This has been one of the busiest, most chaotic nights I've experienced in a while, especially considering its summertime.
The pressure is on with the group report due in a few hours time. Right now, everything is a disorganized jumble, not quite different from the state of my mind right now. I really hope I can get our group's work up to par. If only we shared equal personal obligation to this assignment!
After attending the midnight Harry potter premier a night of formatting, editing, and data inputting awaits. While many were left blubbering about the end of their childhood, I have more important things on mind, including regretting that I spent so much time going to the theater, when it was smarter to stay home editing. I had no idea how much restructuring I implement into the final report. It's going to be a very late night.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
This Might Hurt
Yesterday’s title turned out to be pretty accurate, although I’m really starting to wish it wasn’t. While I played off today as the “last day of stress” in my last blog, I didn’t really comprehend just how much stress you are under the day before a final that will completely make or break your grade in a class that has been the sole purpose of your existence for three weeks straight. I have made attempts to relax, most notably a three hour nap immediately after class, which will definitely help me be as alert as possible for tomorrow’s two hour test. One of the most calming things that have happened to me was an e-mail from my mom I received yesterday. Although at first glance it seemed like an e-mail threatening to disown me if I struggled on the final (which I don’t think I will but there was a lot of material to cover so I can never be sure) I’ve been told it was supposed to be a reassuring message, and it has really given me confidence heading into tomorrow’s final, since I know I have the full support of my family, and on an even larger scale, the ILC as a whole. Once again, I’m grateful for this opportunity, and I hope I can represent my school district tomorrow as well as I have been trying to this entire trip.
Perfectionists Never Reach Perfection
It is hard for me to believe that tomorrow will be our last day in class here at Cornell. Walking into the lecture hall, I knew that today was a no-game all-work day as with only a few words from our professors, we were whisked away into the computer lab with our groups to work on our final report.
I have to admit that our organization was haphazard and it was rather unfortunate for me to miss valuable office hours time yesterday because of my ailing illness. With barely anything done, we all got straight to doing business and work on our report. However, as communication has been spotty today, we only managed to get one major section out of three thoroughly completed. But because I was too paranoid in thinking that we didn't have enough content already, I spent the entire day cleaning, revising, and checking up on the section to make sure that it was as perfect as it could be.
Little did I know, I was wasting valuable time that could have been allocated to focusing on getting the other parts done. Sometimes it is better off to swallow a pill and actually make sure everything is complete instead of going through each nit-picky thing.
At lunch, however, it was nice to unwind to the birthday celebration of Terilyn. It was pretty clever to see that "Happy Birthday" was spelled backwards as a reference to the "backward pronunciation" game I hear Teri play often.
The birthday cake spelled backwards.
But once playtime was over, it was back to work and all I could think of is why did it feel as if we were missing something important in our report. Not that everything that should be included isn't important, but sometimes we can't help ourselves but think that there is always something that needs to improved upon and that it probably should be.
Our group is significantly behind, but with the final curtains closing tomorrow, we should be able to throw our all into this and conclude the program with not a fizzle, but a bang.
I have to admit that our organization was haphazard and it was rather unfortunate for me to miss valuable office hours time yesterday because of my ailing illness. With barely anything done, we all got straight to doing business and work on our report. However, as communication has been spotty today, we only managed to get one major section out of three thoroughly completed. But because I was too paranoid in thinking that we didn't have enough content already, I spent the entire day cleaning, revising, and checking up on the section to make sure that it was as perfect as it could be.
Little did I know, I was wasting valuable time that could have been allocated to focusing on getting the other parts done. Sometimes it is better off to swallow a pill and actually make sure everything is complete instead of going through each nit-picky thing.
At lunch, however, it was nice to unwind to the birthday celebration of Terilyn. It was pretty clever to see that "Happy Birthday" was spelled backwards as a reference to the "backward pronunciation" game I hear Teri play often.
The birthday cake spelled backwards.But once playtime was over, it was back to work and all I could think of is why did it feel as if we were missing something important in our report. Not that everything that should be included isn't important, but sometimes we can't help ourselves but think that there is always something that needs to improved upon and that it probably should be.
Our group is significantly behind, but with the final curtains closing tomorrow, we should be able to throw our all into this and conclude the program with not a fizzle, but a bang.
The Home-Stretch
I'm sorry to say that I'm going to have to keep today's blog brief. I have my final tomorrow and basically this whole blog is going to be about studying.
So, today I studied. I studied a lot. I had my very last lecture, which was about Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, and then went on to my discussion group. Throughout class we spoke about the similarities and differences between these two revolutionaries and then attempted to relate them to every other philosopher that we've studied throughout the course.
It was a little sad to think that my time here is truly coming to a close, but i didn't really have a lot of time to worry about that because my final is TOMORROW. We've gone over the material that will be on the test a few times and I am just trying to cover all of the concepts as thoroughly as possible.
Also, I had a ticket to the new Harry Potter movie, which comes out tonight, but I decided to make a mature decision and just hang back and bury myself in my books. Hopefully that decision pays off tomorrow.
I'll let you all know how it went tomorrow. It will truly be my LAST DAY OF CLASS. I can't decide if I'm excited or if I'm upset.....probably a little of both. Oh well. My time here has been amazing and I still have a few days left. Just got to get this final out of the way.
Wish me luck! Good night.
T Minus 2 (Days) and Counting (again)
It is truly odd to think I have been for so long. Yes it has felt like a long time, but these three weeks at Cornell have just flown by. I honestly still remember rushing off to the orientation presentation and how nervous I was on the first day, and now here I am cramming for the final exam, which marks the end. Not to go all emotion on you readers but I am going to miss this place and the people who have become my family.
Today was the last lecture. I have no officially sat through 19 lectures during this course (not all of them are by Professor Kramnick). Gosh it really is impressive that these three weeks are over. I just don’t feel like I have really been in school for three weeks. Wow. Anyway, today the lecture was on the last ‘group’ that experienced inequality.
This week has been about inequality and we began with feminists who wanted, obviously, women’s’ rights. Next we moved on to Burke who is a firm supporter of inequality, claiming that it is necessary for the structure of a good and strong community. Then we learn about Marx and his focus on economic inequalities. And lastly we talked about racial inequalities with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. But I think the most interesting part of today was seeing how even the ideas Plato and Christ thought way back when were/are still present in the 20th and 21st century. It is amazing that even the issues of the past may have changed a little they are still rooted in the same issues and thus can be dealt with in similar manners. We learn from the past.
Well I need to get back to studying. Wish me luck.
Until tomorrow, Over and Out blog readers.
Endings Part I
The cheerful mood of this picture of my breakfast may lead you to believe that I am feeling the exact opposite of what I am actually feeling.
I am freaking out.
I have a 12 page report due tomorrow. I am leaving for the last ever Harry Potter premiere in an hour, which marks the end of my childhood, basically. I am turning 17 in less than two days. Summer College here at Cornell is ending.
This is crazy. I am feeling sad, excited, grateful, anxious. I don't know what I am feeling. This is crazy.
Today we had our very last lecture in class, and it wasn't even a real lecture. Reneta talked for three minutes before showing us a video about behavioral styles. This lecture, like yesterday's, felt like such a throwback to the beginning of this class. On the very first day of class, we took surveys to determine our behavioral styles and today we learned more about the different results: Controller, Persuader, Analyzer and Stabilizer. Again, this was not good for the nostalgic part of me.
Today at lunch, I was surprised with an ice cream cake from my fellow ILC Cornellians in honor of my birthday in two days!
Instead of "Happy Birthday," my cake read "Yadhtrib Yppah," which is "Happy Birthday" spelled backwards. Jobel had chosen to get it written backwards because I always say things backwards. :)
I have to try to get as much editing of my report done as possible in the next 45 minutes before I leave, so I'm going to cut this post short here. Part II will come soon.
All Apologies
I am sorry about this, but this blog has to be short. Mainly due to the fact that I have a project to do and very limited time to do the work. So I must focus as much as I can on that work and I will go into further detail about today in my next blog post.
Today was actually rather uneventful in terms of a school day. We learned why we were placed in our groups, and learned that having none of one of the four behavioral traits would set up the group to fail in the long term. Which is ironic because our group is missing of the four. Of course that does not actually mean anything specific -- well, at least, I am not dealing in absolutes.
On the social side, we had a small birthday party for Teri due to the fact that we couldn't celebrate it on Saturday. The small party was attended by a rather large group of people actually, and it turned out to be really fun. The cake was a lot bigger than it seemed, and a lot tastier than I expected. It was a nice interlude between the lengths of work.
Well much ado till later all. I will try to update this when I can.
Today was actually rather uneventful in terms of a school day. We learned why we were placed in our groups, and learned that having none of one of the four behavioral traits would set up the group to fail in the long term. Which is ironic because our group is missing of the four. Of course that does not actually mean anything specific -- well, at least, I am not dealing in absolutes.
On the social side, we had a small birthday party for Teri due to the fact that we couldn't celebrate it on Saturday. The small party was attended by a rather large group of people actually, and it turned out to be really fun. The cake was a lot bigger than it seemed, and a lot tastier than I expected. It was a nice interlude between the lengths of work.
Well much ado till later all. I will try to update this when I can.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)