Let's Review

It's Saturday night and I'm home writing a blog post. Now you are up-to-date.

In other news, I finished this semester of college. I maintained my 4.0 by barely squeaking out a 90% in my American history class. I guess perfect attendance counts for something. I also made a 98% on my comp II in-class final exam essay. That was surprising because it felt like utter crap to me. But I gave him what he asked for so he liked it. That is the sum total of what I hate about college.

My psychology class was definitely the highlight of the semester.That is ironic because that class was a Saturday class at 9:00am. I feel like I enjoyed it the most because I actually wanted to be there; plus my professor was interesting and seemed like he wanted to be there too. My speech class was my morning class that started at 11am Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I was in a piss poor mood going to class pretty much everyday. My speech professor wasn't that bad except that he tried really, really hard to make what he said interesting. I would have received it better had he not seemed like he was trying to sell us everything he said. My psych professor was just interesting, he did not have to try, he just was.

My history professor concluded my school day Mon/Wed/Fri and he raised my spirits every day. He was so enthusiastic about his subject matter that I just felt myself raise up and be interested in his class. I struggled on his exams because I didn't quite get his style of quizzing for information. I thought I was going to make a B in his class because I made B's on all my exams, but the final adjusted grade was an A.

I had my voice jury on Monday. I was nervous just like I always am, but I made it through both of my songs without forgetting the words midway. I didn't get great reviews but I wasn't expecting them. My vocal performance has a long way to go yet before it could be considered great. I keep doing it though because I love to sing and I want to get better. I didn't practice as much as I needed to during the semester though, and I'm sure that didn't help me at all.

Three days before finals I told my dad I didn't want to go to college anymore. We had a long chat about it. I'm still really struggling with going back next semester, but at least I'm signed up for classes I actually want to attend. This past semester I took classes (except psychology) that were expected of me to take. I need them to graduate. This coming semester some of my classes will count towards a degree but some of them will not. I feel a little bit like I'm a wide tooth comb treating college like a tangled mass of hair, just picking away at it until something straightens out for me. We shall see what becomes of it.

This has been an eventful week. I completed my semester exams, struggled through tech week for Velveteen, adopted two 12-week-old puppies (named Storm and Aurora), dyed my hair black, and opened the show - all while dog sitting for my brother and sister-in-law. Fortunately I was able to keep their dog at my house so I could at least sleep in my own bed. It makes a huge difference.

Coinciding with all these events I've begun listening to a new book on CD entitled The Power of Now by Eckart Tolle. It's a fascinating book. It definitely dovetailed with Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, which I started reading last week but didn't quite finish before it was due back at the library.

This has been a great semester for listening to books on CD. A couple weeks before school began I listened to To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I've read it before but not for a long time. It was as great as I remembered it to be. Then I started the semester finishing the last two books in the Harry Potter series - The Half-Blood Prince and The Deathly Hallows. I loved the entire series. J.K. Rowling is a genius. It has taken me about four years to finished them all because I took a long break after getting about halfway through the fourth one. I picked them up again this year and reached my goal of finishing them before the end of December. I kept the momentum going by listening to David and Goliath by Malcome Gladwell, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, Before Happiness by Shawn Achor. Then I listened to four out of five CD's of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon before it was due back at the library.
Books that lost my interest were Emma by Jane Austin, and a few others that I don't remember.

For school I read 90% of All Over but the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg. That was by far the saddest books I've ever read. It made me cry every time I read more than a couple paragraphs. I didn't read any more of it than I absolutely had to. I also read my first graphic novel. My comp II professor called it an "autoethnography." It was called Darkroom by Lila Quintero Weaver. I don't think it was that in depth and I struggled to write about it.

Outside of class, in my spare time, I've been reading The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, Ivy Briefs by Martha Kimes, Art of Story and Humor by Catherine Berlin, Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon, Ignore Everybody by Hugh MacLeod, The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, Mort by Terry Pratchett, and Adventures in Pen Land by Marianne Gingher. Ideally, I will finish these up before the next semester begins so I can start fresh for the new year.