Trying to stay afloat

I've actually had this done and over at my other blog for a few days, but I couldn't post it here then because Xanga had this issue with me. It wouldn't let me post a blog for anything, so I let it go, but I put this one up now. Ta-da!

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Well, my life is going to be hectic from now, I suppose. Early last week, I started my last semester of college, which is a scary concept. I learned promptly on the first day that I would be as busy (maybe even busier) than my previous semesters because before my TV classes took up a lot of time. Now my Radio Production 2 class is going to take up a lot of time. My dad had wondered why I was so surprised by the amount of work in Radio 2.

I told him it was because in my TV classes, the most amount of projects we had was eight, but in Radio 2, we have 14 news stories to do. Now, radio new releases don't take anywhere near as long to edit, but one every week is gonna be a pain. Especially since the last time I took radio, we had an older version of
ProTools, now there is a newer version on that computer that I have no idea how to operate. Great. Well, I'll somehow survive through this experience.

I'm also taking Computer Mediated Speech, which is a course that teaches you about communication through the internet and how its developed its own "culture" so to speak. We're also required to play an online game called "Second Life" which seems kinda boring to me. It really almost seems like a giant chatroom with interactive avatars. I understand it can be beneficial to business to use for deals, but to me this is boring and I have to do papers over it this semester. Joy.

I'm also taking New Testament which is gonna be interesting this year. It's going to be more of a historical analysis of the New Testament and such, though I am required to read parts of the Bible. Dr. Williams can seem like a ditz, it's funny. This course will prove to challenge my brain. The amount of reading is time consuming with the textbook and Bible, but I can survive.

The last course I'm taking is Greek History, with a professor I had for World History 1 many years ago. She's a very amusing professor and I'm sure I will
enjoy this course. There are still some plentiful readings and some really short ones, but I am sure I will enjoy this class mostly.

Or else after my two classes each day that switch, I go to the radio station for a couple hours, learning production stuff. It can amount from anywhere from 7 to 10 hours a week, depending. I learned how to sodder, though I suck at getting the casing for the wires off. I also learned how to produce a show and I've done it twice now and it's fun. I like it. I sit there, at the computer, editing the show to to sound nice, with Josh there to make sure I don't screw anything up. I like it though. I also go ahead and do some data cataloging, but I don't mind it because it's not completely mindless. I'm actually learning stuff at this internship and it's nice.

I've also been trying to help Tig and Daph unlock more songs on DDR as their previous file for it somehow disappeared, so now all the songs have to be unlocked again. I can do a good amount of the stuff for light, but I tried standard and kept dying pretty quickly. *sigh* One of these days I'll get good enough for that...maybe some day I will be.

On Sunday, Daph, Tig, Jake, and I went to Hy-Vee's holiday party or as I would like to say post-holiday party. Daph and I both work there and we could each bring a guest, so we did. It had free food at Valentino's and free bowling at the bowling lanes behind Valentino's, so it was a very nice evening. How can anyone argue against free food and free bowling? We also discovered an arcade DDR machine, which is different because of songs and the metal pad is something to get use to after only playing on the plastic one. You really had to hit the buttons harder. Maybe light might be easier for me on those. I don't know.

I also had some confusion happen later on last week. Nothing horrible, just weird and random. First on Wednesday, I got an email from the internship coordinator, Dr. Wilson. The entire email consisted of, "I need your resume. You're being considered for an award. I'll tell you more about it later."

*blinks* Eh? I quickly updated my resume and sent it to her and I'm still confused as to what this is about as she hasn't told me yet. I have no idea what this whole thing is about really. I'm assuming it's a really good thing, but I would like to know what's going on.

The next day, Thursday, I checked my email to see anything from Dr. Wilson. Nope, but I got something from Financial Aid. I was confused there as my tuition had already been paid and I got my refund back already, so what could they want? It said my financial aid package had been revised and I should see what it is about. I went clicking over to see and somehow I've been awarded this random scholarship that I don't remember applying for, but apparently I won it. It was suppose to be given to me back in the fall, but it's now getting to me. Huh. I'm really confused. This appeared out of nowhere.

I know it has nothing to do with the award because that timing is too close together and by that time, Dr. Wilson just got my resume.

I know this scholarship made financial aid take away my state pell grant, but I don't mind as this scholarship is worth more than the state pell grant, but I hope it goes through soon to pay for the rest of tuition now as taking away my state pell grant gave me back a balance on tuition. It's still really weird that these good things are happening all at once. It's really nice and I like it a lot.

Well, that's about all I can think of at the moment. Well, there's something random later, but I'll find another time to do that. That's it for now.

Stupid Orochimaru

Not much has been going on in my life since the last blog. I finished finals for last semester and got my grades and have now been working during winter break. I had been going nuts waiting for my grades mostly because I got 3 out of 4 grades before Christmas and I had to wait much longer to get my last grade that was going to make or break my 4.0 for the semester and it broke it. Curses.

I did get all of my grades for last semester.

• Photography - A-
• Advanced Broadcast Journalism - A+
• History of Mass Communication - A
• Human Relations and Communication - A+

Curses on Photography because it reminds me of having Mike (the instructor) from when I had him for Media Writing a few years ago and back then too, the A- kept me from my 4.0. It drives me nuts because both times I'm just a few points away from having the A. *sigh* Jake told me on the phone how I could complain about an A- and I'm just disappointed it broke my 4.0. I strive so hard for those.

Next semester is gonna be fun as I'm doing 12 regular credit hours as well as my internship, which is gonna take up a large amount of time. What I won't do for a shiny resume and to graduate college.

Also wish I knew how graduation goes. UNO doesn't really tell you how it goes or how much it costs, just when and where. All I know is that I have to fill out my graduation application before March that also has a stupid fee on top of it. *rolls eyes*

Soon I'm gonna buy my books for next semester and since I'm taking more credit hours next semester, which means more money for tuition, I have less money leftover from my financial aid to help cover school books so my money made during winter break from work is gonna be dedicated to school books and graduation stuff.

Speaking of graduation, I did get a funny letter in the mail from ROTC. One, this is funny because I never took ROTC in high school, so them offering me a scholarship now is funny. It's also funny because it's opens the letter by saying I should consider this scholarship as high school graduation is coming up and I stared at that opening line and laughed. After all, they're five years too late. I'm going to be graduating from college in May, so this letter makes me laugh. I'm very tempted to send a reply just to say I'm graduating from college, not high school. Idiots.

*immense sarcasm* I'm so thrilled to start my last semester of college in a week. *end sarcasm* More like, I don't want vacation to end, but it has to so I can concentrate on college. It will be last time to spend a ton of money, like books and buying tapes for video projects, other such amounts of money. *sigh*

It'll be scary going into my last semester of college, but also very exciting. Jake will be graduating at the same time as me, so that'll be cool.

I'm also currently happy that the Iowa Caucus is over. I don't live in the state, but I'm happy? Why? Because my city borders Iowa, we've been getting their political ads that had been plaguing the television. Gah. It was very annoying mostly because you don't even live in that state, so we're not even its target audience.

I also spent news years with Tig, Daph, and Jake. We mostly played DDR, watched anime, played DDR, watched anime. We were over at Yoto's a bit at midnight, but then went back to Tig and Daph's place and resumed our routine. We went to bed about 3:30 am, mostly because I was tired, and woke up and resumed the routine. It was a lot of fun. I need to play some more DDR. I was so happy that I got an A on Video Killed the Radio Star on Light. That was awesome.

I really want to get DDR to practice at home, but I don't have the money. *sigh* It would be great to practice at home while Joe is at school, but I can't since I don't have the money for the stuff yet. Eventually I'll be able to. I just have to be patient and practice at Tig and Daph's.

I have been playing my Naruto fighting game because it's my weakness. I have a guilty pleasure for fighting games and for Naruto, so combine them and happiness. I've been doing decent, but I'll never be able to get to the level they want to really good missions, so I'll never be able to unlock the last two characters that didn't even exist in the Japanese version. They were upper levels for two already exisiting characters, but the U.S. version decided to make them into separate characters, which is silly.

I've been playing my Sims 2 a lot since Sam reinstalled it. It's my goal to have one person experience all the vacation memories. Good luck to me.

Or else I've been doing that and trying to get sleep since my nephew hasn't been sleeping much, and he pounds on the walls, which echoe through the house, so when he's awake, there's a lack of sleep among the whole family. It's fun.

That's about it for now.

I'm going to the radio station tomorrow where I'm gonna intern so I can go over with my schedule with them and then I'll buy my books for the semester.

Currently Watching Sister Hazel - A Life in the Day By Sister Hazel see related

Aura Battler Dunbine??

Well, not much has happened really lately besides what the past two blogs had been about. The weekend after it happened, mom and I went to the memorial at the mall and placed some flowers there. We didn't know any of these people or anyone really affected by it, but it makes the whole city cry in pain from it. We didn't know anyone from it, but we stilled mourned them.

Otherwise, not much else. It's been snowing a lot here or having ice storms. I like the snow part a lot. Though, all of this makes a very nice looking winter, though it's technically not winter yet, but it looks so pretty out. I prefer this compared to last December where it didn't snow until the 31st, which drove me nuts. I want to see snow in December.

Tuesday was my birthday, which I mostly stayed in. There was an ice/snowstorm happening during that day, so UNO classes were cancelled until noon. That took care of one of my classes and my second class has the policy that if OPS (our local public school system) is cancelled then he cancels class. With both of my classes being cancelled, I didn't have to go to class at all that day. I mostly stayed in and played the Sims 2 and mucked around the house. Eventually later, I went out with my friends and played some DDR. That was the most we did for my birthday.

I did get a DVD I've been wanting for a while from my family. It's the thing in watching thing that all blogs do. Tig, Daph, and Michael got me an ornament and Jake got me a manga I've been wanting.

I didn't have to go to class on Wednesday either since I had already turned in my final for Photography and our extra newscast was cancelled. That made me cheer for joy since I didn't want to do the extra one that Allen had put upon us because I have finals to worry about.

I went to class on Thursday though and my final for Human Relations Speech turned out to be really odd as in a group/class final project thing that was done for fun. Dr. Prisbell is such a weird person.

Fridays were also normal at Tig, Daph, and Michael's house as we played some DDR and watched some anime. Though, I hurt my left foot nicely during DDR. My foot had been hurting slightly the previous days, but I didn't pay it much attention, it just lightly ached. Well, I kept playing DDR and making my foot hurt more and more, but I wanted to play. DDR is fun and is good exercise. Well, I landed on my foot too hard during a jump and yeah...my foot exploded in pain and no more DDR for a bit until my foot heals. Twisted my ankle or something. I've been limping since, not as bad now, but gah. It's very annoying.

Or else I've been studying for my final coming up on Tuesday, which I want to get done and over with.

Oh yeah, the title is there for no other reason than just for amusements sake.

Against a heavily armed Christian?

Yesterday, after months of waiting and having my ticket, I went to see Spamalot. What I thought was my second row seat turned out to be first row, probably because they had to take out first row for the orchestra pit. Yes, Spamalot can be expensive to see, but it is worth it. I paid $63 (not including fees) for my ticket, but it's worth it.

It is funny and still retains a lot from the film it's lovingly ripped from while still retaining enough originality that you can't be bored with it and retaining some freshness to it.

For the two and a half hours while I sat there, I didn't notice the time at all. In fact, it went by so fast by watching the play. It was wonderful.

I had never been to a Broadway play before because of location and price, but I had to go see Spamalot as I love the Holy Grail movie so much, I couldn't resist at all.

It's amazing to see such quick changes to scenery and props and other parts of scenery flying in and out from the ceiling. Props to the guy who plays Tim in the movie for hanging from those wires.

The music itself it so darn catchy, that I need to buy the soundtrack. I want some of the other merchandise too, but its so expensive for what it is. 40 dollars for a Black Knight doll is a ton of money for what it is.

My favorite part has to be what was done to Lancelot during it and that little dance thing was so funny, my sides were aching. I laughed a lot during the play. If it comes anywhere near here again, I'll go see it again.

It's also nice to see favorites such as the Black Knight, The Knights who say Ni, and the killer rabbit. I love that rabbit. The French taunting is even funnier on stage, I think.

I happily enjoyed myself last night.

It's getting done.

I finally did it today. One of those things that signifies even more to my final semester of college is coming...

I signed up for spring classes, which is going to be my last semester of college. That'll be scary.

Though, there was a momentary panic when I signed up for classes. I put in the class codes for them, and our system was telling me I couldn't sign up for Radio 2. Well, what happened is that I got pre-assigned the first session of an Internship class that runs from noon to 1pm. Radio 2 runs from 11:30 to 12:45, so they go against each other and our sign up system didn't approve of that.

See, this is an issue because I wasn't going to attend my internship class anyway. I've already taken it once, but I'm taking another internship to gain more experience. When you take two internships, you don't have to attend the class again. You have to sign up for it to gain the credit hours, but you don't need to attend class because it's the same stuff over again.

But the registration system doesn't know this and wouldn't let me sign up. If that made any sense to other people, but it makes sense to me since I've been dealing with this system for years.

So I went over to Dr. Wilson's office, waited until she was free and told her about this. She registered me to sign up for the second session of internship classes, so that it doesn't go against my schedule.

I signed up for obviously my second internship, Radio 2, Computer Mediated Communication, New Testament, and Greek History.

I somehow figured out classes to take for my last semester since that was my problem beforehand. I had taken all of my required classes for my major, minor, and any other random interest that also happened to fulfill general requirements. I couldn't figure out what to take to fulfill the last 13 credit hours I need to graduate. Well, I'm taking 14 credit hours since internships equal 2 credit hours and 4 regular classes equal 12 credit hours. 12 + 2 = 14.

This is kind of scary that I signed up for my final semester. It's adding even more of a note of finality to this whole experience.