Goodbye...

Well, this first semester is finally coming to an end. I have Thanksgiving Break next week, then 2 more weeks of school, and then finals week. I can honestly say that I have survived so far, but I better not speak to soon because, like I mentioned, final exams have not arrived yet.

I do not know what to expect on finals. I was under the impression that only two of my six finals will be cumulative, covering everything from the beginning of the semester until the end, but to say least, I was wrong. I found out last week that four out of the six are cumulative. FANTASTIC. Basically, I just cannot wait to get them finished. That's all I want--to be done so I can go home for three weeks and not have to worry about doing ANY homework at all, at least until January rolls around.

Honestly, I just wish that someone who has already experienced final exams in college would read this post because I have absolutely no idea what to expect of them. For one time, instead of giving advice, I actually need some.

Sadly, if you are reading this blog to gain insight about final exams, I can not help you, and this blog is mostly made up of freshman, and they have not taken finals either. I regret to inform you that I cannot give you any information about exams until December 16th, which probably will not help you because, chances are, you will already be finished with them by then, unless your exams are after Christmas break. If that were the case though, I CAN help you out!

Now I know how sad this following information is going make you. Be mature about it. You can cry, but I only ask that you not whine.

This will be my last post excluding the one that I will write around December 17th or so. I know how much you will all miss me. Good luck with your college careers!

BOILER UP!

Final Destination

It's almost the end of the semester. Hard to believe so much time has passed, isn't it? I know that to me it doesn't seem like I've been writing this blog very long. Well, no matter what I think, the semester is still almost over. Just a couple more weeks until finals.

Finals. Just the thought of the word leaves a bad taste in my mouth. A lot of people start to stress out about their finals right around now, studying like crazy because they have to relearn everything from the start of the semester. I try not to include myself in that group, preferring the 'relaxed' method of study. I.E., I sit here on the couch until an hour before the final, then I cram like crazy. I know most of you probably prefer that method too. The thing to keep in mind is that while most finals are cumulative, they do not have much more time allotted to them than to a normal test. This means that true, everything is covered, but most of it is barely touched on in the test. There is no need to raise your blood pressure studying when having a cursory knowledge of the information is enough to do well on the final.

Another thing about finals is that the schedule for that week sucks. I don't know about the rest of you, but my finals are just broken up enough that week that I can't go home until they are all over. I have finals on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday (for those of you who don't know, final exam times are listed on SSINFO). It is a 5 hour trip back home for me, so If I went home after my Wednesday final, I wouldn't arrive until late that night, and I'd have to leave on Friday to make it back in time for my Saturday final. If only I didn't have that damn Biology final on Saturday, I could go home three days earlier.

The good thing about finals coming up is that classes tend to become more review-oriented, meaning it is a lot less detrimental for you to miss them. If you can remember most of what you learned over the semester, going to class becomes a lot more pointless around now. For those of you (like me) who like to skip class, this is a good thing. Just remember not to completely ignore your finals. Looking over the things you have learned over the class, even if just for a half hour or so, can make a large difference in your exam score.

Infestation

Well, it's getting to be that holiday-packed time of the year. You all know what that means. That's right: it's cold out. Especially up here in Indiana. No mild winters for us; it is still fall and it's already colder than a dingleberry on a polar bear. As if the cold alone wasn't bad enough, it makes all of the animals that normally live outside try to find someplace warm to chill out for a few months. One of these animals happens to be the Asian ladybug.

For those of you blessed enough to have never seen one of these things, an Asian ladybug looks pretty much like a normal ladybug. The only big difference is that their shells vary in color more and tend to be lighter than normal ladybugs. When winter comes, they all flock indoors to try to avoid freezing to death. This is where they and I start to run into trouble.

For whatever reason, all these little Asian bugs think that my apartment building (I live in Hilltop) is a perfect spot to live for a few months. They are everywhere. Whenever I walk in the building's front door, I have to put on my hood because I always worry that some of them will drop off the celing onto me. In the stairwell alone today I counted 87 of the damn things just sitting on the celing and clustering in the corners. It looks like someone rubbed superglue all over popcorn kernels and just flung them straight up in the foyer.

My only consolation here is that there are none in my apartment. They were all over the place until my roommate snapped and caught every single one in the same glass bottle. There must be more than 50 in there now. The bad thing is that he won't throw them out, so some of them have been sitting in there more than a week. I try not to look at the bottle. If any of you have a similar problem, there are a few things that you can do. First, you could get them all early, like my roommate did. If you get every one that starts to come in, they learn pretty quick not to enter the apartment. Second, you could keep your apartment really warm in the winter. I know I prefer it this way, even though many people don't, and this may help in warding off the bugs. Third, you could always Raid the suckers. This may make your place really uncomfortable to breathe in, but at least you won't have ladybugs everywhere.

The Holidays

So basically no matter where I go, I am seeing Christmas/holiday spirit and decorations, and it is not even Thanksgiving yet! To be honest, I am loving this!

Around campus, I am seeing lights strung on people's dorm windows. Here, at Purdue University, we have a building called the Purdue Memorial Union (PMU), which is basically the center of our University. Most students congregate there, and the PMU is where you can find Purdue's Union Club Hotel (very nice, a little pricey, but highly recommeded!), Purdue's banking service, a food court, Purdue's traveling agency (good deals, by the way!), and my personal favorite--Starbucks!

The Union in itself has not begun decorating for the holidays, unfortunately, but Starbucks....well, that's another story. I went to Starbucks yesterday after my math class because the Union is located across the street from where my math class is located. Starbucks is already in the swing of the holiday season! There is no other way to put it. They are already offering their "Holiday Trio" selections--the Gingerbread Latte, the Peppermint Mocha, and the Eggnog Latte. Every year, I get the Peppermint Mocha. It is absolutely delicious. It has just the right amount of peppermint flavoring mixed with mocha (just to clear everything up, a mocha has a chocolate flavor, while a latte is milky). It actually tastes like mint hot chocolate or better yet, an Andes mint. YUM! Also, Starbuck's has decorated their store already with Christmas trees and garlands, and you can now buy advent calendars there that are shaped like Christmas trees, along with coffee cups, teacups, and t0-go mugs with different holiday settings on each. You should go to a Starbucks and check it out even if you do not plan on buying anything. If one is decorated, they probably all are no matter where in the world they are located.

I actually have my car up here now at Purdue, where freshmen cannot have cars. My boyfriend's roommate is a senior, and he does not have a car here anymore, so he gave me his parking pass.

Anyway, last night, I went to the mall because there is nothing to do at Purdue right now since the whole campus went to IU for the Indiana vs. Purdue football game. I was supposed to go, but I ended up having 2 papers and a major project due Monday so I couldn't. When I went to the mall, Santa Claus was already there giving children the opportunity to take pictures with him. Lights were hanging from the mall's ceiling, and in stores like Macy's, Christmas trees and other holiday decorations are already set up.

Basically, now that I'm in college, I enjoy the holidays even more than I would if I were at home. The decorations and the holiday spirit actually make me feel at home, and they put me in a good mood. I'm excited to for Christmas break and being able to spend a whole 3 weeks at home with my family, but I should probably get through Thanksgiving break first!

Group meetings frustrate me

I had a group meeting on this last Monday for my database programming class. I am in a group of 4 people and we had decided to meet up in a computer lab at 5:30 to get it done. We have to get this done this week since it is due next week and who wants to work the week of thanksgiving.

On to the story. I sent out a reminder email the day before the meeting to remind people. Come time for the meeting. I was at the location on time and two of the group members showed up 15 minutes late. I decided to call the person that was not there since we had several hours of work to do. I tried to call them only to get a message saying it was an invalid phone number. I also decided to try instant messaging them. He was not online though.

Half an hour in one group member tell me that he has to leave at 7:00 because he has another thing to do. He does not tell me what it is though. My theory is he just did not want to work anymore, though he could have been tell the truth. For the past couple of days I have been trying to figure out how to do this lab. I have been emailing my group saying what I have found out how to do and what we still need to do. No one responds. I sent out an email saying we need to meet again. I still did not even get a response to that email till this morning.

I think people do not respond to emails because they do want to have to do more work. They can just pretend like they never read them. I finally found the kid that did not show up to the lab on Monday today. He said he did not know we even had a meeting and had not gotten my emails. He said he was having email troubles. Then I had to fix his email so we could contact him. The only problem with his email was that he had it sorted by subject rather than date. His inbox still told him when he had new email, so he should have read my email.

In college people are extremely unreliable. We are meeting again tonight and I imagine that part way through the meeting someone will say that they have something else to go work on. Keep in mind everyone said they are free to work on the project tonight. This should have been done on Monday, but a person leaving early and another not showing up screwed me.
Moral is you cannot always count on getting done what you had planned with groups. You might have to adjust your schedule to work on something multiple times since you failed to get it done the first time. A lot of the time you also just get nothing done during the meetings.

Getting Around

So I'm a slow walker. Like really, really, really slow. There's a good reason for this. In high school, I hurt my knee playing football and had to have surgery. I was stupid and tried to play too soon.

This happened three times.

Which means instead of one surgery, I had four. And the condition of my knee just kept getting worse and worse. I know, I'm an idiot; but what's done is done. So since my knee has gotten progressively worse, my walk speed has followed that same trend.

Anyway that's not really the point of this post, just a little background information. The real point here is transportation at college. Now as much as I hate to compliment Purdue, their public bus system is pretty good. In fact, for slow walker's it's really good. You can get from point A to point B in a pretty short amount of time.

There are of course other ways to get around campus. One of them is walking. But thats for people who's left leg isn't dead. You can own a car, but that involves having money and a place to park. Both of which are pretty hard to come by at a big college. Especially if your a freshman and your not allowed to have a vehicle on campus.

A bike is another popular method of transportation. You just gotta watch out for dickheads to steal your bike (see previous posts.) And you have to be stellar like me and recover your bike if that happens. If you do get a bike, I recommend getting a cheap one, because let's be honest, I'm one of a kind. I think that's enough self appreciation for the day though.

The point is that in college you gotta be smart as far as getting around goes. You gotta time it properly so that you can get to where you have to go on time. It's usually good to have a plan ahead of how you're going to get to each class so you don't have to think of it on the moment. It works for me.

Getting down there..

I cannot believe that I am finishing up on my last round of exams and the semester is winding down. It seems like the first day where my parents and I were moving in and I had just gotten my room all situated and set up. Older students were shuffling around big totes and bags and helping us find our correct rooms and where all of the amenities are located in the building. I remember feeling so overwhelmed and thinking this was not the right decision to make. You never know unless you try and that was just the idea and mentality that I had coming into college. Throughout this semester I have begun to like college more and more and I am so glad that I made the decision to leave home and come to Purdue. It offers you an endless opportunities and situations that you can take advantage of that smaller colleges may not. Smaller colleges sometimes do not have the resources or accommodations to specific ideas and programs. They do not have available or offer a wide range of majors that you can choose from.


As the semester is winding down make sure you do not slack. You think that your main exams are over and now you can relax and take it easy think otherwise. This is the time where you need to make sure you attend and go to all your classes, keep up with your homework, and do your readings. The hardest thing about the semester still has not yet come which is the dreaded final exams. The worst is where the exam is cumulative and you have to try and remember everything from day one till now. A couple of pointers would be to study a little each day. There is no way that you can cram the night before for a final exam you will be so overwhelmed and stressed. If you spread it out over a couple of days or weeks you will be able to retain more information and not get everything messed up in your head. When you cram you get things all confused and can’t remember where information goes and how things connect. I have also learned in my psychology classes that if I apply specific ideas and theories to things in my life that have happened it helps. It is easy when you make connections to your own life and you can recall the information better by making these comparisons. Hope you do not wait till the last minute to start studying make sure you look ahead and do not get weighed down.