-WARNING-

The National Blather Service has issued a Severe CitrusStorm Warning for the following area(s):
The world.

Expect torrential downpours of tropical insanity, especially in the morning and evening hours.

The College Adventures of CitrusStorm - Part 3

Hey-o! Part 3 of my first week of college is here!

I got homework! Homework to do, homework to be done. I've a Psychology paper, an English paper, a Japanese dialogue exercise, and more Asian art lectures and geology lectures to listen too.

Yeah... not much happened today. Aside from the International Studies open house that I went to! I got lots of information about their upcoming trip to Japan! I was so excited... until I saw the price tag. It was... a bit much, considering they weren't even going to cover air fare. So I had to pass on that dream for now. Dx

The College Adventures of CitrusStorm - Part 2

Heya! Here's a recap of my second day on campus:

To avoid all traffic trouble, I took the back way to the parking lot that's furthest from the school. No problems finding a spot; I just got a lot of exercise. Luckily I made it on time to my first class.

It's an English class, the second in a series on Literary Study. There were 3 people from previous English classes there, but they didn't talk to me. It's like they're not interested in catching up or anything. =[ Anyway, the class went smoothly, with our teacher running through the syllabus and giving a small lesson on analyzing passages. Then he called on me when he asked the class how they read a novel for school as opposed to reading for pleasure. So I told him that I try to mentally rewrite the story as I read it - I take the plot in various different directions to ask myself questions about motivations and character attributes that I wouldn't normally think about just by reading the text as is. He seemed impressed. Which means I've doomed myself as a selected smart guy to call upon when there's nobody else who wants to answer. Dx

After that class was finished, I hustled on over to the Engineering Center on the other side of campus for my intro to Geology. That Engineering Center is nice; it just got refurbished, and there's a huge touchscreen on the wall in the main lobby. Our professor for the geology class was a very pleasant man, and launched into a course overview about why science is important. Though when he got to olden day creation myths and highlighted one from India about the land being on the back of an elephant riding a stack of turtles in the ocean, I had to insert a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles exclamation. "TURTLE POWER!!"

And that was it for my second day. Tune in tomorrow to discover what happens when homework is actually issued! =O

The College Adventures of CitrusStorm - Part 1

Hey all! Officially, my first day of my Junior year has come to a close. Here's a recap of what happened to me on this day:

The traffic on the road was fine until I got to the parking lot. Everybody and their 5 brothers from Kansas was there trying to get a spot close to the campus. They'd circle the same block again and again, waiting for somebody to move their car. So I took the high ground and drove all the way to the back lot, where a space is always available to the health-conscious adventurer who doesn't mind a cross-country hike. (It's not too bad; from that lot to the opposite side of campus is less than 10 minutes. Still, you gotta walk fast.) So I got my spot and hot-footed it to my first class, Asian Art History.

The class was so full that there were people standing and sitting against the back wall. The class itself seems to be pretty easy; show up for class, take notes, write the stuff, take the tests, pass. No problem whatsoever.

Immediately following this class was Japanese language time! It's Japanese conversation (a 3000 level class~) and hoo boy, what a rush! Our teacher did NOT let up on us; she gave most of the class in Japanese. I will admit a missed a couple of sentences (because I didn't review as much as I wanted to over the summer ^^;), but I fared a lot better than my partner. She had even forgotten the basic adjectives we learned in our very first quarter of Japanese.

What really surprised me in this class is how well I can hold up with just speaking Japanese. Our teacher gave us a period of time where we were to speak to each other in Japanese, then came over and initiated an all-Japanese conversation with me about what I did over the summer. That was the longest Japanese conversation I've ever had. I'm all sorts of giddy and proud of myself for being able to hold up like that. ...Granted, this experience proved that this current section is not a coasting class. It's all effort, sink or swim. Gotta push myself. (And I'm super thankful for aragorn1014, who agreed to practice with me! =D)

Insert long break of time, and I arrive at my Psychology class! My only evening class, twice a week. Our teacher was a very agreeable woman. She passed out the syllabus, explained it in detail for an hour, and then set us loose upon the world. I think I'm going to enjoy the class as long as I remember to take notes and curb my doodling. ><

Looking forward to tomorrow!