Gina - New school year, new experiences, and new reasons to never get sleep
That image is meant to convey a deep, meaningful message to incoming college students. If you stay on-time and on-task in all your responsibilities, you can achieve any of your goals! Yeeeeah, boy!
I can't believe school has started again! I don't feel like I had a vacation at all, since being on staff for the Orientation Team took up most of my time this summer. Which was absolutely fine, since I really loved meeting the Class of 2011. Myself and other O-Team staff found ourselves really surprised at the energy and drive present in Saint Peter's incoming freshmen class. Personally, I wanted to get up and start dancing every time I found a student who would say "I can't wait to get involved in This Society," or "I really really want to be active for That Club", or best of all, the students who really wanted to start their own interest clubs on campus. We have a lot of writers coming in with the new classes, so selfishly, I'm really excited about seducing them into the student newspaper.
But today was the first day of classes for this year. My first was a 9 AM sociology class, and the last course that I need to complete my core at St. Peter's (which ROCKS. Now I can take fun electives!) I found that out of a class of almost thirty students, I think I might be the only non-freshman in that sociology course, which I don't mind. I set into my normal class time routine with no problem at all - I took the seat that I typically take in classrooms (the third back in the row against the right-hand wall, so I can lean against the wall), and on my desk was only a tiny yellow notebook and my pencil, for doodling. After years in college, I know that notes do nothing to help me learn, but I need to keep my hands busy in order to keep my mind active (the doodling) and I need to pay very sharp attention to the lecture, as well as read the text.
So it was funny for me to watch the new students try to figure out where they wanted to sit, and when the professor started into her lecture, it also surprised me to see everyone whip out a large notebook and start furiously copying everything she wrote on the board into their notes. I was starting to get concerned myself - should I be freaking out as well? - but I was able to keep my non-freshman head cool. I did want to yell out "the first day of class won't make or break you!" at one point, but I figured that the professor might not like that. Though, maybe if I had raised my hand before yelling...
Anyways, it really brought me back to my first class at Saint Peter's College. On my first day as a freshman, I wore a rather nice suit-dress, and I sat in the front and center of my Introduction to Psychology course, a brand new 5-subject notebook on my desk and a pen already death-gripped in my hand. I remember being so overcome by nervousness that I wrote down every single word my professor said, and I was already panicking about our first test. By the third week of class though, I had moved to a seat by the right-hand wall, and I started to doodle in-between my frantic bursts of notes. Now, I can take any course in stride. But just like in high school, or with any other situation, adjusting to college classrooms take some time, experimentation, and a bit of bravery too. Maybe you do learn the best when you are engaged in answering questions and speak up in class, but you'll never find out until you give it a try. I do get people glaring at me for not taking notes, but if that's not how I best learn, then why force myself into it?
A number of my class of 2008 friends are going around, excited that this is their last first day of school. I can't feel the same. I want to utilize this semester so that by this time next year, I'll be having a first day of class at my graduate school of choice. Some people are also impatiently awaiting the end of the year, but I have so many things to look forward to in 2007-08 that May seems to be an infinity from now. I'm the managing editor for the Pauw Wow now (which I find amusing, since I'm 'only' a psychology major), president of the Psych Club, VP for my class, working on-campus, then also working on my senior thesis project and trying to get into graduate school. Not like I'll be getting much rest this semester, but even if I did, I can't rest easy until I know that I have been accepted into graduate school. But with all of the guidance I've gotten over the years, both from my professors, I'd be really surprised if I couldn't get into grad school. That, and I'd probably be camping out in front of Career Services!
But right now, I'm extremely excited to be a GEM (which stands for "Get Engaged in Mentoring") for a freshman seminar in psychology course, As a GEM, I'll be acting sort of like a teaching assistant, but not quite. I'll be conducting an hour-long lab course once a week (so I need to figure out how to make lesson plans, oops) and I'll act as an out-of-classroom resource for the introductory students. This is really exciting for me because I might want to be a professor in psychology myself one day, so getting a taste for teaching now, as an undergraduate, is a dream.
Additionally, I am SUPER HAPPY with my on-campus apartment this year! So happy that I will make you look at it!
Yeah, I need to buy more posters. But the size is great, it's on the first floor, and I don't even have to pay for cable. It's taken my roommate Steph and I most of this week to get moved in, but hey, by the time you are a senior, you accumulate a LOT of stuff. I have to throw myself against my drawers in order to get them shut, and I considered making a quilt out of all of the free tee-shirts I've gotten over the years. I'm very serious about trying to set up flea market in the school's quad this May, because I can't imaging moving all of my stuff again.
(Between the poster, the bedsheets, and the row of manga on my desk, can you tell that I'm a Yu-Gi-Oh! fan? Because I really am. And I'm getting my hair dyed purple tomorrow, to make matters worse.)
Meg, Me, Jenny (megs friend from home) 
