I just finished my Fall semester for 2012 today at UVU. This was, by far, the hardest semester I’ve ever had since I’ve been in school. It was brutal. I had three classes which carried with it more work than I was expecting, and I spent a lot of time in the past four months doing nothing but homework. I was talking to my cousin tonight about it (while we were doing some late-night skateboarding in the winter, which, it’s actually really nice out here right now), and I mentioned that the stress was a huge burden on me. Stress is normal, but I’ve learned that if something heavy is really going on, I notice I will stop being cheery. I don’t really get somber, but it’s more like, just focused and serious all the time. Which can be a real bummer.
But, the semester is finished, and it’s freed up a lot of time and has taken that huge burden off of me. I got good grades, and along with that, and some great friends that really stepped up at the last minute and helped me out, it’s really gotten me humbled and grateful to God and everyone that stood by me. I’m really glad this semester is done.
One thing I learned from this last jaunt around is that I’ve decided I’m never taking online classes again. I had two this semester, and one on campus. Looking back, I’ve always had a range of issues with online courses. Either I don’t understand the material very well because I can’t chat with the professor one on one, or I slack the whole time (I did 50% of the coursework in one day. I’m not kidding). The worst one though is I never really feel like I “get” the material. I jump through hoops, get a grade, and move on, but it doesn’t seem like I learned anything.
So, I’m sticking to just two classes from here on out, and doing them all on-campus. That’ll be manageable.
For now I’m really looking forward to not so much having more time, but having less stress. I’ve been wanting to work on some cool side projects, and I also have been itching to go skating … a lot. So tonight I went on a two-hour run with my cousin down Main Street in Bountiful, and it was really cool. We call it a “mort run” since we start at the top of a hill and go all the way down to the mortuary. It’s smooth all the way down and you can just push around and then either skate back up hill or walk. It’s a good workout.
The best part tonight though was debating whether or not we should go to the drive-through at Del Taco, knock on the window and ask for something. We didn’t, but we circled the place like eight times and probably freaked out the employees while we debated it. Eventually, we realized he didn’t have enough cash to buy something on the dollar menu (he was a penny short), so we spent half an hour wandering around downtown looking for lost change. It was pretty fun. 🙂
Soooooooooooo ….. projects. One thing I have time to look into now is znurt.org. It’s broken. I’ve known it’s been broken. It would take me probably less than an hour to fix it. I haven’t made the time, for a lot of reasons. It’s actually been on my calendar reminding me over and over that I need to get it done. I’m debating what to do about the site. I could just fix the one error and move on, but it’s still kind of living in a state of neglect. Ideally, I should hand the project over to someone else and let them maintain it. I dunno yet. Part of me doesn’t wanna let it go, but I guess a bigger part doesn’t care enough to actually fix it so … yah. Gotta make a decision there.
Other than that, not much going on. I moved to a new apartment, back into a complex. I like it here. I have a dishwasher now, which I’m really grateful for (I haven’t had one in the last three apartments). The funny thing about that is I seriously have so few dishes, that filling up the entire thing with all of mine it’s half full.
Anyhoo, I am really looking forward to moving on. My big thing is I wanna get some serious skating time in while I’ve got the time. That and enjoy the holidays with friends and family. I’m looking forward to next semester too. I’ve got a class on meteorology and another on U.S. history. I’m almost done with generals. The crazy part about all of this? Since I went back to school two years ago, I’ve put in 30 credit hours. Insane, for someone working full time. I tell you what.