Resolution

The exams have been taken, the presents bought and opened, the new year has been rung in and I have still not kept up on this darn blog. It seems like I never have anything interesting to share with the world until I'm too busy to write about it (wise words also spoken by my sister). So here's a recap and you can decide whether or not it's interesting.

This past semester I took another full load of classes. Preparing for the worst, I forewarned my friends and family how little time I would have in the coming weeks. Fortunately, it was no where near the time-sucking, credit-heavy, something-always-due semester that was winter 2010. There was some frustration with the GRCC bookstore and their lack of organization. This cleared up after I decided to buy the book for my online poetry class from Amazon. It came a mere 3 days after ordering versus the 4 weeks I had waited to receive it from GRCC (what they kept referring to as "backorder."). Turns out I didn't use the book a whole lot. Ah well.

I also took the next level of French. Third semester. One of our assignments was an in-class debate (which I'm not really good at in English) and I was terrified. When it came time, the class was split in half. The debate: Friends on Facebook: Many of Few? As luck would have it, I was assigned "beaucoup d'amis" and had to come up with logical reasons to have hundreds if not thousands of friends on facebook. In French. Fortunately, it was the whole class and when you faltered, your classmates were there to finish your stumbling sentence structure and improper verb conjugation. I even got to do that a couple times myself. *smile*

I also had a Creative Writing class. While I enjoy writing creatively, the only class I had ever taken was at City High School. It wasn't exactly what I would call "nurturing." However, this class was amazing. Almost every class, a student was assigned to bring in a poem or short story and read it to the class. At the first mention of this, the whole class gasped in horror (including myself).

"You want us to read our work in front of the whole class?!"

I instantly thought of all those television scenes where the dorky, unpopular girl gets up and reads her poem about the cute boy that she has a crush on only to be ousted before she can run to the bathroom and sob. Wasn't that an episode of My So-Called Life?

But it was nothing like that. The students were all incredibly productive in their criticisms and also very honest with their praises. I had such a great experience, I'm taking the next level of the class.

Ah, but wait. This semester wasn't all gum drops and roses. No no no. For those of you that didn't hear me wince every Tuesday and Thursday at 11:30, the fly in the semester ointment was my Social Problems class. It wasn't a "required" class per se, but it fulfilled my social science credit and it sounded intriguing. While the social issues are of interest to me, the manner in which they were presented by the instructor was not. Her lectures were incomplete, her assignments superfluous (taking 6-7 hours to do and only marking 10 points, also due every class period), and tests impossible. Here, I've kept one of the questions in my memory bank for you to take a stab at:

Someone who is Androgynous has ______ female traits and _____ male traits.

a. Many, Few

b. Many, Many

c. Few, Many

d. Few, Few

Think about it for a minute and then continue.

When I answered this question, I used simple logic. Knowing the answer wasn't a or c, I deduced it down to b or d. I didn't remember the text making a distinction between many or few, I just knew androgyny was an equal number of male and female traits. So I chose d, thinking that having "many" male and female traits would lean more towards drag queen than androgyny. I decided to look it up in the text after the test and found nothing that suggested either extreme. When we went over the test during the following class period, I found my answer to be incorrect. When I asked her where this information was, she told me that it was an "application" of the definition. When I argued further, she told me that she had graded on a curve and that was to take care of the "unfair questions."

Shortly thereafter, I realized that grades don't transfer and I only had 6 more credits at GRCC. I've never "thrown" a class before, but I found I got the same grade on tests whether or not I studied for them. I also stopped doing the useless and time consuming assignments in order to keep my sanity. I still ended up with a B+. Go figure.

Next post: The hectic schedule of a dual-enrolled student.

Don't just sit there, write something!

A few days ago, I was on a website titled stumbleupon.com. It's a great site to go to if you seriously need to waste some time (or just want to procrastinate). All you have to do is push a button and it will take you to other websites that will entertain you in any number of ways: A funny joke, an interesting factoid, games, gadgets. You name it. How appropriate it was when I pushed this all-knowing button and it took me to "12 1/2 things all writers should know." The one that stuck out the most was the first one: Write every day. If you write every day, you'll get better at writing every day.

Pay no attention to the length of time in between this post and the last post. Shhh... I've been writing... really....essays and research papers and stuff. That counts.... right?

The truth is I thought about writing. I think about it all the time. When I wake up at 3:00 in the morning I have a brilliant idea for a story that I'll swear to remember to write down in the morning. I'll get super charged with inspiration while pumping gas into my car. Ok, I think to myself, write this down when you get home. Then poof. Like it was so offended that I didn't take the time right then to acknowledge its presence in my brain.

It's my idea! I should be able to have it and own it and do anything I want to it!

Nope.

Sorry.

Not how that works. Crap.

I did, however, manage to be smart about it at least once. On the break I had from school (you know, what I used as another excuse not to write), I had a rather interesting self-discovery and actually wrote it down.

So, as an homage to the writing I should have done and the writing that I promise to honor in the future, here is something I did write.

(December 2009)

On this break from school, I've learned a few things about myself:

I don't really like Christmas
I have an unusual need to be productive
and get pretty grumpy when I'm not.

Sure I worked a little. Picked up a few shifts at my old job. Nice for the money; bad for the psyche. In the few shorts months in which I worked only one day per week, the trance that had once deluded my sense of self-worth had been broken. Albeit a good thing to get rid of such trances, this made the the two weeks of 3 and 4 days per week almost unbearable.

The first few days were alright, I guess. Then I noticed the new dynamic that had been put into place: New, young, painfully green professionals that were brimming with "new" ideas. For which they were asking my help. Immediately I put forth the only defense mechanism I knew: pessimism with a dash of Been-There-Done-That for good measure.

It was almost painful, watching these new workers start out the same way I had. Now I know that it was all a plot to show me how ready I was to move on.

So, in that department: Moving on. I've been on break for the passed three weeks and, can I say BORING! I think I might start messing the house up so I have something to clean. Hence the "unusual need to be productive" clause above. I've known this about myself for a long time, but never really tested it. How lazy can I be?
Not very as it turns out.
However I did manage to have a mental breakdown. That gave me something to do. Mental note: when the task of making a salad causes 20 minutes of self-doubt, while boyfriend is attempting the consolation by surface cleaning, then followed by 10 minutes of frantically looking up phone number, it might be best to stay home.

(Fast forward to present day)

So, I got through my first full-time year of college and here are a few more things that I learned about myself:

I am overly critical of everything I do, a control freak, and I never think I'm good enough. I told that to a coworker and you know what she said?

"You sound like a writer."

I laughed, I cried, I panicked, and I conquered.

Only 4 more years to go.

Here it goes

I always wanted to be one of those people that knew what they were going to be when they grew up. Like someone who liked to build things out of Lego's when they were six years old and later became an architect. Or someone who was fascinated by dinosaurs and became a renowned paleontologist. I figured since I couldn't go back to my toddler days, this dream was impossible. It never occurred to me that it had been there waiting for me to wake up.

About a year and a half ago, I was sitting with my best friend in her back yard. We were sipping wine and fantasising about what we could do for the rest of our lives if nothing was holding us back. At the time, I had been going to Grand Rapids Community College for about 4 years, taking one class a semester and not really knowing what to do with my life. The thought of even having a degree was a fantasy.

I remember going through the list of things I enjoy doing: reading, writing, (no arithmetic please) nit-picking, putzing, and sometimes too much attention to detail. I turned to my fiend and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Then came the inevitable self-doubt: Can I do this? Am I good enough? How do I get started? I'm in way over my head here. A few days went by and I wrote in my journal. Another ton of bricks came through: I've been writing since elementary school! Short stories and poems. I've also kept a journal since the age of twelve. I am one of those people that started their future career as a child. It was right in front of me for so long. When my current job was frustrating, I'd write about it. When the guy that I was currently dating gave me a headache, I'd write about it. When I had great news or accomplished something, I'd write about it. The trouble I was having deciding on a career? Yup, I'd write about that too.

So here I am, an official sophmore at GRCC at 27 years old and I finally know what I want to be when I grow up: a writer. And this is how I got started.