Showing posts with label panic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label panic. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Why Are All My Classes So Weird?

Guess who's last class of the day of the day was cancelled? That's right; this kid's.

Really all my classes were sort of weird today. Anthropology was just a review day for the test on Friday, and I managed to stay concentrated on what she was saying, while writing it all down, drinking coffee, and eating breakfast. Also while somebody in the room next to us was de-fleshing an animal. At first, I sort of thought it was somebody's phone on vibrate going off while on something metal, except really old so  it was really rattling all over the place.

Nope, the teacher said it was somebody de-fleshing an animal. She also said that the room was about to smell really bad or really good, depending on what it was. I have no idea how de-fleshing an animal can smell good and I really don't want to, so I'm glad she ended up closing the door because of the distraction.

On another note, I'm pretty sure I'm almost ready for this test. Which is good, since it's in two days and all.

After this class I figured everything would be sort of normal/boring. That's how my computer science class started. Eventually, she decided to show us a practical example of the programming, and she goes online to show an exercise somebody made. Which is about cigar smoking, partying squirrels. Apparently, for a squirrel party to be successful during the week, each squirrel needs to smoke at leas 40 cigars. 70 on weekends. And all I can think about during this is how does a squirrel go about lighting a cigar? Where does a squirrel find that many cigars for that matter?

Of course, I end up doodling a cigar smoking squirrel, and then I add a bowler hat. And then I add an eye patch. I'm looking at this and I'm thinking to myself, this is a pirate-gangster squirrel. That smokes cigars. The longer I stare at it, though, the more it begins to remind me of something. It's squirrel Nick Fury. The longer I stare at it after that, the more it begins to look like squirrel Mad-Eye Moody.


Harry Potter and the Order of the Smoking Squirrel

Think I need psychiatric help of some kind.

Calculus wasn't exactly weird. The first 30 minutes of class was spent working on our test. The only problems with this test was  there were only two problems on them. The first had four or five sub-sections, and the second one had three or four, but still. That's not a lot room for error.

The first question is about limits, which I think I did alright on because I'm pretty sure I understand limits. The second part of the test was about derivatives.

I think I spent about five minutes staring at the test thinking to myself, "What the hell is a derivative." It was sort of terrifying. So I began to panic think. Right when I literally was about to give up, I realized that the derivative of a linear equation is the rate of change. I almost danced. Almost.

I'm still not entirely sure I explained everything clearly, but I'm pretty sure I didn't fail. I can live with that.

Before I go, I'd just like to say I got 100% on my first computer science project. That is all.


...I may or not be screaming and dancing around my house.

Monday, September 24, 2012

School Time Panic

I'd like to say my classes were incredibly boring. For normal people, they probably were normal. I may have been the closest I've ever been to a melt down today. It started in my Introduction to Cultural Anthropology class, which is an 8 am so I should be having a melt down solely based on that.

I get to class and wait for class to start, listening to my sister's my iPod while drinking my coffee and I sort of start to get this bad feeling. Like I've forgotten something really important. That was quite possibly one of those things I'm not supposed to forget. Before I can pull out my planner and check, the teacher walks in a starts talking about the midterm we're having this Friday.

This is when my almost-melt down begins.

Oh dear God. I'd forgotten to check the syllabus for the test. Usually it's okay if you sort of mess up on one test in a class, because you'll have more and also have homework to compensate. Not so in this case. This class has exactly three grades: the midterm, the final, and an essay.

Eventually I talk myself out of my mental screaming and begin to write down what the teacher says is going to be on the exam. Here is where I realize I have to read and take notes on six chapters, and read several articles to make sure I don't fail this test.

I start screaming in my head again.

It's a good thing that the teacher's lectures are all about the readings from the book, otherwise it would have been real screaming. And possibly crying, too. So I know the majority of the material, but now I just have to take notes to be thorough. I can handle that.

Class is, for once, let out early so I don't have to speed walk to my next class, like I usually do. They slower walk sucked the heat out of my coffee, though, and that was really depressing. But at least I'm not almost late, like I am every other day of Computer Science.

Now, I just turned in my last project and did a lab. I was happy to have the weekend stress free. I think I would have liked to have this news before the weekend.

I have project number two due next week on Thursday (October 4), and the teacher claims this one's a lot harder than the last projects. Which I already had problems with. When she's going over the project, it doesn't sound too bad. Want to know when it does sound bad? When you're back at your apartment, shot up with caffeine and adrenaline, and can't even begin  to comprehend what you're reading. I'm going to be having a lot of questions next time we have class.

My Calculus class, while completely stressful and panic inducing, was probably one of my best classes of the day. I think I've mentioned it in one of my previous posts, about this portfolio I was waiting to get back. The portfolio that's 60% of my grade and is worth 150 points. And is my only grade. That came back today.

149/150 is 99%. Did you know that? Because I know that. Because that was my grade. I think I may have screamed. I know I slammed my portfolio onto my desk and flipped my arms up. The only point I lost was because of in-class participation. I can handle that.

I spent most of that class period just being happy, and understanding derivatives vaguely. I could also feel my adrenaline from panicking over the portfolio mixing with the caffeine from my coffee.

My last class after that is my Speech class. Usually, I sort of like this class, even though I'm a terrible speaker and all I want to do is curl up and die whenever I talk in front of large groups of people. The teacher's nice, she lets us out early a lot, and is really straight to the point. Unfortunately, I had to give a speech today.

It was a speech about a speech, and my caffeine-adrenaline laced self was not about to slow down for this.

I basically sped my way through the speech, and afterwards, I was sure I had missed the minimum time (1 minute 30 seconds, the maximum time being 2 minutes). But I didn't care too much by that point, because I had finished my speech, and I was basically done with classes. It was only as we were filing to get out of class that I realized that I was allowed to check my time with the timer.

Never have I been so glad to be tall. I basically got up on my tip toes and looked over everybody's shoulders.

It was exactly 1 minute and 30 seconds.

I may or may not have strutted out of the room. And out of the building. And all the way home.

This is all became too much for me. I literally bounced into the house, into the kitchen chair at the kitchen table, and danced to spotify in my chair for an hour. It was more of flailing and swaying frantically.

But that's how I dance all the time so...

I sort of stumbled my way through part of my project for a half an hour, before giving up. I made myself some lunch, and left for practice not that long afterwards.

Today was color day at practice! It's exactly what it sounds like; you dress all in one color and run like that. I was yellow (even my socks matched). My right foot sort of hurt during this, but I'm pretty sure that's because I wore my converse to class today, and the lack of arch just bothered my foot. So I made sure to do a little bit extra barefoot jogging at the end of my run.

I accidentally left my phone back at the apartment, though, so I missed my oldest sister's calls and text that she had my bike. So she had to come drop it off at my apartment. Oops! Oh well, I got to see my sister.

The rest of my night was lots of study tables (3 hours of study tables, to be exact) and anthropology notes.

Fun fact though, I found both my sister's blogs! Originally, the idea was for all of us to make blogs so we could see what each other were doing since we can't talk all the time or we'd kill each other because we're all sort of busy.

Oldest -- runeatnurse.blogspot.com/
Middle -- runningon-coffee.blogspot.com

Well, good night to everybody then! Or should I say good morning?