Taking a step back

Every once in a while I hit a point where I'm forced to reflect on where I am right in the moment. This point came to me recently, as I've been working through a head cold for the past couple of days. The other day I was feeling too tired to do anything, but then my thoughts went to the homework I could be doing and the time that I'd waste by not at least trying to do something. I'm one of those people who tries to do every assignment in every class as best as I possibly can. And that's where my point of reflection hit me: I realized how draining that is, and not just because I was sick. I want to do well in my classes, but does that mean I have to make an A in each of them? What if that's not possible? What if I feel like I need to put more time into one of my economics classes and less time into, say, my German class? I'm still dealing with this conviction that if I don't get A's in my classes it means I didn't work hard enough. I'm trying to change that, trying to change how I feel about grades and GPA's and things of that nature. Grades are just a number that is assigned to your work based on how well you did at one point in time. That time could have been confounded by any number of variables...but that's not taken into account. They don't consider whether you had a really tough semester and just couldn't put in as much study time into a certain final exam. They don't consider the fact that some people just aren't good test takers. You get a grade, and that's that. I'd like to change the way I look at my own grades and the the feelings of self worth that I tie into them. It's hard to, though, when so many things depend on how well you do in college. Scholarships, internships, jobs. I don't want to focus on school so much that I don't give enough time to my friends and other people I hold dear. Maybe I'm blowing this a little out of proportion, but it's still something that I'd like to change.
Yeah, so....that's all for now.

I have finally found the time to write on this blog. Senior year is only two weeks old and it's already keeping me extremely busy. I've been wanting to write for weeks now and just haven't had the time. So...

I've decided that my posts don't always have to be these really thought out entries that I meditate on for a while before I write them. I just don't have the time for that anymore. Now if I feel like I need to post something I'm just going to post it...however it comes out. I figure that's the only way it'll get done.

The ending to this summer was semisweet. In August I went on a great trip to the mountains with my sweetheart, and also traveled to Charleston, SC with my best friend. Then at the end of August my great grandmother passed away. This was the first time that a death in the family had taken someone close to me, and it has taken me a while to deal with that. My family and I traveled up to Ohio for a few days to visit family and attend the funeral, and then the day after we got back I moved into my apartment at UNCG. It's been a crazy two weeks since then, but I'm feeling on top of my game...for now. My class syllabi are predicting a good many papers and projects in my future, and I'm wondering how I'm going to handle those when I feel like I'm thoroughly spent at the end of each day already. But hey, that's what college is all about, right? Completing a tremendous amount of work in a limited amount of time.

My psychology classes have been getting interesting as of late. The two that I took over the summer, plus the one that I'm taking now, are helping me to see how many things influence the actions of people and how people respond to certain situations. This is causing me to re-evaluate how I interact with people and what I think of someone that I don't know that well. I'm trying to apply the things that I learn in the classroom to my everyday life, and I think this is a good way to do that.

Enter: Week 3.