Eventually, I will shut up about school, but to be honest, it’s been on my mind a lot lately. My reasons for being preoccupied stem from the fact that something almost always interferes with it. Going back to work, sickness, divorce, you name it. This quarter, I don’t want anything to get in the way of me finishing school with a decent average. But, in look at my proposed course list for summer and fall, it looks like I may not get the math class I need. Summer looks good. I’ve already chosen my course list and have it ready to go for registration on June 9th (Early Fall reg is May 12th). Here it is:

Section 0424 ENGL-01A.04W LEC TBA       TBA    STARER     ONLINE 5.0
Section 0245 CIS-0002.01W LEC TBA       TBA    O'NEAL     ONLINE 4.0

Both are online courses, so this means I don’t have to physically be in a classroom in order to take these classes, which is good, since I plan on taking at least two vacations. With my laptop, I can hookup anywhere I go and keep updated on class happenings. My fall course list looks like this:

Section 1635 MATH-105.01Q LEC 0800-0850 MTWThF SWAGERT    5620   5.0
Section 1511 JAPN-004.01Q L-L 0900-0950 MTWThF TOMITA     6502   5.0*
Section 1285 HP  -024.02  LAB 1200-1320 M W    LINER      2501   1.0
Section 1513 JAPN-13A.01Q L-L 2015-2135 M W    TSUMURA    MCD5   3.0*
Section 1664 MUS-003A.02W L-L TBA       TBA    BARKLEY    ONLINE 5.0

I haven’t had afternoon or evening classes before, but I’m willing to give it a shot. The astericks mark the classes I require this quarter no matter what. The others I can take now or take later, but since I’ve already outlined the plan, I would rather the above be my course list next fall for certain. But, as with the best laid plans, sometimes they don’t happen. So I’ve come up with a backup list of courses I could take this fall, if I should be unable to get the Math 105 class I need. I’m thinking Math 105 because it’s a very popular section, and there’s only one class I can take in the morning that would not conflict with my other classes. Here’s the backup list:

Section 1022 ENGL-01B.05  LEC 1000-1050 MTWThF BERTHIAUME 6501   5.0
Section 0522 BIOL-010.01  LEC 1000-1050 MTWTh  DUNCAN     5015   5.0
Section 0528 BIOL-010.52  LAB 1130-1420  T     DUNCAN     5113   w/BIO10
Section 2071 SPCH-010.01  L-L 1100-1150 MTWTh  TOWNES            4.5

If I’m unable to get Math, I can opt to do English 1B in Fall, or try my hand at Biology, or do Speech. Now, the interesting thing about Fall is that it might be possible that Todd may get to go to Foothill with me next year, depending on how his employment situation is. I’m hoping he’ll be able to go, because then I wouldn’t feel like the oldest student attending each class. I’m pretty much the oldest student in my Math class, which is generally populated by recent high school graduates (18-19 year olds). Plus, the upside is being able to go to school with your best friend is a major plus… and having access to the carpool lane every morning is also a good thing

LJ Archive | No Comments »

I studied my kanji list yesterday night for a good two hours straight. The list of kanji we were going to be tested on is fourteen different characters, all of which have at least two to three different definitions. Kanji is the most difficult aspect (to me) of learning the Japanese language, right there next to memorizing different vocabulary words. I’ve taken two Japanese classes prior to this, knowing that all tests and quizzes are taken at the beginning of the class period. The Kanji Quiz is no different, and in Japanese, the Quizzes collectively are responsible for 5% of my final grade in the course. The lesson tests (4 of them) are haf my final grade, so if I screw up in all of those, I can forget about passing the class.

Anyway, Tomita-sensei set down the quiz in front of me and to my astonishment, I answered 17 out of the 20 questions on the quiz sheet correctly. That’s a B! That’s like my best score on a Kanji quiz ever! Couple this with the Math quiz earlier and I appear to be on a good roll so far. Now all I have to do is catch-up in Philosophy and I’m good to go.

LJ Archive | 1 Comment »

Just finished the second algebra quiz in Math this morning. It took me just under ten minutes to complete, because it covered the material for just this week. I was actually afraid it was going to be a little more complicated than simplification and negative/positive integers, covering some of the commutative, associative, and distributive property rules that we had to go over in detail. Part of the homework this week was covering different solutions and trying to find out exactly what kind of rule they obey. I actually got one wrong last night when I was doing the last section of my homework for this week, and so I went back to the class notes I took that day and just sat down and finally understood that I wasn’t going to be able to breeze as easily through the class as I had originally thought.

While I was sitting through the last five minutes allotted for the quiz, the guy next to me pulls out a calculator to cheat on the quiz. The instructor had said three times before the quiz started that calculators weren’t allowed, which is fine by me. Most of this crap is addition and basic multiplication. And I think I remember how to add double-digit numbers without much difficulty. One of the problems was -6^2 + 5(8-3) / 4-12. the answer ends up being 36 + 25 / -8, and then simplified to -7 and 2/8. This guy whips out a calculator to add 36 to 25, and I just shake my head because he pulls it out under his desk, and I feel like I’m back in high school again, watching others cheat on the geometry final. Gah.

I got my homework assignment back from Tuesday. I got 20 out of 20. Yay me.

LJ Archive | 4 Comments »