There is something to be said when a teacher, any teacher, tells a student "you're wrong" on the very first day she's in class and can't even explain why. There's something else to be said when you can prove you're correct, and have several other opinions to back you up, and still the issue remains. Finally, words fail when the teacher puts a question on the first test of the class, asking you to explain why it's wrong, when you know it's not.
This happened to me today. My grammar professor, on the first day of class, had assigned us a worksheet with sets of sentences. Some sentences in the sets were correct, others weren't. The set in question is "The child cried." vs "The child cried the story." She marked the second sentence as being grammatically incorrect, saying that the verb cried (referencing tears) is intransitive, meaning it cannot take an object. Therefore, by her standards, the second sentence violates the intransitiveness of the verb cried.
However, that's not entirely true, and I can provide evidence in support of my argument. The first issue with her claims is that cried CAN be a transitive verb, in two ways. If you're talking about crying tears, you could say "The child cried tears of joy." This sentence is both grammatically correct AND uses cried in a transitive way. The second relates to the sentence "The child cried the story." In that sentence cried as in tears would be grammatically incorrect; "the story" cannot fall from a child's eyes. However, if the verb is used to mean "shouted" or "exclaimed", it is entirely correct, if a bit awkward to say.
My first instance of support for "The child cried the story," is that you can add details to the sentence which make it sound better, without changing the initial grammar. Examples of this could be "The child cried the story from the rooftop," or "The child cried the story, and I listened." When I explained the first proof to my professor, she told me that the verb "cried" is different from "cried from". However, the word from does not change the verb cried, nor is "cried from" an entirely separate verb. When she insisted on not listening to my explanations, I gave up trying to explain, but knowing I was more correct.
Another way of looking at this grammar, still using the verb cried to mean shouted, is by changing the subject and object of the sentence. If we change "the child" to "the boy" and "the story" to "wolf", we suddenly have a well known sentence: "The boy who cried 'Wolf!'" Here, we don't assume that wolves are climbing out of the boy's tearducts. Readers know that the boy shouted the word "Wolf!" While "the story" is not a set of words being shouted, we know that a story must have words, each of which can be shouted.
So, having evaluated the sentence, her unsupported claim that I'm flat out wrong, and my supported reasoning for being correct, I decided to forget about the whole thing. That is, until the two sentences appeared on our first grammar test this afternoon. In this question, we were given two sentence pairs, the one listed above, and another. Our task was to identify why "The child cried" was correct, while "The child cried the story" was incorrect, and why both "Julio and I were down by the school yard" and "Me and Julio down by the school yard" were correct.
The answer she wanted for the first set was what I've explained about her reasoning. So I gave it to her, although it made me cringe. I need the points in that class, not to pick a fight and be failed. However, proving what she wanted for the second set (that both sentences are accurate) was even more painful, although slightly easier to deal with. Take a look at the second sentence. The first thing which should pop out is that "me and Julio" should be "Julio and I", but I recognize that in some dialects (an important part of this class) the first is considered correct as well. However, look more closely. There is NO VERB in that sentence. By any definition of a sentence, that's grammatically incorrect. Without a verb, it becomes a sentence fragment. However, she wanted us to say that it WAS correct because the pattern of dropping the word "were" is repeated in this dialect.
I accepted this because I don't have much experience listening to "Black English Vernacular" as she calls it (technically it's called Ebonics).
I don't like it.
I don't agree with it.
But I know, in this case, I could be wrong.
I'm writing this blog to get all this off of my chest. To prove to the world, with evidence, that I know what I'm talking about in this case. I must put up with this teacher because I need this class for my major. I must give her the answers she's looking for to earn the points required to pass the class. But I don't have to like it.
Friday, January 25, 2013
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Words
Words have incredible power. Sometimes, we don't realize just what effect our words will have. They may change a listener's day for the better or the worse, and often we don't know until we see his or her reactions. Words worm their way into our minds and sit there, burning a hole in what we thought we knew of our world. Sometimes, this hole is a good thing, and that burning is like the warmth felt when you sit beside a roaring fire on a cold winter night, when the air is toasty and smelling richly of burning wood, there's a wonderful dinner waiting for you, and outside the snow is falling gently through the night and the world is an untouched layer of white bliss.
Other times, this burning is the scalding feel of a frying pan accidentally brushed against bare skin, leaving horrible blisters in its wake, and the hole is a traumatizing split in the universe, a crack in the wall into which things fall and never return from. This is the kind of burning that currently sits in my heart, slowly working its way from the top to bottom, like a small, bright ember working it's way through a stack of paper, leaving a ragged hole through the middle. I know that the words which put it here were of harmless intent, and I don't blame the person who said them. I know the person who started this fire was just trying to keep me warm. But that doesn't stop the pain.
Most of the pain comes not from the words themselves, what was said, or who said it (again, I place no blame on the speaker), but from the drawn out agony of not knowing whether or not they are the truth. That is the trouble of gossip. By gossip I don't mean "Oh did you hear so-and-so got drunk at a party last night and ran off with other-so-and-so?" I mean talking about your own friends with their other friend. Not talking behind his or her back, of course. Just talking about them. Saying "S/he told me this, what did s/he tell you?" When one gossiper finds out something about the gossipee (new word) from the other gossiper that she didn't know before, this new information becomes the spark which lights the flame in their mind.
When this flame is the painful kind, gossiping cannot provide any sort of comfort against it. That is primarily because you haven't heard the information first hand, but rather from someone else. There is no way to be sure whether or not the gossiped words are true without talking to the gossipee, and when you can't get hold of that person for quite some time, the fires continue to burn. You NEED to hear something from them, confirming or denying the information you've just uncovered about them.
And after the new information is confirmed or denied, the process begins again. Words are heard, and new information is processed. The fire you were so desperately trying to squash out could just be reignited. Perhaps the newest information tames the fire, and makes it that blissful, warming kind that absolutely makes your day, but it's just as likely that the scalding feeling you have will only intensify and burn straight through you, leaving a gaping hole and searing pain in its wake.
Once that hole is complete, going all the way to the core of your being, nothing can fill it. Over time the edges may stop smoldering, but the emptiness will never heal. That information becomes part of a tragedy in our memories that changes us forever. Only once have I felt that kind of pain, and I am still subject to the smoldering edges. It changed me completely, but never stopped burning.
So now with a new ember sitting in my mind, I must wait, as patiently as possible, for confirmation or denial. In the mean time, every burning second reminds me why I have a policy (frequently ignored) of never gossiping.
Other times, this burning is the scalding feel of a frying pan accidentally brushed against bare skin, leaving horrible blisters in its wake, and the hole is a traumatizing split in the universe, a crack in the wall into which things fall and never return from. This is the kind of burning that currently sits in my heart, slowly working its way from the top to bottom, like a small, bright ember working it's way through a stack of paper, leaving a ragged hole through the middle. I know that the words which put it here were of harmless intent, and I don't blame the person who said them. I know the person who started this fire was just trying to keep me warm. But that doesn't stop the pain.
Most of the pain comes not from the words themselves, what was said, or who said it (again, I place no blame on the speaker), but from the drawn out agony of not knowing whether or not they are the truth. That is the trouble of gossip. By gossip I don't mean "Oh did you hear so-and-so got drunk at a party last night and ran off with other-so-and-so?" I mean talking about your own friends with their other friend. Not talking behind his or her back, of course. Just talking about them. Saying "S/he told me this, what did s/he tell you?" When one gossiper finds out something about the gossipee (new word) from the other gossiper that she didn't know before, this new information becomes the spark which lights the flame in their mind.
When this flame is the painful kind, gossiping cannot provide any sort of comfort against it. That is primarily because you haven't heard the information first hand, but rather from someone else. There is no way to be sure whether or not the gossiped words are true without talking to the gossipee, and when you can't get hold of that person for quite some time, the fires continue to burn. You NEED to hear something from them, confirming or denying the information you've just uncovered about them.
And after the new information is confirmed or denied, the process begins again. Words are heard, and new information is processed. The fire you were so desperately trying to squash out could just be reignited. Perhaps the newest information tames the fire, and makes it that blissful, warming kind that absolutely makes your day, but it's just as likely that the scalding feeling you have will only intensify and burn straight through you, leaving a gaping hole and searing pain in its wake.
Once that hole is complete, going all the way to the core of your being, nothing can fill it. Over time the edges may stop smoldering, but the emptiness will never heal. That information becomes part of a tragedy in our memories that changes us forever. Only once have I felt that kind of pain, and I am still subject to the smoldering edges. It changed me completely, but never stopped burning.
So now with a new ember sitting in my mind, I must wait, as patiently as possible, for confirmation or denial. In the mean time, every burning second reminds me why I have a policy (frequently ignored) of never gossiping.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Need-to-Know
*Forward: One of my room mates took offense to this. I'm sorry. This wasn't meant as an attack on them personally. Yes, I'm bothered by the fact that they only want to know about my life when I go away, but primarily this was aimed towards everyone who does this, not just them. ALL GIRLS DO THIS and it drives me crazy. For this past weekend, nothing was asked but that I tell them something, I was using examples from past experience to make the point. I sincerely apologize; I didn't mean to offend anyone.
Why is it that girls always need to know the tiniest details of one another's lives? Especially college room-mates. Especially when you just went home for the weekend and they weren't there to keep track of what you did 24/7. Not that they pay any particular attention to you during the week. This has been happening with me for the past few days.
Last weekend, I got to go home and spend a lot of time with people that I haven't seen in at least a month. I had breakfast with a group of friends, got to spend time at my best friend's house and see his family (and meet the new baby!), and had lunch with a good friend whom I haven't seen since the school year started. That's all I think anybody really needs to know about my weekend. But according to my room mates, that leaves out a lot.
What more do you want girls? Do you want to know how much time I spent in a car? Who's car it was? Who was driving? Where we were going? Do you want to know what I bought at the mall? How much it cost? You don't need to know what time I went to bed every night. You don't need to know who I spent the most time with, why, and whether or not I like them the most out of all my friends. You don't need to know what every person ordered for breakfast.
You don't need to pry into my personal life!
By the time next weekend rolls around, my room mates will be so caught up in their own little worlds that they won't give a flying f*** about my life. I'll sit in my little corner and become just another piece of furniture in their eyes. They'll go hang out with their friends, go to parties, have fun times at the local mall - all without me. If I'm even mentioned, it will probably just be to say how weird I am because I don't like to go partying and get drunk on Friday nights.
So, girls, here's a message for you. If you can't be bothered to spend some time with me and be my friend on a daily basis - friend being someone I can trust and confide in - don't expect me to spill every detail of my private life. If I don't trust you, I'm not going to tell you if I had sex this weekend! Stop asking! And what does it matter if I did? I know for a fact that at least one of you isn't pure, I just don't care. Neither should you.
To anyone else out there who's considering it - if it's none of your business, save me the effort of arguing with you and just don't ask the questions.
And for anyone who's concerned, I'm still a virgin. Sorry roomies, no sexy stories this weekend.
Why is it that girls always need to know the tiniest details of one another's lives? Especially college room-mates. Especially when you just went home for the weekend and they weren't there to keep track of what you did 24/7. Not that they pay any particular attention to you during the week. This has been happening with me for the past few days.
Last weekend, I got to go home and spend a lot of time with people that I haven't seen in at least a month. I had breakfast with a group of friends, got to spend time at my best friend's house and see his family (and meet the new baby!), and had lunch with a good friend whom I haven't seen since the school year started. That's all I think anybody really needs to know about my weekend. But according to my room mates, that leaves out a lot.
What more do you want girls? Do you want to know how much time I spent in a car? Who's car it was? Who was driving? Where we were going? Do you want to know what I bought at the mall? How much it cost? You don't need to know what time I went to bed every night. You don't need to know who I spent the most time with, why, and whether or not I like them the most out of all my friends. You don't need to know what every person ordered for breakfast.
You don't need to pry into my personal life!
By the time next weekend rolls around, my room mates will be so caught up in their own little worlds that they won't give a flying f*** about my life. I'll sit in my little corner and become just another piece of furniture in their eyes. They'll go hang out with their friends, go to parties, have fun times at the local mall - all without me. If I'm even mentioned, it will probably just be to say how weird I am because I don't like to go partying and get drunk on Friday nights.
So, girls, here's a message for you. If you can't be bothered to spend some time with me and be my friend on a daily basis - friend being someone I can trust and confide in - don't expect me to spill every detail of my private life. If I don't trust you, I'm not going to tell you if I had sex this weekend! Stop asking! And what does it matter if I did? I know for a fact that at least one of you isn't pure, I just don't care. Neither should you.
To anyone else out there who's considering it - if it's none of your business, save me the effort of arguing with you and just don't ask the questions.
And for anyone who's concerned, I'm still a virgin. Sorry roomies, no sexy stories this weekend.
Friday, October 19, 2012
The Other Kind of Day
Last time I wrote, I was having a really good day. The tables have turned over the past two days. I presume it started yesterday. Things just don't work out well when you have to spend all day writing a crappy Short Story essay in one day. It wasn't because I had procrastinated either, but because I didn't get permission to use my topic until Tuesday evening, and had class all day Wednesday. The only work I could get done on it Wednesday night was to find quotes... Anyway, I quickly discovered that it IS possible to be bored out of your skull while sitting in bed all day.
Probably the only good thing that came out of Thursday was discovering the music of Peter Hollens. He's an a cappella artist who creates multi-layer tracks of himself. I think the majority of my readers will especially enjoy this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlCPOCwo3FY
So after a nasty day and a tough night (there's only so much crappy essay writing I can do before the migranes set in) I woke up this morning to an 8:00 am class, and massive leg cramps. Wonderful, right? Not to mention it was Music (Intro. to Western Music) which is really boring for me. Right from there I knew today would be sour - which is really upsetting me, because I get to go home today. Perhaps it's looking forward to something so wonderful which is making the rest of the day take so long.
Somewhere between Anthropology, my second class of the day, and now, I developed nervous butterflies in my stomach. Now in addition to painful legs and a lingering headache, I feel queasy and have no idea why. Perhaps I'm making up for being so cheerful earlier in the week. This week started brilliantly, so maybe I used up my quota of goodness for the week all at once.
I apologize for ranting so meaninglessly about my life. When I started my blog, I meant to post about interesting things, and now it seems I just get stuck turning this into a journal, which is precisely what I don't like about blogging.
Hmmm, maybe my next blog should be about how much I don't like blogging. That would be quite a conundrum. Also, it might interest you to know that Spell Check for this page thinks "conumdrum" could be corrected to "conundrum" or "crematorium". Not quite sure about the second one...
Probably the only good thing that came out of Thursday was discovering the music of Peter Hollens. He's an a cappella artist who creates multi-layer tracks of himself. I think the majority of my readers will especially enjoy this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlCPOCwo3FY
So after a nasty day and a tough night (there's only so much crappy essay writing I can do before the migranes set in) I woke up this morning to an 8:00 am class, and massive leg cramps. Wonderful, right? Not to mention it was Music (Intro. to Western Music) which is really boring for me. Right from there I knew today would be sour - which is really upsetting me, because I get to go home today. Perhaps it's looking forward to something so wonderful which is making the rest of the day take so long.
Somewhere between Anthropology, my second class of the day, and now, I developed nervous butterflies in my stomach. Now in addition to painful legs and a lingering headache, I feel queasy and have no idea why. Perhaps I'm making up for being so cheerful earlier in the week. This week started brilliantly, so maybe I used up my quota of goodness for the week all at once.
I apologize for ranting so meaninglessly about my life. When I started my blog, I meant to post about interesting things, and now it seems I just get stuck turning this into a journal, which is precisely what I don't like about blogging.
Hmmm, maybe my next blog should be about how much I don't like blogging. That would be quite a conundrum. Also, it might interest you to know that Spell Check for this page thinks "conumdrum" could be corrected to "conundrum" or "crematorium". Not quite sure about the second one...
Monday, October 15, 2012
One of Those Days
Heads up, this is a superficial recounting of the events of my day. There's no point to it, only my ramblings.
Have you ever had one of THOSE days? Those days when everything either goes right or wrong, and you don't really know which way events are heading until they happen? I had one of those days today.
I guess you could say today started last night. I had caffeine, for the first time in months. It had been far too long. Just a small mug of Dunkin' Doughnuts mocha flavored coffee from the Keurig and I was jittery and bouncing off the walls, or at least on the bed. But, I made the mistake of having caffeine after dinner. I couldn't get to sleep until late last night, or this morning, and when I did it wasn't a very deep sleep. I woke up at seven and tossed and turned until nine, when I finally had to get up and go to class.
You'd think, starting the day with as little sleep as I did, that today would turn out badly, but it didn't. My first class, Anthropology, wasn't too interesting, I'll admit, but the computer programming homework I had to do after it was really easy. Then I went to my programming class and was handed a test I thought I'd failed. 48/50 points made for a good solid A, and my day only got better from there. Little things, details too trivial to mention, kept piling up between my classes, and by the time I got to Choir, my last class of the day, I was feeling practically bubbly.
Choir has been difficult for me this year - there are fewer sopranos to sing with, and to be honest, we're not as good as my high school choir was. Because there are so few of us, it's much easier to hear who makes the mistakes, and often I'm embarrassed by the way my voice cracks on the really high notes. Things going as they were today, though, I amazed myself with near perfection. Each and every note was on pitch, and strong, even those I previously struggled to hit. By the end, I was giggling at the slightest thing and could not for the life of me wipe the smile from my face.
I had a really bad week last week, so a day like this was wonderfully refreshing. I don't think I've been this happy since the summer, with all of my friends around me. And today I was all alone! Sometimes life surprises me.
I hope you have one of these days soon. Everyone needs a day to just go exactly right every once in a while, or the stress will drive us insane.
Have you ever had one of THOSE days? Those days when everything either goes right or wrong, and you don't really know which way events are heading until they happen? I had one of those days today.
I guess you could say today started last night. I had caffeine, for the first time in months. It had been far too long. Just a small mug of Dunkin' Doughnuts mocha flavored coffee from the Keurig and I was jittery and bouncing off the walls, or at least on the bed. But, I made the mistake of having caffeine after dinner. I couldn't get to sleep until late last night, or this morning, and when I did it wasn't a very deep sleep. I woke up at seven and tossed and turned until nine, when I finally had to get up and go to class.
You'd think, starting the day with as little sleep as I did, that today would turn out badly, but it didn't. My first class, Anthropology, wasn't too interesting, I'll admit, but the computer programming homework I had to do after it was really easy. Then I went to my programming class and was handed a test I thought I'd failed. 48/50 points made for a good solid A, and my day only got better from there. Little things, details too trivial to mention, kept piling up between my classes, and by the time I got to Choir, my last class of the day, I was feeling practically bubbly.
Choir has been difficult for me this year - there are fewer sopranos to sing with, and to be honest, we're not as good as my high school choir was. Because there are so few of us, it's much easier to hear who makes the mistakes, and often I'm embarrassed by the way my voice cracks on the really high notes. Things going as they were today, though, I amazed myself with near perfection. Each and every note was on pitch, and strong, even those I previously struggled to hit. By the end, I was giggling at the slightest thing and could not for the life of me wipe the smile from my face.
I had a really bad week last week, so a day like this was wonderfully refreshing. I don't think I've been this happy since the summer, with all of my friends around me. And today I was all alone! Sometimes life surprises me.
I hope you have one of these days soon. Everyone needs a day to just go exactly right every once in a while, or the stress will drive us insane.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Curing Boredom
I never thought I'd start a blog. I've been against them from when the first of my friends bought into the idea of creating one. I always thought they were nothing more than a public journal - a cry for attention falling on public ears, but with a certain anonymity to the general reader. This anonymity leads one to tell more than one should, reveal details about him/herself that shouldn't be told. Ever. And yet they are.
Yet, here I am, typing away at this blank page, at nearly 3 AM because I just can not get to sleep. Maybe I am desperate. Maybe I'm feeling lonely, and just need someone, anyone to listen. Mostly I'm blogging because I was told I needed some way to occupy my free time other than pestering people with texts. Free time, something most people strive for and desire. I have far too much of it. Anyone interested in taking some off my hands?
But really, my lack of activities has become a serious problem. At the end of August, I moved away from my home. I left my family and friends behind. My beloved friends... the Nerd Clot of SCASD High School's North Building. How I wish we were back in those halls. Every hour of the day was caught up in school or after school activities. Homework drove us insane. Yet, we still found time for each other - the time between classes, passing in the halls, lunch periods, and even the very early mornings when we first arrived at school and gathered to clot the hallway. I've been thinking about those times a lot lately. Laughing at each other's crazy antics was always something I took for granted. Now, I want nothing more than to reclaim those days, those laughs, that love we shared.
But those days are few and far between now that we've all graduated and gone off to college. Members of the NC are scattered far and wide across the country - from far to the north down to the deep south. I moved from a relatively large house I shared with my mother and little brother to a small Honors dorm suite in Erie, PA. It's nice compared to normal dorms, believe me, but it's not home. The bed is crap, first of all, and there's a street lamp right outside the window that shines in every night if we don't close the blinds tightly. I share the bedroom with my roommate, whom I shall refer to as A. We also have access to a small "study area" (we call it the kitchen, it has a mini fridge, microwave, and cabinets) and a nice bathroom. We share these spaces with our suite mates, E and M. The other girls are nice enough, but again, they're not my beloved Clot friends.
While we were in high school, all the teachers pushed us harder and harder each year. They told us "it's to prepare you for college, when classes will be much harder and you'll have more homework." Well, I don't know if my Senior year of high school was just too hard or if my Freshman year of college is way too easy, but, thus far, I'm bored. I'm taking 17 credits (more than is required to be a full-time student), and one of those is an honors course. Even so, I don't have enough classwork to keep me busy. After I've done all my work for the day and gone to all my classes, I find myself with hours of empty time. At first, I was texting my best friend every spare moment I had because I had so much time in which to feel lonely. I didn't realize that his schedule was much busier than mine, and that my texts would pressure his already full-to-bursting days. Now, though, I've learned otherwise. It was a painful lesson to learn, but I will hold to the promise I made him not to drive him nuts. Texting constantly is not a good way to occupy my time.
So now what do I do? I got tired of the computer games I had at my disposal within the first month of being here. Macs suck for gaming, in case anyone had forgotten. I've done some reading, but nothing holds my focus. I've actually been doing more writing these days than I have in a very long time - I've made some serious progress on the novel I'm working on revising. And I found a new hobby: writing computer programs. Simple ones, but which do cool things like say "Happy Birthday" to my little brother, and "Go Away" if you're anyone else. I've explored the entire top floor of the campus library, and taken walks all around campus and even back into the woods to the Gorge. The Gorge is beautiful - a true natural wonder. It's a small canyon out in the woods behind our campus, with a creek running along the bottom and steep sides blanketed in trees, all turning colors in the fall weather. At night you can't see the bottom, but if you look up you can nearly reach the heavens. All this, and still, I'm bored.
So in an effort to restrain myself from texting, desperate for companionship, I've decided to take up blogging, the once-hated past time. My blogs will probably be long ramblings about my life, like this one, but I hope they will each have some sort of point to them.
Yet, here I am, typing away at this blank page, at nearly 3 AM because I just can not get to sleep. Maybe I am desperate. Maybe I'm feeling lonely, and just need someone, anyone to listen. Mostly I'm blogging because I was told I needed some way to occupy my free time other than pestering people with texts. Free time, something most people strive for and desire. I have far too much of it. Anyone interested in taking some off my hands?
But really, my lack of activities has become a serious problem. At the end of August, I moved away from my home. I left my family and friends behind. My beloved friends... the Nerd Clot of SCASD High School's North Building. How I wish we were back in those halls. Every hour of the day was caught up in school or after school activities. Homework drove us insane. Yet, we still found time for each other - the time between classes, passing in the halls, lunch periods, and even the very early mornings when we first arrived at school and gathered to clot the hallway. I've been thinking about those times a lot lately. Laughing at each other's crazy antics was always something I took for granted. Now, I want nothing more than to reclaim those days, those laughs, that love we shared.
But those days are few and far between now that we've all graduated and gone off to college. Members of the NC are scattered far and wide across the country - from far to the north down to the deep south. I moved from a relatively large house I shared with my mother and little brother to a small Honors dorm suite in Erie, PA. It's nice compared to normal dorms, believe me, but it's not home. The bed is crap, first of all, and there's a street lamp right outside the window that shines in every night if we don't close the blinds tightly. I share the bedroom with my roommate, whom I shall refer to as A. We also have access to a small "study area" (we call it the kitchen, it has a mini fridge, microwave, and cabinets) and a nice bathroom. We share these spaces with our suite mates, E and M. The other girls are nice enough, but again, they're not my beloved Clot friends.
While we were in high school, all the teachers pushed us harder and harder each year. They told us "it's to prepare you for college, when classes will be much harder and you'll have more homework." Well, I don't know if my Senior year of high school was just too hard or if my Freshman year of college is way too easy, but, thus far, I'm bored. I'm taking 17 credits (more than is required to be a full-time student), and one of those is an honors course. Even so, I don't have enough classwork to keep me busy. After I've done all my work for the day and gone to all my classes, I find myself with hours of empty time. At first, I was texting my best friend every spare moment I had because I had so much time in which to feel lonely. I didn't realize that his schedule was much busier than mine, and that my texts would pressure his already full-to-bursting days. Now, though, I've learned otherwise. It was a painful lesson to learn, but I will hold to the promise I made him not to drive him nuts. Texting constantly is not a good way to occupy my time.
So now what do I do? I got tired of the computer games I had at my disposal within the first month of being here. Macs suck for gaming, in case anyone had forgotten. I've done some reading, but nothing holds my focus. I've actually been doing more writing these days than I have in a very long time - I've made some serious progress on the novel I'm working on revising. And I found a new hobby: writing computer programs. Simple ones, but which do cool things like say "Happy Birthday" to my little brother, and "Go Away" if you're anyone else. I've explored the entire top floor of the campus library, and taken walks all around campus and even back into the woods to the Gorge. The Gorge is beautiful - a true natural wonder. It's a small canyon out in the woods behind our campus, with a creek running along the bottom and steep sides blanketed in trees, all turning colors in the fall weather. At night you can't see the bottom, but if you look up you can nearly reach the heavens. All this, and still, I'm bored.
So in an effort to restrain myself from texting, desperate for companionship, I've decided to take up blogging, the once-hated past time. My blogs will probably be long ramblings about my life, like this one, but I hope they will each have some sort of point to them.
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