Ohmygoodness! This semester was BRUTAL! But it’s finally over and I am SOOOOOO happy about it. After making my semester calendar back in August and seeing how crazy my teachers had gone assigning homework, I knew it was going to be rough, but it ended up being a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. Not because the classes were hard, but because there was more homework due this semester than actual days in the semester.
Back in August I made this nifty little calendar to keep track of what all homework I had due when. I found it’s a lot more helpful to see it all in one place than to look at separate syllabuses (syllabi?) and keep track of it that way. I’m really glad I did because I think I would have missed a lot of stuff had I done it the other way. Even so, I DID miss turning in one math assignment, which dropped my grade 2 whole percentage points. Lame! But, it was my own fault. I completely forgot to scan and turn in my worksheets, so she didn’t give me credit for it. I got credit for doing the work because I did it online and the system reflected my having done it before it was due, but I didn’t get credit for having done the work myself because I didn’t turn in the sheet showing my work until a week later when I realized my mistake. Oh well. I still ended with a good grade. I was worried I wouldn’t get good grades because of the amount of homework, but I actually did really well this semester.
It’s kind of hard to explain how much homework I had to do. A couple of people kept asking me to do stuff with and for them and I kept wanting to show them my calendar so they could see what all I had to do. I actually meant to post a blog about it back in August, about how I was pretty nervous for how I was going to have time to do everything, but I didn’t end up having time to do that. lol. But, now I do, so here it is:
Some days it didn’t seem like a lot, but I was doing several mini essays a week (discussion posts) along with having to read and respond to classmates’ discussion posts (along with having to watch lectures and do chapter and online readings before writing my post), each math assignment had multiple lecture videos along with a worksheet I had to fill out before I could do the homework, each Humanities quiz had chapter reading along with videos and websites I had to read, each Art History assignment had lecture videos and multiple websites to read before writing multiple mini essays for each assignment and on top of that there were 12 freakin essays I had to write throughout the entire semester. Good grief.
Because of all this, my personal life kinda suffered. I quit working out and ended up gaining 6lbs, I fell off of my doctor-mandated veggie wagon, I quit hanging out with EVERYBODY, I left laundry in the laundry baskets instead of folding it and putting it away, dinner consisted of whatever could be cooked in less than 30 min (or I told Troy he had to fend for both of us) and the house got cleaned about every 2-3 weeks. It was bad. The house wasn’t all gross because we’re fairly clean people and don’t have kids or big pets to make additional messes (i have a cat that only occasionally likes to knock stuff off the counters), but I’m used to cleaning and having all the laundry put away every week (again, no kids) and working out for two hours every weekday, so this was pretty shameful for me. There was just so much dang homework and so many lectures and things to read.
I tried really hard all semester to have my homework done by Friday night so I could go do fun stuff (and cleaning) on Saturday and relax on Sunday, but that didn’t work out very often. I usually ended up doing several hours of homework on Saturdays and occasionally I would still be doing homework on Sunday. Not too often, but it did happen a few times. Usually when I had tests within a few days of each other or 3 essays due in one week. Math and COMM tests took up a ton of time because I have to drive to Monmouth for proctored tests and, depending on the traffic, it takes about 35-45 minutes to get to the school. Essays, well, those just take forever because I hate them.
I think (well, know) this is why my blog suffered during the semester. I HATE writing essays. WITH A PASSION! Which, as a reader of my blog you may think is strange, but I really just don’t like writing essays. I don’t like having rules and parameters to what I write. I just want to write and do it my way. I’m selfish. Or egocentric. Or something. lol. I don’t want to have a word quota or a citation quota or a freakin bibliography. Ugh. One of my classes said I would get hit with plagiarism if my bibliography wasn’t done correctly. Seriously? Yeah, that’s why I hate essays. Too many freakin rules and if you mess up, you’re toast.
But, I don’t have to worry about that anymore. At least for a few weeks. All the stress and work was worth it because I got good grades. I got A’s in Art History, Humanities and Communications with an A- in Math. Not too shabby. Halfway through the semester I figured with as bad as I was doing on the tests that I would end up with a B in math, but I’m quite happy to have squeaked out an A-. Yay!
Ugh. The math tests. Those things gave me so much anxiety. We had 55 minutes to do 25 (sometimes 30) problems. Soooooooooooooo not enough time. Unless you are a math genius, which I am not. I did okay with the first test because it was just a basic review of simple concepts, but the second test I didn’t even get to finish it because there wasn’t enough time. I took it again and did okay. The rest of the tests, I had an issue with going too fast through the test and ended up putting answers in the wrong boxes or transposing numbers. When I expressed my frustration to my teacher, she said she’d put more time on the remaining tests………………………………but she didn’t. Bah. Oh well. I have an A- and the class is over. I don’t have to stress about it anymore. Thank goodness.
Now that the semester is over, I can work on some of the projects that I’ve been neglecting for the past four months. Like, my other blog, my sewing projects, photo editing, going out and taking photos, writing blogs, getting back into shape and reading some books. I’m really looking forward to this 3-4 week break. I’ve got next semester all planned out (Art History II, Pre-Cal, American Government and Environmental Science), so I need to rest up and do fun stuff while I can because I get the feeling that next semester is going to be just as crazy as this one was.
