Fall Break and Classes

Fall break weekend was a nice decompresser from the hustle and bustle of college. It came right at the opportune time ... right after week 8 (if you don't know what week 8 is i'll give you a hint: two words ... MID and TERM).

I stayed caught up with my classes, so midterm wasn't terrible, but I know for a fact that I still have a couple breakout patches on my face from the stress. The teachers did a great job at calming us down (especially us freshman), and some of my classes scheduled their midterms for a couple weeks before week 8, so it wasn't too terrible.

My Business 101 professor broke our course up into thirds, so we had our first "midterm" two weeks ago. My Jazz professor gives us 4 exams throughout the semester, so we did not have a midterm for her last week, and I have my second math exam tomorrow!!!!! (I'm taking a study break ... if you can't tell).

What is really cool about my English 113 class is that it is more based around writing than it is about reading assignments. My English professor is so neat because he lets us write basically about whatever we want in our OWN style (I know many high school students get bored of writing in the typical five paragraph essay format ... so being able to write creatively makes writing exciting!) We wrote an paper on the essay "The Dreamer Did Not Exist," and we were allowed to write the paper however we wanted as long as we were effectively able to inform our readers.

My microbiology course is a sprint course. I had no idea what a sprint course was when I signed up for the class, nor did I after I signed up. It wasn't until I got to the class the first day of class and received the syllabus that I learned that I would be finishing with the class in the beginning of NOVEMBER (!!!!!!!!!) I cannot tell you how excited I was ... NO SCIENCE for an entire month and a half!! I was elated ... I'm pretty sure I danced all the way back to my dorm...

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I cannot believe I'm admitting this now, but my microbiology class turned out to be SUCH an interesting class. I am almost a little upset that it is ending. It was formatted different than other science courses that I've taken, and so I was able to interact with people in my class once a week. We were given Critical Thinking Assignments (CTAs) each week which we completed for 5 completion points. When we would come to class the following day we would get into our small groups which were comprised of about 14 or 15 people and we discussed our answers and usually got another CTA that was similar to the one we had just completed. We would write a group response that was 10 points.

Nevertheless, I was so excited for my mom to pick me up Thursday after my classes! I love Miami, but I missed my city. I missed my comfortable bed in my quiet bedroom, and I missed my cat. I also missed my brothers and my mom and dad. Even though I had only been gone for about 6 weeks (since I went home for a day over Labor Day) I felt like my life at home was completely different ... I felt out of the loop ... and I didn't like it AT ALL.

My mom emailed me earlier in the week because she wanted to know what I wanted for dinner. It was easy: Chili, Grandma's Soup, and Steak. The food at Miami is excellent (and my friends who have come from other schools to visit said that it is way better than theirs) but I missed my mom's homecookin'.

I must admit ... after the weekend I was decompressed and revved up to start the second half of first semester. Freshman year is absolutely FLYING. I'm scared to see how fast college is going to go. As my dad says, "[life] just keeps getting faster ... ENJOY IT!"