liaku

Worst is over.  I totally got over a 90 on the Chinese exam.  I think.  Couldn't be much lower, so I'm feeling good.  That's an A- secured.  I needed at least a 97 or so to pull out with an A for the semester, and I didn't make it.

For the record, German exam... could've gone better, but it was just fine.  I forgot dumb things as per usual--such as how to ask for the date.  That was embarrassing.  It was a long enough test that the few answers I couldn't remember (almost always the most basic ones) shouldn't have lost me too many points overall.  Hilariously, I think I may have done better on my Chinese exam than the German one.

I'll be leaving for my English exam in... roughly fifteen minutes.  I'd study, but there's nothing really to study.  I walk in.  I write an essay.  I walk out.  A- is an acceptable grade.  An A would be lovely.  A B+ would still average out to give me an A for the semester.  A B would kill my pride.  It would also give me an A-, but I'm more concerned about my pride.

I'll start studying for Econ tonight, I guess.

I am not actually dropping Chinese so much as I am discontinuing it.  Bolded text is fun.  I don't do that very often.  Okay.  Moving on.  You all count yourself lucky that I already vented my rage ongeozine .  Now you don't have to listen to me whine about my Chinese paper.

Anyhow, I stayed up to 3AM reading a play for English.  We were going to have a quiz on it, and I couldn't afford to blow it off.  Well, I woke up this morning, did my usual morning routine short of getting dressed, then I checked my email (yes, I check my email before I get dressed).  Class was canceled.  The professor's kid is sick.  So I went back to sleep.  If I had stayed awake, I could've done my homework for my economics seminar.  But I didn't.

I'm mostly annoyed because it's due time my English prof returned our paper in that class.  I'm curious what my grade was.  I did get my politics paper back.  That grade was so high that I am genuinely planning on going in and asking how the hell I got that grade.  Because you don't deserve any higher than a low A when you haven't even done the reading.

Also, I need to stop slacking off.  I don't say this in the sense that I need to stop slacking off in order to become a better person, because I don't much care about that right now.  I just need to stop slacking off because I'm not retaining information as well.  If there's anything I hate, it's wasting time.  I don't like having to go over things twice.  I'm not accustomed to it.  I just don't have the energy to actively pay attention in class.

So the other day, there was this sort of social gala at BC.  Dunno what it was, but a lot of old guys in suits and ties.  I was in the fancy-schmancy athletics building using one of the study rooms there for the football guys working on a project with a few classmates.  I went down the elevator to get out.

Let me just say that in the morning, I hadn't felt like getting dressed.  It was one of those freezing cold days, and Tuesday had my early class, so whatever.  In hindsight, I wish I'd gotten dressed.  Luckily, all I'd be remembered as is that Asian girl that was totally underdressed.

This guy in a suit talked to me while we waited for the elevator.  I told him I was a freshman in political science.  He brightens up at that statement, and when the other guy in a suit (with his wife, I assume) gets onto the elevator, he introduces him to me as the president of the city council.  And he was a former senator or somesuch.

And I was wearing these oversized, baggy sweatpants with PINK UNIV written on my ass.  Oh, yeah.  I rock.

In other news, here's an interesting version of Die Schatten Werden Langer that I rather like.  Der Tod does a nice poppy thing that works for a concert.  Not sure I'd like it as much in an actual staged performance (it'd be a little anachronistic), but it's still interesting.  The Rudolf, whoever the hell it is, is very good.  The ensemble is shit.

Just thinking out loud.

Have a test in German tomorrow.  I don't know my possessives yet.  Also don't know my adjective endings, though we only learned that yesterday.  That being said, the tests are extremely straightforward, so I'm not too worried about it.  I do have an in-class essay on Plato on Thursday though, and I haven't a clue what to expect on it. ...And I'm still on Book 6.  We're supposed to have read up through Book 8.  Yeaaaaah.

I'm trying to figure out how to manage my time right now.  I definitely ought to do all my German homework today as practice though it won't be collected until Friday, and that ought to be enough.  Chinese will likely take an hour or two as usual.  I hate the assignments from the book, for the record.  For one, they're not useful for real life, and they're bloody open-ended.  The essays take less time than the book assignments for crying out loud.  I should definitely finish Book 6 before class if I can, and then finish Book 7 tonight as well.  Book 8 can be read tomorrow.

I need to stop blowing off Microeconomics.  I stopped reading the book entirely and have had no problems with the homework since the prof pretty much recites the book aloud in class--or not, as I've found out since I flipped through the book yesterday.  Ought to read up on that before midterms.

I hate my Chinese professor, by the way.  As a person, I mean.  She's not so bad of a teacher to warrant hate.

Got an 85 (17/20) on the Lit quiz.  Vaguely upset.  Lost one point for not knowing what year the particular section of the play took place.  Lost another point for not knowing how many years had passed since the last section of the play.  Lost a third point for not knowing how old Randall was.  Actually, I said he was 7-10, and he was in fact 10, so the prof may yet be lenient and let me squeak by with a 90.

Vaguely upset because I think those questions were silly.  The time was at the start of the civil war.  Enough years had passed that we were on a new generation.  Randall was a kid.  I'm no good at answering questions about numbers.

ETA: Plan for today is to study German until my nonexistent balls fall off.  Plan for the weekend is to catch up on all that damn Plato.  And to study more German.

Plato fucking sucks.

Socrates is giving me a headache.  I wish he would stop dancing around the point.  The density makes this a bitch to annotate.

This is a lot of reading. :(

ETA: Reading complete.  Thoroughly annotated.  Slugging through German now (and will be skimming through Econ afterward).  I'm not quite appreciating how the professor said flash cards were optional and then assigns us flash cards for homework.  Also, there was a black guy in our Chinese for Heritage Speakers class--note the past tense.

Got my laptop back!  A day late, but I'm done complaining about it already.

Anyhow, they ran a clean install, so Delilah is now dead reborn.  I've got most of the vital programs installed.  Turns out nobody's got to torrent anything for me because I've been a good little pirate and had a treasure trove stored on my USB brick.  I just need to restar my computer to get a new theme running, but for now, iTunes is giving me the finger and taking its own sweet time with my monstrous music library.  It's seriously been more than an hour, and iTunes is still crying on my shoulder.

Signal sucks in the dorm.  I actually have it better than most since I at least have a bar or two normally, which is definitely much more pleasant than no bars at all.  I'm thinking about getting my hands on a microphone and making use of Skype.  ...Which would require me to install Skype, come to think of it.

Uh.  My morning starts significantly later now.

Was mildly upset that Chinese conflicted (because freaking Chinese is the only class that meets four times a week, twice on Friday, and the random second Friday session conflicted) with Freud's German class.  Now in Mangoubi's German class. Honestly, makes no difference to me.  I just liked Freud's name better.  Mind you, Ursula Mangoubi is an amazingly badass name.

Also switched English classes.  Well, same class, different teacher, different time of day.  Now I have to get up by noon for German on M, W, F (well, 11AM for Chinese's random extra session on Fridays), and 10:30AM on Tu and Th.

I sent in a deposit for BC.  Yeah, I sent in a deposit for Reed too.  Yes, that's a great deal of money.  The new concern of the week is options.  BC offers Communications, Film Studies, and International Studies (plus better study abroad options) when Reed notably does not (well, it kinda offers International Studies in its own backwards way that I'd never consider).

In other news, I have a ton of math homework to do, as well as a lot of guitar practicing that I just gave up on.

Waitlisted.  I totally called it.