~|| SOUL TOAST ~|~ Away, into the distance ~|~ ver. 19.0 ||~

4~9~06 ~| |~ 6:54PM

I now have time to blog for the first time since summer. Sorry, but I've been busy, and I will continue to be busy.

My life is good. I'm graduating in may with a BA in psychology (minor in anthropology) and will probably go to University of Kansas for their Counseling master's program. I expect to finish with a perfect year of straight A's. After that, I'll probably do my doctorate elsewhere. This summer I am going to live with my wonderful boyfriend in Michigan whom I love very much. I am also going to volunteer at a women's center or domestic abuse shelter, because I am thinking that may be what I want to do with the rest of my career. While I don't have time for very much fun stuff anymore (like blogging), I am very content and happy. Till next time...

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So, I had a huge blog post written up about 2 months ago. Then I stupidly overwrote it right before uploading it. Then I got lazy. Soooo I’ll post bit by bit what’s happened in small doses. I am sure some of my friends, yes, would like the details, but I also do these posts for my reference. Like an archive of my life or something. I do occasionally like to go back through my blog to see what was going on in my life at the time. It’s scary how much we forget.

Junior year was a good year. I became a really serious student and finally started living up to my potential. I keep gaining so much confidence year after year. My transformation is marvelous to think about, really. I’m doing things now that I didn’t think I was able to do in the past.

Y’know, my deleted post on this was a heck of a lot better, but we’ll just have to deal with that, won’t we?

Anyway, classes. Classes!

JPN 131B - Elementary Japanese. The sensei for this semester was nice and she was damn well 元気. I think she was acting how Japanese people stereotype Americans to act. It was very strange, watching her attempt some “American” gestures that seemed very exaggerated. Her English, compared to the sensei from last year, was also terrible. I always winced when she’d announce “Okay, number A!” when we were going over exercises in the book. She definitely has a lot to work on. Her teaching was also really poor. You had to teach yourself, bleh. The only reason I’m being kinda harsh on her is because all the other Japanese teachers I’ve seen speak English very well. I just went from a really good (albeit strict and somewhat scary) sensei to a really crappy one. The only thing she had going for her was her creative activities.

Grade: A. I didn’t do so great on the first few exams, but you’re able to do test corrections for a ton of extra points. Easy-peasy.

ENG 290 - Intermediate Analytical Writing. My instructor was a Shakespearian black guy from Florida who was very close to getting his PhD. He loves arguments. He tried to bring in debate to the class, which was bothersome to me because a lot of people resorted to shouting. He was certainly an animated fellow and very dynamic. And had a strong pitch to his speaking. I knew a guy from my Japanese class who had a class right next door to this one. He said that sometimes they just sat in silence, listening to the antics from the other room.

Anyway, I did terribly on the first paper. Way different from anything I’ve ever had to write. It was kind of shocking to me, since I usually get easy A’s on my papers. But for his class, I had to go in and talk with him to nail down the kind of structure he wanted. That’s all it really was. Just see how he wants the paper to be set up and do it.

Grade: Easy A, although the class was frustrating at times.

PSYC 307 - Social Psychology. By far, my favorite psyc class. I loved the professor and soon asked if I could RA for her. I absolutely adore this subject now. The activities were a lot of fun and the material was so interesting.

Grade: A, naturally.

PSYC 311 - Field Research Methods of Psychology. My doom class. It was difficult and frustrating and a lot of work. But the research project we pulled together was rewarding to finish. Technically we were supposed to have groups of four but we got put in the odd three person group. Then one of the group members flopped out on us, leaving us to basically do all the work ourselves. Bleh. The professor scared me a bit, but at least she was willing to help students when they asked.

I must, however, relate a most hilarious scene that happened the last class before spring break.

It was another long, boring class. We were being lectured on ANOVAs. Our prof. pointed out that a particular student was grinning a lot. His response? “If I let you punch me in the face, will you let us go?” Her incredulous response was priceless. And everyone just kind of packed up and left, because the prof. was too stupefied to let us do otherwise.

Grade: B. Feh, ruined my perfect year. Could have been worse, I suppose.

PSYC 305 - Psychology of Personality. I enjoyed this class, too. The autophotography project was especially rewarding. He was such a nice professor, and easy to approach too. I felt like a teacher’s pet, though, because sometimes he’d talk to me or ask me to do something. The exams were challenging, but there was so much extra credit that it didn’t matter.

Grade: A, of course.

PSYC 392 - Individual Project. Just working in my social psyc prof’s lab. Kind of dull and tedious, since I was only running subjects. Alas. At least my partner was surprisingly amusing.

So, it was a good year. I’ll blog more about summer and classes later.