Why is Winter Quarter so Busy?

So I had planned on starting my two posts a month this month by updating in the first week of March, but obviously that did not happen. I was ready to make a post, then suddenly all the classes I was in upped their workloads and I was actually left with no time to sit down and make an update. Then last week, I put in a new quotes post (see below by the way if you haven't yet) and I wanted to have some space between posts. I do plan on making a post in the first half of April though (currently I am aiming for the 4th or whatever that Monday is) and from there, I will start doing posts twice a month. In this post, I'm going to probably skip over some minor things that happened because I want to keep the post to a normal length and frankly, those things weren't terribly important. Since the quarter ended, I will first start off on that though.

Theology of Peace: (This will be the longest section by a lot, I promise)
I'm actually really glad I wound up in this class. Since it was full, that means by me getting in, someone else did not. I hope that that person that I prevented from entering the class looked at alternative options to this class and got their theology credit that way. If that one person avoided the pain this class caused me, I am more than happy to have suffered through the whole quarter with it. I wanted to give it a shot, I really did. I was nice to the teacher, but she was just so disrespectful to all the students. She wouldn't let them argue points without claiming that they were "not interpreting what she meant correctly" or telling them they were being disrespectful (while she was interrupting them to tell them this). Fortunately, we get to rate teachers on their performances and I know a bunch of us did not give her very favorable reviews. I spent the last half of the quarter experimenting to see how little effort I could put in while still getting full credit. She even commented on what a good writer she thought I was, which clued me in to the fact that she clearly had no idea what she was talking about. I would not consider myself a good writer.

For the final project, we had to give informative speeches on a peacebuilding organization of our choice. We couldn't double up, but that wasn't a problem because I knew of a local one (World Concern) that fit the bill perfectly. Even better, I personally know the president (dad's best friend) and I decided it would be fun to go the extra mile for the project and interview the leader of the organization. As I thought, I wound up being the only person to do this. He also gave me several good anecdotes, which was really cool. In the end, I had about 20 minutes of material for my 5-7 minute speech. Of course, I got up there without rehearsing and without a script (because I tend to get distracted when I have/have done those things). During the speech, I was unable to see the clock, but the teacher was to let us know when we were running out of time. After what seemed like about four minutes into the speech, she started playing with her watch and standing up and generally being a distraction. At that point, I was concerned that I was actually a few minutes off and was out of time, so I had to actually stop my speech to point back at her and say "Am I out of time or what is going on back there?" She then proceeded to tell me I had a couple minutes left. I just looked at her with a look that I hope said "Then what the hell are you doing?" as I got back to finish my speech.

Students in the class rate the speeches and offer feedback on them through hading in slips of paper after each speech. It's hard to tell what exactly to work on because for mine, I ran the gambit from "not enough eye contact" to "excellent eye contact" and "too quiet" to "very easy to hear and understand." I guess it depends on where they were sitting. One guy commented on my monotone, which was funny and true. The one comment that really offended me was the one that said I was boring. It was the only comment like it in the whole class. Guess who it came from? THE FUCKING TEACHER! I was super pissed (which you can see since I just dropped a rare f-bomb on my blog) that the teacher herself said it was boring. I even asked my mom if that was feedback she would ever give someone and she said if she actually were to do that, it would be accompanied by a long list of ways to improve that. Mine did not, so again, I was really pissed at her for that. What was boring about my speech lady? I was the only person that didn't give just a historical rundown of the company. I told stories of real people receiving real help. Real experiences in actual countries and actual warzones all over the world. What was boring about my speech? Is it boring that I can talk about something without resorting to a video every 5 minutes? Seriously, we watched a video all but 3 days in that class. It was a total waste of my time and again, I really hope I helped somebody avoid that class. If not for the cool classmates, this would have been a totally intolerable experience. I did continue to spend time between classes hanging out with that girl from frisbee, but for those of you wondering how that progressed, it sounds like she has a boyfriend.

Financial Markets and Economic Development:
In stark contrast to the last class, THIS CLASS WAS SO AWESOME. I only got a B in it for the quarter, but I really learned a lot and I feel like I earned that B. The teacher was extremely helpful and I'm glad I have the opportunity to have a class with her next quarter. She was one of the best teachers I've had in my college experience thus far. That was another thing that helped me to get through theology was knowing I was coming to this class immediately after. Our final project in this class was a 20 minute presentation about an assigned topic. Of course, our group of four got the hardest one because of the lack of specificity. There were ones like, "Effects of Microfinance" or "Lessons from Crisis" that were pretty easy to follow. Our topic was "Finance in Development." Well there are hundreds of financial factors that can spur development, so in the end, we decided to just do some regressions based on a few factors we found interesting. Fortunately, my group was pretty good. We had this one guy that I had class with last quarter and also play frisbee with. He was a pretty good leader. Then there was this guy that is kind of like me, but much more pro at econ. He got a lot of good data for us. Then, there was this cute asian (I know, sorry for the redundancy there) girl who also got good information and helped keep us guys in line. After we started working as a group, she began to sit by me in class (by choice) which was actually pretty cool. Then there was me, I guess in addition to doing whatever was needed at the time, my special skill was tech support (which surprisingly came in handy very often). The presentation went pretty well, judging by my grade in the class, we aced it. Our presentation actually wound up being the longest at 30 minutes including the question and answer period, which was good because it meant people were really interested in it. I said a couple things that didn't make sense on accident, but was able to recover from it.

Law, Politics, and Society:
This class really had some great people in it. It was entertaining to watch them interact with each other all quarter and I was kind of sad on the last day to know I probably wouldn't have class with them again. It was like a nice TV show getting cancelled. The class went pretty well overall and I was happy with what I learned. I also found out that the professor of that class is one of the pre-law advisors at the school, so I got to meet with her about that, which was super helpful. I guess she thought I was a polisci minor, so when she found out I wasn't and that I was just taking the course as a general elective, she seemed kind of impressed.

Frisbee:
This went pretty well too. Last time the finals were approaching, the team kind of broke up for the remainder of the quarter since tournaments were done and it was cold outside. This quarter, we had a tournament the weekend before finals, so practices were getting more serious as we got to the end of the quarter. This wreaked havoc on my schedule, causing me to just miss a few practices rather than get behind on projects. Despite that, I was playing pretty well all quarter. I've cemented myself as a handler, but not because I can't run. I still get called upon to cut in some situations, but most often, I get to sit back and handle for the whole point. I like it that way. The tournament we had recently was PLU BBQ down in Tacoma/Puyallup area. We did pretty bad the first day, but I guess they won both their games on the second day. I did not go on Sunday because I was doing...

St. Patrick's Day Dash:
I beat Kathryn again and got first place in my family this year. Both Kathryn and I were able to run the whole thing without walking at all this year, so pretty good. I ran under 10 minute miles and got my new personal best time of 35 minutes and beat Kathryn by 5 minutes. We then got to hang around the finish line taking snacks and stuff while we waited for mom and dad. One of the things being given away was 5 hour energy, which I got three of. I tried one recently and other than feeling like I wanted to puke after tasting it, I did not feel a thing. No energy, no crash, I don't know what was up.

Gaming:
Guild Wars has been going well. I read an old blog post to see why I quit and I'm glad I gave it a second chance. When I stopped, it was just because I was getting really bored with it, now it is fun again. And with Steven to play with, it's more enjoyable. We recently found a great place to earn money, so we have been doing that. We both quit SOT and left it in Chris' capable hands for now. This new guild has about 80-90 people (15 of which are ever online) that do this run, so it's fun to just talk with them during runs and stuff. It also helps that they are good and can do a 2 hour run in about an hour and a half.

Steven, Eric, Chris, and I have also taken to playing Minecraft online which has been pretty fun. Going online and messing with servers or playing on pvp servers is quite fun actually and a great way to spend 5 hours without realizing it.

Studying Abroad:
So I don't know who I told about this. I am convinced I told someone, but so far, I have not found who that someone is. I am led to believe that I may have had a series of my dreams about mundane conversations (I hate getting those mixed with reality) since nobody seems to know I was even thinking about this. The truth is, since I went to the Netherlands, I have wanted to study abroad. Initially, I thought I would wind up there. At Seattle U, I began looking at options. NL was not one of them, but one that did strike me as interesting was South Korea. That has long been a language and culture I have wanted to learn about and the program looks really great for econ majors, so I'm trying to get into it (also, it is where Sunny and Starcraft live!!!). The problem right now is figuring out with my parents how I can help cover the cost. I'm thinking it won't be a problem because of all the money I saved by going to SCC (2 full years at SCC with overload every quarter is equal to the cost of only about 2 quarters with dorming and a meal plan at the UW). I'll keep you all posted on how this pans out. If it does work out, I won't be able to make it to PAX this year, but after last year, I think that is something I can live with. I'm not saying you guys sucked at it, just that it was getting way too crowded.

Ok well that's it for now. I'm in Yakima right now at the hotel where the drill team is staying. All the parents stay here too and they are all at the place where they perfrom right now just sitting around for 10 hours today. The team perfroms at 4:30 which is when our relatives from the tri-cities are coming up, so I'm planning on going up then. In the meantime, I'm going to just play some Guild Wars to pass the time. Until about a week and a half from now, peace out.

I'm sure by now that everyone has heard of the terrible tragedy that has unfolded, now starting to cause panic and confusion in America. Of course, I'm talking about the new song "Friday" by whoever the hell Rebecca Black (aka R.B.?) is. I first heard the video on Monday night and was immediately taken with its ridiculousness. For about an hour, I riffed on this song with Davis, Keir, and Sai. It was definitely the best study break I had all weekend. Here is the conversation. Sorry, I had to split it into two separate pictures. This was the only way I could get it to zoom to a readable size.