Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Half Way There

I'm not inside my own mind today... Yesterday I had my first and only (this semester) university final which means it's officially Christmas Holiday for me. Not to rub it in or anything like that....

It's been an experience for sure and I'm looking forward to adapting my study habits with the rest of the year so that I can do myself some flavors and avoid having to write a paper in two days or study for an exam in only a few days. Lets just say they stress 'time management' in the orientations for a reason though their efforts to hammer that home clearly fell deaf to my ego as I am always firmly in the belief that I'm in control of whatever circumstances that befall upon me.

University of Manitoba is interesting, it's a smaller school obviously but it's a neat campus, they try to rally the troops and get the school spirit going, a lot of students wear  U of M sweaters and t-shirts and hoodies so they're certainly selling the product. They had these baby blue sweaters (the school's colours are brown and yellow, by the way) that I liked but they didn't have them when I had the money to buy one. Alas...

All of my classes are interesting. Philosophy is interesting in particular. I'm wondering what I will get on my paper, regardless, things have kind of shifted gears. The year started out with Logic which was rather mathematical in essence and then to transition from that to full on philosophy was kind of jarring at first. It's a challenging class in regard to thinking about what you really believe in and what you stand for and assessing the moral and ethical parameters of that is kind of fun.

Psychology was as I predicted a struggle only because of the online component. It was take the partial lecture / partial online class or take the three hour night class. I picked what I felt was the lesser of two evils as I knew although I could be more focused with the night class, a three hour lecture after 6pm is not ideal. Its making the time to listen to the lectures online (I can listen to them on my iPhone, I recently learned...) has been challenging. Once I get home, I want to chill. Of course, this class as a priority I've been diligent but I need to be more-so.

Sociology is fun. My professor is a self-professed "tree hugging" marxist who has some pretty strong feelings toward the oil and gas industry and toward consumerism too. He isn't radical but he isn't shy about his opinions either and he's very conscious to differentiate the two. I think I've learned the most from this class about a lot of different things. It's been a lot of fun.

Lastly, Film Studies. I got an A- on my final paper. I know how George Michael feels now. It was a fun class and it was the class I had the final for. It was a great opportunity to see some films I would never have watched otherwise and even watch a couple of my favorite movies, Punch Drunk Love and Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind. It's morphed the way I watch movies now, I don't care if that sounds corny (it does) but I do have a new appreciation of movies that I didn't have before. I am still pretentious with my movie tastes, I don't see that changing.

I have politics in the coming semester, it will be interesting. It's a class about Canadian politics in particular so I'm looking to hopefully learn some things in that class. I've always felt strong about my political opinions but also kind of ignorant as well. I feel like I'm in the perfect position to finish the year strong and my goal of Honors is in sight. I know it's kind of nerdy but I got honors in high school regardless of the fact that pretty much everyone got honors in my grad class, I just want to keep that train rolling.

I'm looking forward to the holiday, to a little relaxation, and who knows, with the 21st approaching maybe this will be my last entry. I'm sure I'll break the laws of life and death and find a way to blog from beyond the grave...

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