Spring break comes to end and classes begin again on Monday. My friends and peers are slowly returning. I'm sitting here wondering if my week was wasted. Monday I saw a movie but only after wasting about 45 minutes on the phone (toll free doesn't apply to my go-phone, over $4 wasted) with some guy in India trying to get recovery discs for my laptop. Avatar (again) because a friend hadn't seen it yet; it was okay. Tuesday I hung out with David. We looked at furniture, I picked up my glasses and went to our favorite hibachi grill with Katie and her family. Her birthday is next week. I should probably get her something. *shrug* Wednesday I dropped of the recovery discs (I'm glad they arrived quickly) and was able to pick up my laptop that afternoon (ha! after two weeks they actually do something quickly). Thursday my plans fell through. Friday they fell through again (same person but it wasn't anyone's fault). I made up a tentative fall schedule but it was only eleven credit hours. I planned out an alternate schedule that gets me at thirteen hours. I'll talk more about those in a bit. At least I took care of a friend last night, he was having car trouble. It was nice to be useful after what feels like a rather unproductive week.About college and learning
This fall will be the start of my fourth year at UCA, sixth in college total. I came to UCA with an associate of art degree that was basically everything I did in high school in half the time but paid money for it. I hardly remember any of it. UCA has been a huge learning experience, not just academically. I really struggled to learn how to study and to find the motivation to study but I think I'm finally getting a grip on it. Socially, I've been learning a lot the things most people learned in high school. Moving to Arkansas was a good thing but somewhere along the way I stalled out. I blame the depression. I'm not very well socialized to begin with (my rather introverted nature makes it difficult) but such a sickness of the mind stunted my social and emotional development. So between sixteen and nineteen I learned and grew very little.
I look back on those high school (especially first two college) years with some mixed feelings. I see a lot that was wrong in how I thought and felt about things but I've gained some wisdom in reflecting on those years. Romantically speaking, I didn't date anyone. Sure, there were a couple guys in junior high (back in Oklahoma) that I called boyfriends (not at the same time) and the feelings were mutual but that was it. I was attracted to a few people in Arkansas but I didn't have any relationships. There was internal drama over Alex (it was horrible) and, before that, even a little over this guy named Daniel (I see some of how he is now and I wonder how I ever could have been attracted to him). I found what I now call my "love diary". It has a couple entries on our road trip to NYC after I graduated high school. The rest are all about the guys of interest in my life. It's interesting to see I only wrote about five guys and how the entries reflect on my state of mind.
Most were about Alex. It was like reading from the diary of a junior high girl and her unhealthy obsession with him. I wrote comments in the margins, half humorous, mostly insightful. It was good to relive and paint over those memories with a more objective and positive light. The next few were about a friend here at UCA. After him was a single entry about choosing between Matt and Derek. I wrote a follow up about it (with some reflecting) before adding another entry about one of my brothers in Christ and concluding now is the not the time for that kind of love.
Time changes things so quickly. A little over a year ago, I'd decided I was ready to love because I no longer felt I needed a boyfriend. I'm not as hopeless broken as i once was. My view has altered some since then. I've come to the conclusion that while I've been open to the possibility of a relationship, I'm not ready for one. That doesn't bother me. I have issues to work through and school is more important. I'm deeply satisfied with my friendships (most of which are with men--yes you're men now, not boys). It'd be unfair to me and him; trying to balance our involvement in each others' lives, working through my personal problems and school all at once.
I spend a lot of time analyzing myself: my thoughts, actions, motivations...my nature. It's been amazing to learn about myself. I know how I work and I'm learning more all the time. I refuse to regret my past and insist on learning from it. I'm rambling now. Moving on!
Scheduling Challenges
So I'm planning out my classes for the fall and updating my degree plan. Having done all my gen eds makes padding my classes difficult, I have to pad with time rather than easy courses. I've finally learned that with my double major I shouldn't try for the standard fifteen credit hours but something closer to the twelve hour minimum to be full time. This is due to the fact that my classes actually entail more time than I'm given credit for (not that other majors aren't time-intensive). My science classes all have labs (with few exceptions) and my education classes always involve field work (usually observation). Factor in the time I need to study and the fact that I want to TA for a few labs, suddenly fifteen hours is a bit excessive and twelve is perfectly reasonable. I mentioned earlier I'd made up a couple tentative schedules, one with eleven credit hours and another with thirteen. So what do you think?
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