Something New

Advising is a lot like going to the doctor’s office—terrifying to think about, but pretty painless (and thankfully, unlike the doctor’s office, there is no chance of getting a shot). For awhile now, I’ve been schedule crazy, spending obscene amounts of time searching courses that don’t conflict with labs. I’ve been finding backup classes and backups for my backups. Ratemyprofessors.com has now become one of my favorite websites ever, and when it fails to find the professor I’m searching for, it does indeed make me weep a little on the inside.

Only a little.

For next year, I’ll hopefully be taking Genetics, Organic Chemistry (part two), Creative Writing: Nonfiction (at the urging of my Montserrat professor, and who knows, maybe it’ll teach me to write even better entries than the ones you must already love), and last, but not least, Introduction to Latin. My advisor nearly gave me a heart attack when he told me I had no free slots to take classes that I wanted to take for the sake of taking…but then we recounted and it turns out that I have seven free classes. And, because I am taking a second English class for the fun of it, I’m essentially taking the same courses as a bio pre-med student here. This means that for all of you looking into that means of study, yes, you will have slots open to take classes you want to take for fun.

In other news, I did not receive the position of Kimball Captain, but upon further thought, I’ve decided it’s quite alright, and I’m so happy for all the people that got promoted!  I’ll probably stick around Kimball next year, so perhaps I could even meet some of you lovely readers. And, if I’m lucky, you all won’t be bitter towards me for taking advantage of this blog to ramble about the daily occurrences of geeks (me) on campus.

I also finally met my fellow blogger, Melissa, for the first time last night! We were standing in line at Kimball together, and a mutual friend of ours said hello to me, which made Melissa realize who I was (alas, I am horrible with things like this, and would never have caught on that she was the Melissa). She was incredibly nice and we spent a few minutes in front of the silverware having a blogger-bonding moment. It was lovely.

Lastly, congratulations to everyone who got accepted to Holy Cross! As the applicant pool seems to grow every year, it was a tough decision for admissions to make, and you should all be proud of yourselves for getting this far. As I’ve mentioned before, definitely try and get a visit in (to all the places you’ve been accepted to) and see if you can imagine yourself there. Since you’ll be living the greater part of the year on campus, you might as well enjoy where you’re staying.

And please, don’t let the numerous Holy Cross stairs daunt you—they’re good for you!

That is, in my completely biased opinion…

Office hours are a blessing that every student should take advantage of. Today, during office hours, my bio lab professor gave me two of the most useful things I could ask for. Those things being:
a) a cup of dirt, and b) some solid advice.

And yes, the cup of dirt was very important.

See, I have a cactus in my room that I got from the Natural Highs Fair (sponsored by the SRCs) way back in the beginning of semester. Since then, my dear cactus (who I have lovingly named Cactus) has flourished under my care. That is, until yesterday, when I was reaching for some cookies and the package happened to knock poor Cactus onto my bed. I put Cactus onto some intensive care, but alas, I would be unable to do a thing if it weren’t for Professor Lemay letting me have a cup full of dirt to take back to my room.

Never fear, Cactus should be right as rain in no time.

Beyond that, Professor Lemay offered me some sound advice. I had originally gone to see him with a question about our lab reports, which soon evolved into a little talk about my lack of organization. In case it hasn’t been made clear, I am really, really disorganized. Which is bad, especially with schoolwork. I homework hop. I start off working on one assignment before changing my mind and going to something else, and something else…

All in all, things don’t always get done when I do that. Professor Lemay offered me some helpful tips, such as working in study groups and setting specific times to do certain assignments. It’s all things I’ve heard before, but perhaps this time it’ll finally sink in.

Oh well. Moral of the entry: here on the Hill, dirt is gold…and sometimes professors can say smart things…

In the time I have had a lull in blog posts, we’ve elected a new president, celebrated Halloween, and I have survived both my advising appointments with all appendages still attached.

First thing I’m going to ramble about is the election. On Tuesday night the college republicans and democrats hosted a party at Crossroads to watch the election on a projector. Me and my friend Gordon went down there for two minutes, namely so I could get fries. Anyways, that place was packed. It was so loud, and honestly, I don’t think anyone was listening to the poor performer playing his guitar next to the projector screen. After getting my fries (I think I’m getting the freshman fifteen…but oh well), the two of us went down to Mulledy to watch the election with a mutual friend. Fun fact, but Mulledy is the largest dorm on campus. So obviously, when it turned out that Obama won the election (yay!), the hallway got pretty loud. It was exciting. Whoo hoo!

And here’s my ramble about advising appointments. The first one wasn’t actually with my advisor, but with my Montserrat professor. She wanted to meet with everyone in the class individually. As it turns out, I scheduled my appointment for a Thursday, which was not a very good idea at all, considering that Thursday is my errand day. I was in the middle of doing laundry, when it suddenly occurred to me that I had to meet Professor Ziegler in a few minutes. Panicked, I left the laundry room and began running to Fenwick. I was still a little late, but oh well. She mentioned that I should have brought a pen and paper to take notes, but I remembered most of what she said anyways. From what I got out of it, she said that the class as a whole should try and see what she’s thinking about teaching us, that we should all be looking for internal growth, and that while I’m smart, I need to stop acting like I don’t know what I’m doing. It was fair advice, and I’m glad I went.

My advising appointment with my advisor went in a similar fashion. I didn’t really panic this time though. Professor Levandosky helped me count out the core requirements and figured out if I’d be able to have the time to take the elective that I want next semester. See, I’m starting to doubt my sanity right about now, considering that with my one free spot not taken up by requirements for my major, I want to take multivariable calculus. I used to tell my high school calculus teacher that I hated calculus everyday. And now…when I don’t really need it at all, I want to keep taking it. Do you understand why? No? Good, because I have no idea why either.

Halloween was nice, and I saw some pretty creative costumes walking around. I wish I had taken some pictures, but I couldn’t seem to find my camera anywhere. Oh well, I’ll run into it eventually.

Happy November, and good luck to you guys applying early!

I survived my first 28 days at Holy Cross.

It was a lot easier than I thought. Being the absent-minded, not-klutzy-just-uncoordinated person that I am, I imagined life on the Hill — with its rigorous workload, too many stairs, and too many inter-connected buildings — would be a far greater challenge than it turned out to be. 

For example, after a week or so of classes, I finally figured out how to exit the science complex without having to retrace my steps back to where I entered. As the science complex is actually three buildings smooshed together into what I consider one gigantic maze of stairs, classrooms, and laboratories, it can get pretty confusing, especially when all you want to do is go to the dining hall (Kimball) and eat.

One of the first times I was there on my own was for my advising appointment, which happened to be on the fourth floor of the middle building of the complex, called Swords. How I got there on my own is a mystery in itself, but when I was done and made my way back to the main stairwell, I realized I had no idea where to go from there. Suffice to say, I wandered around a bit, ran into people I know (including my roommate, who also had no idea how to get out) and luckily ran into a professor who politely and patiently answered my panicked question on how to get out of that monstrous maze.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was amused by the frantic freshman.

At any rate, I can now exit the complex in two ways, although there are many more yet to be explored. The first way is in the general direction of my dorm, and the other is in the general direction of the dining hall. Now that I’ve found the essential exits, I suppose I better get looking for some new ones.

With new nooks and crannies popping out at me every which way, how could I possibly resist looking for more?