, though my teacher, Prof. Klein, has the voice of either a documentary or a book on tape recording. She does speak a lot slower though and puts all the notes online, which makes it so much easier to take notes in class (however, it also makes it so much easier to fall asleep in class). I just took my first quiz today, a little harder than I thought, though mainly due to the fact that it was a "vocabulary" quiz, so I studied the vocab words, but then asked questions like "name this building". So I (pretty sure) got all the word questions right but didn't know the specific places. Now I know how to study better, so the rest shouldn't be as bad. And there will be several quizzes to help offset today's quiz. A little more work than last semester, but overall still good.

In institute, I'm currently taking a tuesday New Testament class, which has been great! It only has seven people in it and I'm learning a ton. It's over Acts thru Revelation, a part I don't know very well, so it should be good. I'm considering adding Book of Mormon 1 as well, because they added a tuesday/thursday class (due to popular demand) that actually fits in my schedule. They always seem to put that on mon/wed, but I'm always swamped those days. And it would be the first one, which would be nice to start, instead of all the others which are the second half. Hopefully that wouldn't be killing myself (I go to the sandwich seminars on Fridays too) but I feel like I have so much extra time this semester and it would be really nice to have a BOM class. In other church news, I am still a family home evening group leader but I also got called to be a relief society pianist... one of two pianist. We both are FHE leaders so they called us both to be pianist so neither would have too much or be released from FHE. Weird. So far, she plays when I'm not there (she lives there, so that's was a lot during winter break) and I play when she's not there (she's been sick the last two weeks). I think eventually we'll just switch off months or something. While that will take some getting used to, I love playing. I have missed it so much, it is nice to be able to play the piano at least once a week.

Nothing else really new :D weather has been warmer, still need a coat, but no ice. A lot of gloomy drizzle off and on the entire time I've been here, so it will be nice to have nicer weather soon, though I do like not having highs in the triple digits. And any time I start thinking it's cold, I just remember all my friends that went to Idaho for school, and it makes me laugh in my head. (-8 degrees... hahaha) ANYWAY, if you've even managed to keep reading this long (for which I commend you), I probably should be reading ... or doing ... something... have a happy weekend!