Wednesday, August 27, 2008

First Day of Class A Blast


You'll never guess where I'm coming from...... OK, I've been back for a couple of hours. I was just trying to set up part of my schedule for tomorrow on Calendar Hub which I opted for instead of iscrybe due to the restrictions on registration and because calendar hub has a drag and drop feature. Anyway, I just left an Afro Latin Percussion class [WHICH, I just found out I could get credit for] and it was amazing. We kind of jumped right into everything relatively quickly because he was trying to get us ready for a performance in 3 weeks. Huh? I know, that's crazy right? Actually, the professor is actually pretty cool. Word on the street is that he spent a fair amount of time studying percussion in Ghana. He seems to know a bit about the history of the politics in a lot of African regions, and the history of the slave trade and such. There were also songs that we performed that had Swahili lyrics, of which the only two words I understood were, "na" and "ashe". But it was all good... although I did learn something. As of this moment I am not capable of drumming and singing at the same time. I have not developed that level of proficiency yet and evidently it takes a little bit of time.... I need to find a good deal on a djembe...



My other classes, were kind of frightening. I kind of expected math to be, and it wouldn't have been so bad had my instructor not been right handed, and I sat on the left side of the classroom. When he wrote he kind of blocked the graphs and such and I lost invaluable information I'm sure trying to hurriedly copy the examples on the board. I'm going to talk to this disability and accessibility services probably tomorrow to see whether or not they could provide me with a tape recorder, preferrably with usb, so that i can keep up. I can only do so many things at once and I am going to have a nervous breakdown if I get too far behind. I went through the lesson and did my own notation afterward, so hopefully, I can sort of get ahead of the lessons so that in the event that I miss the examples I'll still be able to understand the concepts. It worked pretty well for me this summer.

Then I had Chinese later. I thought I was going to cry.... like a little b*tch. If I didn't absolutely need it and it wasn't essential to what I'm trying to do, I would totally drop that course. Even though I'm suitmates with the TA she doesn't talk to me. I'm rarely there and when we do see each other and I smile, she looks unnerved or something, probably because she only hangs out with the other asian international students, so i just smile and keep going. I may have to hunt her down though to lead a study group or something. Ironically, my RA is in my class as well. So I'm just saying. It would be an excellent opportunity.

Had it not been for the drumming, the highlight of my day would have been Tech 110. I take it with my brother. We're in the same group. They had to split the class in half among two professors and we got the African guy who talks about energy and power in systems. Hello, awesome... I know my brother would have preferred to take the graphic engineering part first. But that's more like icing on the cake for me. Plus they added videography as part of the curriculum so I am totally hyped about that. Probably the most fascinating, tangible thing that I saw aside from the drafting table desktops was this machine that they had that made plastic prototypes. Immediately I wondered how long it would take to fashion me a belt buckle. I've lost so much weight that I'm having to use a scarf as a belt until I can get something different. Anyway, my brother and I decided that we were going to share a locker for the year and split the cost... you know, to store our safety goggles and such.

I got a lot done today. And I still have tons more to do tomorrow. Secretly I had sort of been awaiting thursday to be kind a day to mellow out and chill in the books, but I realize now that it's not going down like that. I was trying to read this book for the ACES program for this class that we're required to take called Whistle While You Work and the author was talking about how there are times when we find ourselves caught up in situations that we may feel overwhelmed by and we have to make the choice to stick it out because really we don't have a choice. It's not like we have anything to go back to. For better or worse, if we're stuck in it, we may as well "get into it" and try to get something worthwhile out of it. Well, here I am, in it, knee deep in my crocs wishing I had rain boots.

I did buy a memory foam pillow though. I'm about to check it out in a minute and I went to a show at the planetarium sometime between drumming and studying. Which means that when I get off of work tomorrow there is no screwing around Not only do I get to finish my assignments. I also get to start on the new ones, although I may wait to really optimize some of that time on the weekend. This has been the longest week ever. Thank goodness I'll be going to c0unseling services tomorrow. I checked with the athletic center to see when they offerred yoga, because I wanted to do it in the mornings and [they don't]. So I'm going to have to make some adjustments, but I found a phys ed major who agreed to meet with me on thursday mornings to do a core pilates workout. So on the other days I'd jsut have to work on balance and maybe molding the badonk-a-donk....

On the food front, I've been coordinating the veggie board for a meeting this weekend so I can throw together a power point presentation. i found the cafe and the option there are little more manageable, but I kind of got irked when the cafeteria lady she couldn't cook my omlet in a separate skillet [even though there was a stack of them right next to her] and she had just cooked pork in the ones that she had. Why wouldn't they have separate skillets for people with food allergies and dietary restrictions? I'm thinking that some of those people just aren't properly trained... What if I had Celiac or something. There's a vegan there that has lived this entire week off of peanut butter on slices of wheat bread. But he still has to swipe his card to use his meal plan to do that. I probably wouldn't have even pushed it so much if all of these preservatives and whatever they're serving wasn't such a shock to my system. I'm going to the bathroom like all the time, and I'm really not even eating that much. But I can definitely feel the protein deficiency creeping in. my back has been hurting and i'm getting headaches. it could just be all of the activity though. but i've sort of shunned the veggie burgers that the cafeteria provides because they cook them on top of the same flat top that they cook the meet. Ummmm no.

But I must go to bed. I promised myself that I was going to start going to bed sooner and limiting my time on the internet. I haven't really been on it in the last couple of days due to scheduling conflicts and the need to honor by body's need for rest. I only made the exception because I know some of you out there, in Atlanta wanted to know how the first day of classes went. I'll have to go back and add a picture or something later. In the meantime.... I'm going to bed. I'll see yall this weekend.

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