Thanksgiving

For my Thanksgiving, I went home for the whole weekend, and did not get back until Monday. This was great because I got to see a whole bunch of my friends as well as my family. On Wednesday I left the school at about 3:30 but I did not get home until about 7 because of all of the traffic. On Thursday, I had to come all the way back up to St. Petersburg from Sarasota county because we were going to my Mom's friends house for Thanksgiving. When we got there, we had to wait for all of the food to finish and for everyone else to arrive, but it was worth it. There was a whole bunch of choices both for the actual meal and then for dessert, a couple of hours after the meal. We eventually went home at around 8, but I was too tired to do anything except go to sleep. For the rest of the weekend, I would hangout with my friends. This was really fun because this was the first time I really got to see a lot of them since I had left for college.

Registering for classes

This week was the first week that I was allowed to register for classes. When I saw my advisor, the classes that she suggested for me were pretty vague. She only told me what areas to take my classes in. There was only one class that she actually suggested and it looked pretty gay so I decided that when it came time to pick the classes that there would be an easy way to look at classes. When Monday came, I looked at the site and did not have a clue about where to start looking for classes. It took me a thirty minutes to find out where I can look at the different types of classes. But then I did not what classes to take. I finally found a little tab at the end that said something about undergraduate requirements, and that helped me to find all of the classes that I needed. I finished registering yesterday. I was not sure about all of the classes that I took but they were the ones left at the times I wanted so I hope that they are not bad.

End of the Semester

There are only a couple more weeks left in this semester. Towards the end I hope that my grades don't fall because right now I do not want to do any work at all. We still got finals to get through and some of my classes still have exams before the finals. However, always around this time of the year I have started to slack off. It gets harder and harder to motivate myself to finsih an assignment and I also start to not care about what grades I get on my assignments. Hopefully my grades won't slip too much before the finals and I do good enough to pass my classes.

IDK

It seems that everything that we are supposed to get done has to be done all at the same time, and is due one right after the other. There is an awful lot of writing that comes with each of my classes. I have to write two essays this weekend and I also have to make sure that they are both MLA otherwise I will lose a lot of points. I also have to start studying for an exam that is coming up. Plus finals are also coming for up for each class. I sure wish that it was a little more spread out. I hate whining about stuff, especially stupid stuff like this but I also had to write a blog as well and this was the thing that I could write the most on.

Blog

I voted early last weekend. When I got the ballot, I was shocked to find out about all of the different things that I have to vote for. In addition to having the presidential ballot, there was a bunch of local officials to vote for, and a bunch of ammendments as well. I had no idea about the local officials. I did not know what they had done or who I should vote for. Also, many of the ammendments were very long and hard to understand without having to read a couple of times. I think that one thing that should be changed is that they should have a simplified version of the ballot. What if someone who is very impatient gets there ballot, they might answer yes or no and not even agree with what they voted for. Also, I felt like leaving the ballot blank was not a choice because I had heard that if there are too many blanks than your ballot can be invalidated, and while I was not sure about that, I was not going to take that risk.

UE

When I was getting ready for college, a lot of people told me that I was going to have to write more, but this was more than what I expected. I have to write papers in classes that should not have anything to do with writing. In some classes, I have more to write than in composition. In my history class, we had two essay questions for a test, and they were due in 50 minutes. The worst class so far has been my University Experience class. I do not like it, and I am not sure if anyone in our class actually likes it as well. I am sort of mad at my orientation leader for telling us all to take it. She said it was a good way to get to know the college and that it was fun. She must have had a different teacher or something because this class is not fun. On top of being at 7:30 in the morning, and it being almost 2 hours long, the projects that are supposed to help us get to know the campus better are more of obstacles in the way of me getting a good grade. Our teacher also wants us to write 3 4-6 page papers on our personal experiences, career goals, and some other dumb topic. These topics are not like research papers, where you can fill in space with statistics. I have to actually write all of that. I do not like writing about a topic that you have to stretch more than it will go. I know that next year, if I meet someone taking it, I am going to tell them they should probably get out.

Joe the Plumber ?

I did not see the presidential debate, but when I started to look around to see how each candidate had done, I found that there had been talk about someone called Joe the plumber. I looked him up on the internet and found a website that had interviewed him. Though the website said that it was a republican website, Joe the plumber provided some fairly valuable points. He thinks that Barrack Obama’s tax plan will put America down a socialist path. The reason why he thinks this is because Senator Obama said the reason why he was taxing him for making more money was to “redistribute the wealth.” While I think that the wealthier should get taxed more, not enough to take their wealth away from them, I think that the money should be used for government spending, and not to just give away as a handout. Mr. Plumber also said that this will encourage some people to just take more advantage of a welfare system that is already being taken advantage of. He believes that while some people will use it to make themselves better, most of them will just take the money and live off of that. While I think that most people would be better than that, what if he is right? The money that is being taken away from people who worked for their wealth could be given to someone who might not even do anything to help themselves with it. I believe in helping people, but only if they are willing to help themselves. If someone is not prepared to do anything for themselves than they should not receive the same help that someone who is. Also, some people are willing to live off of others their whole lives. As long as they are getting enough money to live off of, they do not see any need to work harder. So should they be getting a break while someone who worked harder is slammed with a bigger tax? While I agree with Senator Obama that the wealthy should get taxed more than the poor, on a graduated tax, I do not think that someone should just get a free ticket because they did not work as hard, which is what could happen.

Sun Dome speach

Even though I like having my class early because it frees up the whole afternoon for me to do stuff, I wish for one day that it was not. Senator Joe Biden, the democratic nominee for Vice President was speaking at the Sun Dome on Oct. 8th. I have not been following the election very closely, and I thought that this was a chance for me to catch up by hearing what one of the potential vice presidents thinks about what is happening, what should be done, and how it should be done. Even though most of this stuff is available on the internet, I think that it would probably make more of an impact if I heard him say it, or if I had even asked him a question. The next time that one of the candidates is speaking on campus, if they even do, I am going to try and see them as well, whether it is who I support or not.

History Exam

I got my first history exam back and I was not too happy about it. Back in high school, a 74 would not have bothered me, but the reason why it is bothering me now is because so much more is riding on this grade. My Bright Futures scholarship says that I have to maintain higher than a 3.0 to receive it. If this becomes a habit I could very quickly find myself needing some money. Also, this exam was the first one, and usually the first exams are the easiest. So if I only got a c on the first exam I think that I am going to need to study harder on the next exam. Another problem is that in high school your grade was based on so much more than just your tests, which meant that you had a little room to do bad on a test or two. In this class we only get points for the tests, discussions, and occasionally a writing assignment. The only reason why I did so bad was because we only had 50 minutes to do three identities, where you identify a historical figure in one paragraph, and two essays. I just hope that by the next exam I will be able to write faster.

Election Day is here already

Election Day is getting closer and closer. I am registered to vote, but back in my hometown, which is 80 miles away so I do not think that I will be going back there to vote on a Tuesday. At the same time, I am not even sure if I am ready to choose one of the candidates to be the next president. From what I have heard, I think that Obama might be my choice. But I have not been giving this election my full attention. I have heard some of the things that have been happening and they registered with me, but I have not sat down, looked at what both candidates are saying that they will do, and decided with which one I agree. This makes me feel that if I did vote that I would be making a mistake because it would be an uneducated vote. Especially now, with all that is happening in the world and within this country, I think that we need to make sure that we make the right choice. Right now America is in a hole, and if we do not make the right choice it is just going to get deeper. I am not sure if anyone else is where I am at, but I feel like I need to start paying more attention to politics now. When I was in high school voting seemed like a pretty distant thing, but now it is here, and I need to buckle down and do what I need to do to make sure that I can vote in this next election, and that my vote is what I believe to be the right choice.

College Week 3

In my third week at USF I have started to get a little more adjusted to living on campus. I have gotten used to the hours that I need to devote to work and free-time. I have also learned where all my classes are and what times they are at. I know my way around most of the campus although there are some parts that I have not been able to get to. However, one thing that I am going to have to readjust myself to is the workload. It was hard for me coming back from the summer because I did not do anything that involved school at all, but the first two weeks were not terrible. I managed to get my assignments done. But when I looked at the schedule for this week I saw a significant change in the workload. Now I have three writing assignments due, numerous chapters in different books to read, and weekly assignments that have to be taken care of on top of all of these new things to do. I knew that college was going to get tougher but I was hoping that it was going to be a little later in my college career, maybe a semester or two. The only thing that is good is that I have started to adjust to living on the campus, and that hopefully being adjusted to college life will help get used to college work.

First Week of Classes

What I liked about the first week of classes was how I got long breaks between all of my classes. On Mondays I didn’t have to wake up until 9:00 a.m. and I could take my time getting to my classes. Not like in my high school where if you woke up after seven you were going to be late. I also liked meeting new people in my classes because I did not know too many people up here. I did not like finding out about how much writing I was going to have to do because writing is not something I like to do. I also hated any class I had in the lecture hall because all the classes I have are around 12:00, when it starts to get hot outside, and if you do not get to the lecture hall early you will not get a seat but if you get there too early you end up standing outside while the class before yours finishes up. Also, the classes are pretty boring so I start to fall asleep halfway through them. Another thing that I did not like was having to wake up so early on Friday because my class was at 7:30. By Friday I was just flat out tired of all the new classes and adjusting to my college life that it was almost impossible for me to wake up. I managed to do it but I was tired and not enthusiastic for anything and could not force myself to talk for the class discussion. But over all I would say that it was a pretty good first week of classes.