3 papers in 4 days

That, my friends, is why I have been relatively silent for the past few weeks. The semester has ended and while the rest of this university prepares to start exams in about, oh seven hours, I am done. And by done I mean every assignment turned in, stuff moved out of the apartment, me sitting at my real home in my real bed done.

Yes, I've been writing papers since Saturday. And yes, there is so much stuff I meant to blog about but found myself too caught up in the end of the semester crunch to do so. And yes, I will write about all that stuff shortly.

But not tonight. Tonight I'm going to sleep so that I can wake up one more early morning and go pick up my visa. Only then, then can I finally let out that sigh of relief and try to enjoy the next three weeks as much as humanly possible before I board a plane to a foreign country an ocean away and get set for the craziest eight months of my life.

Crunch time?

Thanksgiving break has come and gone, and now it's crunch time at school. Luckily, I've only got 14 days - a full week less than everyone else on account of my no final exams status. Actually, that itself is kind of misleading; due to my wacked-out schedule, it's really only seven days of classes. And out of those seven days, only 18 hours and 45 minutes is actually class. And of that 19 or so hours, 3 hours are taken up by a field trip.

And yes, while it's true that I've got four final papers/articles due in these next two weeks, it's really not that bad. I'm working on my very last journalism article this week (!!), and so far so good. I spent this afternoon talking to people and I've gotten some good information. I'm meeting with my government professor on Thursday, so at least some of that paper will be done by then. A large part of the English paper is material from the first three group papers, and that leaves just the online journalism paper, my final Spanish interview, and one more round of production for the newspaper, and then I'm done for the semester. Three weeks later I roll out of the U.S. and embark on my Spanish adventure.

Damn, the life of this college student is pretty good right about now. Feel free to hate me...

(Hey I've been on the phone all day with lawyers and politicians - I'm allowed a minute or two to rest on my laurels).

Roller Coaster Week

Yesterday was a good day (well, minus all the work I had to do). Today, not so much.

I interviewed with that publication, and it went really, really well. She was impressed with the internship I did last semester, which was with the government, and basically I've secured an internship for next fall before I've tied down the one for this summer. I also ran around campus getting all the paperwork signed to get my study abroad stuff approved, and very very surprisingly, I got it all done in one day. Seriously, given all the bureaucracy I've had to go through to get stuff signed in the past, I was shocked that everything happened so smoothly. I also mailed off my package to the publication abroad I'm trying to intern at, so hopefully I'll hear back from them soon.

Now for today's much crappier turn of events. First of all, I was fasting for a religious holiday today. Secondly, I only got three hours of sleep last night because I was working on my English paper. While both my in-class journalism assignment and my Spanish presentation went well, what most certainly did not go well was my web design exam. Half of the exam involved designing a really basic web page, and it turns out I memorized the wrong coding tags and basically got a ton of points off. And if you know me, you know I generally tend to freak out about all assignments/exams and say I did badly. But really, this time I'm not kidding. It's like with math, if you don't know how to do the problem, you simply don't know. You write in a random number for the answer and then hope for partial credit, which is what my hopes are hinging on.

Of course when I got back to my apartment, I looked up the coding that I messed up, but strangely, I didn't feel too bad. I guess I've finally begun to internalize the whole "hindsight is 20/20. During the exam, I sat there for about an hour just playing with the coding trying to get it to work. I finally decided to turn it in because this wasn't really an essay question that I could b.s. my way through. The thing that bothered me was the split-second look of surprise that passed across my teacher's face when she opened the web page I designed and saw a couple of the components missing. I knew she was disappointed in me, but there was nothing I could do just sitting there staring at the screen.

I guess that shows I've progressed a bit - I was angry of course, but I didn't really know what at. I guess I was angry at myself, but I kept thinking to myself, if I don't know this, I simply don't know it, so sitting there any longer wouldn't have done anything. While I could have studied more, for the last two weeks it's just been so hard to get motivated to do work. It's like I've passed over that mid-semester hump and I've got a pretty good handle on all my classes, it's just a matter of continuing the routine.

Anyways, once I finished looking up the answers I missed, I literally had absolutely no desire to do anything. I thought about doing government reading, but I simply could not get motivated and knew I'd just be staring blankly at the page. I laid down and tried to go to sleep, but that didn't work, despite last night's lack of sleep. I thought about how screwing up this exam might jeopardize my A in this class, but to my surprise, I wasn't as angry as I thought I would be. I mean, yes, I would be really angry at myself if I end up with a B, but I do still have time and there are other assignments worth more, and I don't know how much partial credit I'll be getting for the things I missed on this exam. I realized that grades are really arbitrary when it comes to the real world. This coding that I was tested on, it's all automatic nowadays, so it's not like me not knowing how to change the background color of a web page is going to shut me out of the job market. After all hasn't almost every one of my journalism professors told me that they aren't where they are because of their GPA? Seriously, 20 years from now no one is going to give a crap what arbitrary number supposedly quantified their intelligence. And besides, there is a reason why human beings are not perfect. And am I not a human being?

Okay I so did not mean for this to get that philosophical. What I mean to say is that I think I'm finally realizing that in the grand scheme of things, grades really don't matter as much as I'm telling myself they do.

Anyways, I couldn't sleep, and my stomach was howling at me. I called Mom to ask her when I could eat, and this is what sent me over the edge. She said the fasting is tomorrow, and that I didn't need to even keep it. I couldn't handle it. Not only had I had a terrible afternoon, but I had suffered for nothing! It wasn't for nothing, Mom said. God knew I fasted today and would reward me for it. But still, I couldn't help it and out came the tears. I didn't even know why; it wasn't because of the exam. I think I was just overwhelmed. I think Mom got kind of freaked out because I've never really reacted like that, although I know it wasn't the exhaustion but the food deprivation that triggered the waterworks. Needless to say I got off the phone and made myself a meal, and finally found myself in a normal enough state of mind to talk to my roomies again. (I had shut myself in my bedroom since returning from the exam earlier this afternoon). And then Sumegha gave me a big hug and I felt a lot better (I'm sure the teriyaki noodles I made helped too).

And now I just spent the past half hour catching the second-half of that awful chick lit series Gossip Girl. Oh God the wonders that terrible television does to your mood. So now I'm feeling better and figure my life is not over because I basically bombed an exam.

Writing Overload

I feel like I don't know how to write anymore. That's what I get for taking classes where my only assignments are writing ones. I write articles in journalism, write papers in English and the only exams in my government class come in the form of take-home essays. It's not the writing itself that is bothering me (Trust me, I'd much rather be typing away at a five page paper than sweating it out in a lecture hall answering multiple choice questions.) The thing that is driving me crazy is that I'm using totally different styles of writing. And the journalistic style that has almost become my default it completely not what I need to use when writing in-depth essay responses. I've started cringing when my paragraphs run longer than two sentences and I am unable to use passive voice anymore (Jour Prof would be so proud to hear that.) My sentences have all become short, declarative and to the point. Not a bad place to be except now my papers are dryer than a desert lake. Karen wrote the same thing on her xanga a few months ago, that she felt like journalism was sucking all the style out of her. It's not that I can't write creatively anymore (obviously, or this blog would be dead,) it's that when I go to write things for class, I get all confused.

And to make things worse, I'm getting a double dose of writing concisely. As expected, I get it in journalism every day, but my English professor is also trying to get us to stop using 10 words when we can use two. All of this is a good thing, but now it means I can't bring myself to b.s. my way through papers like we college students are famous for doing. I remember writing what I thought were long-winded, convoluted 40-word sentences that when I really read them, said absolutely nothing. But somehow, my professors didn't see it that way and I'd end up getting an A. But now, more for personal benefit instead of teacher requirements, I find myself deleting word after word in my papers. Even worse, I feel like I'm losing my vocabulary. I'm working on this take-home essay for my government class, and I feel like I'm using the same three words to describe my topic. I keep thinking of definitions of the words I need, but not the actual words themselves.

I guess this means that thing called learning has finally taken hold in my brain, for better or worse.

On a totally unrelated note - last night, while I was watching the Yankees game, I was also ironing clothes, and this is a reminder to all - beware of multitasking, especially when it involves hot appliances. I had just finished ironing a shirt and was reaching my arm across the ironing board to fold it while my eyes were glued to the screen, and OUCH. My arm grazed the rim of the hot iron and I now have an ugly two inch brown burn across my right arm. I'm not really sure if it's ever going to go away. But hey, I'll always remember this baseball game now. (See, I always look on the bright side of things.)

Moving Back

Most people hate moving, and for good reason. It’s such a hassle, packing everything, hauling it away, and reorganizing it all once again. But lucky me, that’s what my college self gets to do every six months. Yes, I know going to a school 45 minutes away from home means the ordeal is considerably easier for me, but it still sucks. Being the oldest child, my family was suckered into buying every random college dorm tool in preparation for my freshman year, meaning my basement is now full of drying racks, lap desks, window fans and bed risers, all quite unnecessary when you’ve graduated to living in an apartment. In the past, I’ve hauled it all back to school anyways, just because I’d bought it and felt bad not using it.

To make matters worse, just like almost every other female out there, I am a flagrant overpacker. I dread having to pack my clothes, since I’ve realized I own waaaaaaayyy too many. Despite the fact that I regularly wear about 60 percent of my wardrobe, I feel the need to drag the entire collection of shoes, hoodies, skirts, tees, sweaters, belts, scarves, and bags with me to school. I mean, I guess I don’t really need to bring three different pairs of brown heels, but one pair is for casual skirts, one pair for nice skirts and one pair for pants. You see how difficult it would be to choose just one?

The best part is, students at my school think that because they are in college, it is suddenly acceptable to have a wardrobe consisting solely of sweatpants, free t-shirts and pajamas. If I were to walk into class wearing heels, half the students would ask me what the occasion was. I’m not saying I’m the best dressed or most fashionable person out there. My style is pretty simple, but that doesn’t mean I don’t look put-together and presentable for class. This may be a shock to some, but pajama pants aren’t actually a substitute for real pants.

But I digress. Contrary to making me more independent, college has just put me in a weird sort of limbo. I’m living on my own but I still happily rely on my parents to handle real-world things like bills. And while home to me is still my parent’s house, I’m only there a quarter of the year. The majority of my time is spent at school, where I live, work, play, eat and study with my friends. And while I love every minute of school, come May I want nothing more than to eat a plate of Mom’s rajma, discuss the latest political scandal with my dad, bother Neeraj about school and sleep in my own bed.

Last year during the election season, there were a number of voter registration drives on campus and even though I’m already registered in my home district, the people tried to get me to reregister to my campus district. Think about it, they said, you spend most of your time here, so you’re more affected by the actions of lawmakers representing this campus district. While that may be true, changing my voting district would mean acknowledging the fact that I am out of the house. And even halfway through college, I’m not ready to do that. Life on my own is something reserved for after college. Only then will I be required to learn how to manage a bank account, deal with insurance companies and keep a house clean.

A few weeks ago, while trying to fall asleep, I was struck by the realization that I was down to my last two weeks of summer freedom, ever. Sure, I still have next year’s summer break, but since I’ll be interning and, most likely still living abroad next summer, this was it for living completely free of responsibility at home. No work, no stress, just chilling with the fam. And yes, while this did get boring and frustrating at times, the thought that in two years, I will never, ever, ever get three completely empty, uncluttered months to simply exist is less than comforting. It means I’m growing up, and that’s a scary thing.

Okay, this post was not at all meant to become that philosophical and depressing. All I wanted to say was packing sucks and hopefully this time, I’ll actually take only what I need. Especially because in five months I’ll need to fit my entire life in two suitcases and one carry on, and as Karen told me earlier, that is no easy task.

Don't hate on my school

Okay, I know I go to the state university that everyone from high school goes to, but hey, this school actually was my first choice. Yeah, it may be good 'ol State U, but I absolutely love it there and wouldn't have picked any other college. It's so frustrating sometimes, seeing old friends and having them constantly rag on your school. Okay, I understand, not everyone loves my school, and hey I can joke around as much as the next guy. But when that's all everyone can talk about - how supposedly horrible my school is - it gets pretty irritating sometimes. Do you see me ragging on your schools? I don't sit there and preach to you about why you should have come to my school instead. I understand, different colleges suit different people. But that doesn't mean it's okay for you to act like my school is a piece of shit. Don't forget - where is everyone going to take summer classes? If it's really that bad, go somewhere else. And trust me, the school isn't as easy to get into as you think it is. And come on, it's not as if you guys are all going to some ivy league private university. You're at state schools too, don't forget it.