1 down, 5 to go

One semester is done, five more to go before I graduate again. There is something to consider... if I took more than ~12 credit hours in the fall and spring, I could finish faster. Maybe. But my grants only cover that amount. Sooooo. It's just a matter of what is most important to me. I'd rather not take out more loans than I have to, and I'd rather not overload myself. I'd better re-evaluate my position soon, though. Make sure I'm on the right path to knocking out the classes I need in this time frame.

(OH and as I completely expected, I am certainly not the only one who my school "lost" their transfer scholarship. Now that I'm talking to people at this school I'm learning this happens frequently. I highly suspected that. But I am kicking myself for not sending my application in as registered mail or whatever it is where someone has to sign for it.)

It's been a very tough semester, especially these last 4 weeks. I won't got into many details, some of it is very personal, but every week something big and bad happened. Well, except for this week. One of the weeks being my ferret passing away. Something that still hurts me extremely. And my other two boy ferrets are missing him dearly too.

My last test, which I took this morning, was very tough. :-(
It was pretty sweet to see my professor, a male, turn to a puddle of mush when he saw this dog. He used to have a Newfoundland and when she died he just couldn't replace her with another one, so now I think he has a St. Bernard. But we discussed this a little bit after class once, when I was outwardly so miserable about Mordecai passing away. Anyway, this other girl in our class brought her big boy Newfoundland to school and when my professor saw him he just turned to mush, as I said.

I really, really enjoyed my professor. He knows a lot of stuff and he's a good teacher of stuff and he's sooooo easy going. He's got a great temperment and personality. I almost wish the class wasn't over, I love learning everything I can from him. I feel like a sponge, trying to soak up his words of wisdom. LOL, not trying to kiss butt here! This is all true!! I will try so hard to take another class with this guy.

PS It always surprises me how many people are not aware that when you stack two of these ~ (like a wavy equal sign) that it means "approximately." When I was a math major I couldn't believe how many people I had to tell that to. Though once I got to calculus I didn't have to explain it so much.

PPS I am annoyed because for the first 2 weeks of my second summer class, the one I bought the parking pass for, I parked out in the hot sun. Then I discovered I could park in the garage. I am kicking myself for missing out on parking garage goodness for the first 2 weeks.

PPPS I got an A on my Philosophical Filmmakers paper! Her comments were nothing but good. This makes me feel really good about myself.

More pet peeves

Here is another situation that annoys me greatly while in school. Edition number 791. Ha.

Anyways, I hate when you get that student in your class who suggests, at every chance, "Let's do a field trip!" And they do it because they're thinking "Oh BOY! A day outside in the sun without having to do schoolwork."

Ummm hello. Taking a field trip does not cancel out a day in the classroom. This isn't elementary school. We would still have to make up the time for lost lectures and classwork. Not to mention, with gas prices being so high and the temperatures being so high, I would not like to go traipsing around outside across town.

Yeah, so there is that student in my class. (Obviously.) Every single chance she gets she shouts out "Let's do a field trip!" And then today our professor was talking about the last test and how he might make it a group kind of thing. Such as giving out 4 possible questions, the group would choose 2 questions and write about them. And thus everyone will get that grade.
*HORROR*

But Little Miss Field Trip hears the words "open book, open notes, talking to other students" and perks right up thinking that it'll be a cakewalk. I say again: Hellllloooooo? If a test will be like that, then those questions are going to be really hard, you dimwit. Not to mention I would hate to be with a student who can't pull their weight.

Cease and desist with the whining!

Good grief. It never fails. You get a test back and students have to whine about the grades. I got a 98%, which was the highest in the class (yes, bragging) and well... I have to admit, the test was actually pretty easy, yet there were 3 C's, 1 D and 3 F's. Wow.

Anywho, the prof had about 5 females at this throat about their grades. Whine, Whine, Whine. Unfortunately/fortunately he did listen to them and he did actually give them their points back. One lady managed to claw her way from a 87% to a 91%.

I say unfortunately because... dangit, don't cave to these whiners! But it's fortunate too because it's nice to have a professor who'll listen and not be a pompous a-hole.

Now then. I do have a complaint about something else. I submitted my final paper for that stupid Humanities class on July 9. She said "Give me a week to grade them." It has now been almost two weeks. I'm getting kinda fed up. I cannot stand those types of professors who take their good sweet time grading things. A week should be plenty of time.

I don't feel very well. One reason is I'm getting sick of having a fan blow on me all the time. It's giving me a colossal headache. And another reason is because I HATE THE HEAT. I'm so miserable. My ideal temperature is about 60 degrees F.

Well, that's all the fancy news for today, I s'pose.

Mordecai Angel

I've been quiet because one of my beloved ferrets passed away last week. I've been really depressed all week.

class

I just survived my first week of my new summer class. I am loving it. I love the subject matter, even though it's review for me, and I love the professor. Turns out... the professor is one my mother had before. When she got her degree 10 years ago, she took a geology class and loved that professor. But that wasn't at this same college and all she could remember is his first name. As I sat in the class all week I had a nagging feeling about something and I started to put the pieces together and turns out, it's the same guy.

He is great. Really down to earth, thoughtful, funny and considerate. He is a man of science, he's an engineer and geologist. He also teaches physics and astronomy. Anyway, some how we got on the subject of creationism and stuff like intelligent design. He manged to present his side and explain what the other side says and he did it in a very respectful way.

A little case in point about his respect, but with a different example... he was explaining the sub solar point from astronomy and this dinky student just blurts out a question "And this happens every day?" I could tell he was taken aback just a little by the stupidity of the question, but he manages to always answer questions - no matter how dumb - with grace and respect. He never belittles the student.
(BTW, the answer to the question was: yes, the sun does hit the earth everyday. Good grief. Some people. This middle aged lady is just... she's two crayons shy of a full box.)
I'm kind of reminded of an episode of "South Park" ... "There are no stupid questions, only stupid people." LOL

I digress. I mean, I have my moments too, we all do, but when it's silly question after question it gets old. Also, anyone else annoyed when people just blurt out questions, even if they interrupt the professor? I refuse to do that. I always raise my hand, but I notice people don't do that anymore.

So at the end of this class he left us with philosophy. Basically he said a closed mind is dangerous. The people who don't want to see any other point of view are the most dangerous. He gained massive respect points from me.

I'm going to try and take as many classes with him as I can.

Whoa dude

Because I changed my major from math to geography I have some freshman classes to catch up with. It is crazy to go from a junior level in college to a freshmen level. The differences in the classes are so outstanding.

Not only that, but so far everything is a review for me. We talked about astronomy and geology. I've had both. The only frustrating thing is... being asked a question you once knew but can't remember now.

I've had to fill my brain in the past two semesters with things I really didn't care for. I had to waste my time and energy on French, history, human geography and Philosophical Filmmakers. There is a mathematical formula which proves the loss of knowledge through time. I think that after about 2 years of learning a subject, and not brushing up on it obviously, you lose a good 80% retention of that previous knowledge.

Anyways. It's just frustrating to feel... non-linear in my learning. I'm glad that I'm finally going to have more consistency in my classes from now on... more geography related in one way or another... now that I've gotten rid of most of the "core requirements" for a "well-rounded college student."

Unfortunately I never took great geology notes, his lectures just weren't good for that. But I do have good astronomy notes to brush up on. If I can find them.
And while I'm at it... it sure would be nice to retain some of my mad math skills.

All this just leaves my brain feeling confused. I can't explain it other than that way... confused. I'm not saying that I wouldn't like exposure to other courses, but it would be nice to build upon what I learn rather than starting and stopping in blocked spurts of time.

PS - I want to add a complaint. Just to point out something that bothers me, and it underscores my point here. I took French I Spring 08... hoping I could take French II in the summer. But that just wasn't possible. NO colleges around here were offering it in the summer. So there we go again... I took the first class and now I have to wait one more year before I can take the second. This is so frustrating!!

I'm also mildly worried about the fact that I have to take so many higher level electives, but yet I still have to get in 2 freshman geography classes. An advisor did sit down with me and she seemed to think everything will work out fine, but I had a very hard time following her the way she was explaining it all. *frowny face* Ever have that happen, where the person is just so familiar with everything that it's so CLEAR to them, but you're hopelessly lost? I asked her questions but her answers were just about as clear as fudgey pudding.
Mmmmm. Fudgey pudding.

Insure that they get your money

The follow up to my last post about insurance is that our insurance company denied the post-op visits because the Doc stuck a scope up Ryan's nose. And they don't want to cover that. So now we have to pay the co-pays, and it's $90.

Even sadder... My dad chatted with me this morning and said "Did I ever tell you there's a lot of bullshit out there?" I said "Kinda, which bullshit are we referring to specifically, because that's a large topic."

Just because he's a year older, 60 years old and retired, his insurance premiums shot up $90 for each month. Each month. This just kills me. Yes, older people may usually require more care and everything, but dammit... the human life should not be reduced to dollars and cents.

(I came within 15 feet of Obama just awhile ago. I felt like shouting out "FIX OUR HEALTH CARE". And I'm regretting more and more that I didn't say that. Not that it wouldn't have mattered really, but still.)

I just said that older people may require more health care, which is true, but here's an example of things that shouldn't be happening. My dad naturally has heart problems running in the family. (I'm the lucky heir to that throne myself.) Family trait high cholesterol. Many insurance companies refuse to take him on because he's on a medication to treat the high cholesterol. BUT if he were NOT on that medication, they'd take him.

Soooooo, they'd rather shell out big time for some kind of heart attack or by-pass surgery rather than pay for a medication that should prevent such occasions? Of course, I do see how they're just hoping they'll win the lottery and maybe he would just die during the heart attack or maybe it just won't happen at all.

Thinking about all this bullshit is going to give me a heart attack right now. I hate it. It's so completely unfair and I don't see any resolutions in the foreseeable future.

juillet un

Julliet. What a pretty word and even sounds pretty. Though most of French does sound pretty unless you have to make that sound like you've got something caught in your throat.

Dang. I just didn't feel like golfing today. I didn't feel like being out in the hot bright sun. However, now it's clouded over! It would be very nice outside.

Lately our afternoons are reminding me of my childhood. When I was younger the Colorado summer weather was to be hot and sunny but building afternoon thunderstorms. We've missed that for about the last 10 years. Now every day it's been clouding over. No rain for our neighborhood though. But that's okay. (wish it would rain though.) I enjoy the clouds. I really do. I love rain, clouds, T-storms, snow...

I'm also enjoying the peace and quiet in this house. It's been a loooooong time since I've had the place to myself. My dad retired 2 years ago and my mom retired last year, though she's got a part time job now. It can get tiring to not get any time to yourself.

One last thing in this highly intellectually stimulating post... Ryan's got to get on his doctor's office. They are whack. (LOL) Okay, really, the thing is he went for about 4 or 5 post-surgery office visits. Each and every time we would check with the billing people before we left and they would just wave us through. As they should because these appointments are "free".

Everyday since last Thursday they've been sending us "FINAL NOTICE" statements. Each and every one says "This will be the ONLY statement we send to you." And they are demanding their co-pay for those post-op visits. *sigh*
It's probably just some glitch in the computer system or someone entered a code wrong, but I sure hope this won't be a big ugly mess to clean up.

I'm still pretty steamed from the last time something like this happened. Ryan had a VNS implanted. The surgeon did it in the hospital of course. Two days later we go to the neuro's office where upon the dude did 2 minutes of work using his computer to turn it on.

We were charged $700 for that racket. And we had to pay out of pocket! We fought and fought and they would NOT budge on it. At all.

I'd better end this now before I get too riled up. (Think: kittens and rainbows, kittens and rainbows, kittens and rainbows.)