Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Change My Life Blogaday - Day Four

11:40 PM. You better believe it.

Today had successes and failures. I woke up early enough to print what I needed, and I made it to calc on time. I didn't have much left in me though, so I dozed off on accident through most of class time.

This is an interesting trade-off that seems to be a big part of my life right now. Not this trade-off in particular, but all sorts of similar trade-offs like it. Do one thing well and another seems to suffer. Take a nap now, stay up later. Stay up late, finish calculus. Stay up late, fall asleep in calc so I have to stay up later next time. It's an interesting little game we play.

I sluffed physics today to take care of my assignment for scholar's forum. I really should stop doing that. I've only done it twice, but still. I spent all of my physics time researching majors and stuff that I want to do, so I think it was really really valuable time for me.

I met with an academic advisor today, and that was really worthwhile. I went and talked to an undeclared advisor because I decided to exeunt that whole mechanical engineering scene. I went in a declared MAE major, and I walked out undeclared. Oh baby. So right now I'm one of those statistics I've heard so much about.

That's interesting too. Why do so many people do this? And why do we as a culture (okay, why do I, in my culture) seem to look at this as a bad thing? If it were such a bad thing, why do so many people do it? I think it was a great step for me to take.

The current plan is still secondary education. Right now I'm looking at math, chemistry, or physics. That means I'd major in one of those and do the teaching emphasis. It'd end up as a composite major (used to be a dual major) between the chemistry (or math or physics) major and the education major. It actually looks way way cool. I'm pretty excited to start pursuing it.

Since I'm officially undeclared for now, the plan is to finish off my general university studies next semester. That's only 12 credit hours, so I'll probably launch into my math/chem/physics degree, depending on what I decide to do. I took a closer look at the "Mathematics and statistics education composite" degree, and that's pretty sweet. I've never taken a statistics class in my life, but I really like the look of it.

I'm just actually excited about this stuff. I read course titles and I'm like "Dang, that's freaking sweet!" I don't get as excited about the math courses as I do about the teaching stuff, but it's still cool. I get more excited about stats titles than I do about math titles too.

So that was really good for me. I know that I've given honors a bunch of crap for being what it is, but I'm super happy that they made me do this assignment. It was something I really needed. I will give them glowing reviews for that, definitely. If nothing else, it was worth doing honors because they tricked me into doing this assignment. I'm still not planning on jumping into their secret club, but I will ease up and stop being so hard on them.

Today has been a pretty good day for me. Successes and failures, yeah, but important successes. I did all the laundry today- still need to fold it, but yeah. I also went grocery shopping. Both of these are significant because Andrew was doing homework while I did them, so it was mostly independent. Big thanks to Katie for driving to the grocery adventure. And big thanks to Molly for telling such great stories.

So, I'm going to miss the midnight mark. But I'm going to be SO much closer than ever before. I will not exceed one oclock, unless I'm in bed studying. Computer goes off in not too long. Unless something unusual happens. Yep, I'm setting conditions on my goals.

Okay, I'm back, about 20 minutes later, I had some stuff to take care of.

So, successes of the day: Woke up early enough to take care of stuff. Made it to calc on time. Finished my scholar's forum assignment on time. Went grocery shopping, scored some pretty good deals. Did the laundry. Going to bed at a decent time.

Failures of the day: Sleeping through calc. Sluffing physics. Not reading my physics chapter. Being a butthead to my roommates for part of the day. Not contacting my home teaching apartment like me and levi planned to (yay for a good companion ;) )

Tomorrow is a risky day. No class till noon. I'm done with classes by five. I have one calc assignment to do, but more importantly I have a calc practice exam to get finished. I should read my physics chapter and take care of home teaching. So there's a lot to get done tomorrow. But there's also adequate time to do it, if I take care of things the way I should. It's one of those days that still makes me a little bit fearful. One of those days that the old me (from like, four days ago) would almost certainly be sure he'd screw up. Still a little scared, because it's a lot of potential. Could be great, could be terrible.

I ran into something cool the other day. Just a random blog that google reader suggested. I didn't read much of it, but the title made me smile- "Wherever you go, go with all your heart." So that's the plan. One day at a time. Break that one day into segments. One task at a time. Gotta wake up, and I gotta wake up well. I've got to get to physics recitation, and I've got to get there well. I've got Ultimate class, and I've got to work as hard as I can there. I've got graphics, and I've got to bust it in there too. I've got a calc assignment and a test, a physics chapter and some other good stuff. I've got to eat to stay alive and I've got to take care of those kidneys of mine. I should probably shave too.

Lots of tasks. One at a time. And do it well.

As a final note, I'd like to point out something Molly wrote earlier. She talked about love. I won't summarize or restate it here, but I just wanted to say that what she said is true. So there I go, tossing my credibility behind what Molly wrote. You should read it, it's good.

It's 12:31 AM. Thirty-One after the plan, but still makes me smile. Today was pretty good for me. Tomorrow is a bold chance. The best part about this one-day-at-a-time model is that I can put bad days behind me while still standing on the good days. Tomorrow will be better because of what happened today. Tomorrow does inherit a few problems I created today, but it's still got a decent chance. I'm excited for that opportunity. For now, it's time for me to go. Thanks for reading friends, I hope you're doing excellent. Much love~

3 comments:

M-smash said...

I think I've figured out one reason a lot of people switch their majors after a few semesters.
A good majority of my life has been spent working up to this place to be an art major. I decided when I was twelve what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
But the funny thing is that it's nothing like I expected. It's harder than I thought and I'm not sure how excited I am. Plus, I found out that I have another passion that I might enjoy more. As of now, I'm deciding if I'm going to undeclare myself as well.

But anyway, I think that the people who are undeclared probably have it more figured out than I do. Just sayin.
Anyway, good luck with following your heart. ;) I hope it leads you to an epic place.

Combat Kyle said...

Chris, way to be. You are a lot more on top of things than you give yourself credit for. You're a great guy, and it doesn't matter how many times you change majors; you'll end up on top of the world no matter what you chose to do. I'm glad you've found something that--for the time being at least--has made you happy. Good luck with your future, and keep being a stud.

Oh, and no hard feelings about being a jerkface. I'm as obnoxious as heck and give you plenty of reason to be a jerk. Besides, it happens.

Anonymous said...

First of all, if you weren't a jerk some of the time, we couldn't appreciate the nice you. I'm not really sure when you were actually a jerk, but maybe I just thought you were being sarcastic when you weren't. I think that this thing that we do is going to turn out fine. The task-orientation that you mentioned scares me immensely because I'm all about the big picture, but I know that that's the best approach to everything. I'm going to try harder to implement it in my life. Stay cool.
James