The Studious Student

So now that I'm done suffering through midterms (well, the first round), I feel it's appropriate to look both forward and back at what's happening in the world around me. This will relate almost entirely to schoolwork, but it may drift here and there. Basically, I'm in the library right now trying desperately to not start my computer science lab.

First off: my SOSC paper was fantastic. To everyone who hasn't had the experience of writing a paper a few days before it's due, I have to recommend it. This might have been the first time that I actually finished the paper with more than a day to spare. I wrote most of it over the weekend and then finished it off Monday. So I guess I didn't really finish with more than a day to go (it was due Tuesday morning), but the fact that I had almost everything prepared before Sunday night was a huge weight off my shoulders. It was also the first paper for the class, meaning it was the most important paper for the class. Even though it was only worth something like 10% of my grade, it both gave me a confidence boost and a chance to see how my professor grades. Both of these are very important, especially when other classes are pulling your grades down.

Speaking of grades, my math midterm went horribly. I could switch down into a lower section of my class, but I don't think I can make it work for my schedule. My midterm was on the last day to add or drop classes and without a grade I didn't feel I could judge my position in the class. Now I can't drop any class that I might need to move around. It looks like I'll just have to tough it out. Was it really horrible? No, I wouldn't say really horrible. But I did do substantially worse than the average student in that class. So I'll just be studying my ass off from here on out. That's the good (and terrifying) thing about having your final be worth 50% of your total grade. Personally I'd prefer that the homework be worth that much (I'm good at homework!) but no such luck.

For both computer science and history, I haven't yet had a good check-in of my position in the class. The first assignment for history is a book review, but it's only due in 2 weeks. Computer science has daily homeworks (that take forever) and weekly labs that I've done well on so far, but none of these have had any time constraints on them. I'm actually frightened about the midterm that I have coming up.

So that's where I am right now. The near future involves a lot of reading for history, a lot of working trying to get into the right place in math, a lot of typing for computer science (not good for my nerve damage), and a lot of reading for SOSC. I'm going to a Notre Dame game for my friend's birthday next weekend, meaning my time will be even less than it is now, and I'm also stressing about how fall formal tickets sold out in 2 days. That's life.

So I'm stressed about math. Especially as a potential math major, that was a pretty big blow. Not quite as bad as my first midterm last year, but still bad. The fact that I actually cannot switch down is sort of a problem. I guess I'll just be spending a lot of time in this library...

Midterms Have Started

And I'm already behind on my sleep. Honestly I didn't think a class could be so much work. But computer science eats away at my time like a fat man at the hot dog eating contest: passionately and without remorse until he throws up all over the place and is disqualified. That pretty much sums up my quarter so far. I'm constantly behind in my work and I don't think I'll ever catch up.

My first paper for SOSC (Classics of Social and Political Thought) was due on Tuesday. That ate up quite a bit of my time that I could have spent working on math homework or my computer science lab. Staying up late working on those has caused me to fall behind on my studying for my math final, which is now infringed upon by my daily computer science homework and rather insane amount of reading.

Some of my reading I know I can't do, but I've been trying my hardest to get all my SOSC done. I want to read Plato and be able to say that I've read Plato, but so far I've managed only about 5 out of the 8 books of the Republic that I was supposed to read. Now let's see if I can get my math done in time for me to get some sleep.

Oh, yeah, and fall baseball has started up.