Romii

Today was the first official day of classes. People came back to the dorms Saturday and Sunday, and it’s now very populated on campus, unlike the past week where it seemed like a ghost town. Fortunately for me, I don’t have classes today. Unfortunately, I have all my classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, one after another. Fun times. You can check out my schedule here: Spring 2010 Schedule.

As you can see, classes on Tuesdays/Thursdays start at 8:10am…and I am very much not a morning person. I get breaks in between for lunch and dinner. My last class ends at 8:50pm (I mistakenly thought it ended at 10pm and was lamenting about it to everyone…oops!). I will have another time slot scheduled for Art 596, which is my Independent Study course (Digital Arts II), but as the professor is being very slow in getting back to emails, I’m not sure when that’ll be.

My work schedule might change a bit too so it matches Brendan’s a little better (such as working until 6pm instead of 5pm on Mondays/Wednesdays). I’m hoping that I’ll be able to stick to the work schedule and make 19 hours every week…which is the max number of hours you can work on campus. Thankfully I’m not necessarily constricted to the 9:00am-5:00pm, as some work assignments can be done from my room.

To explain the classes a bit though since no one would know what the numbers stand for, here are the titles/brief descriptions:

• PSY 379 – Life Span Development. Lecture. This is a psychology course I’m taking to fulfill requirements for a Psychology minor. Children and development are some of the topics I’m interested in…other than art and its relations to psychology, of course. Unfortunately they don’t have many of the art/technology-related psychology courses offered, so my choices are a bit limited. I don’t know much about Professor Monaghan, but hopefully she’s good.
• TRS 390 – Taoism & Confucianism. Lecture. I don’t care much for sitting through Christianity courses such as “Introduction to the Old Testament” and whatnot, as I’ve already learned a lot of that in high school. I’m really interested in other religions, and even though this really doesn’t fulfill any requirements (and actually kind of sets me back in my Theology requirement as this doesn’t fulfill the last slot I need to get done), I’m kind of excited for this class. I heard Professor Jones is good, so we’ll see!
• ENG 301 – Creative Writing:  Fiction. Lecture. I want to improve on my writing, especially within the realm of fiction, so this is a good course to take to fulfill my English minor requirements. I know nothing about the teacher, however, so I’m a bit worried.
• PHIL 313 – Philosophy of Human Nature. Lecture. Eh, it’s philosophy. I could care less, to be honest. The only reasons I chose this class are because 1) no other courses fit my schedule/fit the last requirement slot, and 2) I’ve had Professor Tassone before. He’s a nice professor and a fair grader. His course load is a bit heavy on the reading, but not too bad in terms of writing assignments. The only problem I have with him is that his lectures are a bit on the dull side.
• ART 362 – Making Your Mark: Experimental Drawing. Studio. This is replacing my “ART 202: Drawing II” course requirement, as that originally conflicted with my Digital Arts II class (though it doesn’t anymore, but let’s not sweat the details). All of my art professors were praising this class, so I’m hoping it’s as good as they say. It sounds interesting at least…come on, experimental drawing? That’s got to be awesome! I’ve never had Professor Kretz as a teacher before, nor have I ever heard of her, but we’ll see how it goes.
• ART 596 – Independent Study. This is the independent study class that I’m doing with Professor Navarrete, the only Digital Arts professor we currently have. It’s supposed to replace the “Digital Arts II” class that was canceled due to low enrollment. Fulfills my Digital Arts concentration requirement. I had “Digital Arts I” with Professor Navarrete, and he was a good teacher.

So we’ll see how I survive my first day of classes tomorrow. I’m hoping the pile-up of 6 classes in one day won’t kill me, but it might…ah well! That’s life!

There is no heat in my dorm room at all. I’m at work now, but last I checked the thermostat, it was at 57 degrees – two degrees warmer than what it was yesterday. Keeping the lights on at night helped a bit.

What I don’t understand is how they could allow early arrivals and not have any intentions of making the dorms a livable temperature. They knew I would be staying at the dorms starting Monday since before winter break started. How do I know this? Because I have to request for their approval so they can reactivate my student ID. Our student IDs are designed to swipe us into our dorms, and they deactivate them over the winter break to make sure people aren’t sneaking in and out.

It won’t even hit 60 degrees! I can live with 60 degrees because that’s what my mom keeps the house at, and the heater jumps on every now and then to warm the place up. But there’s no heat. At all. And they didn’t inform me of this when they said “hey, you’ve been approved to come back to campus a week early so you can work!” Now they just expect me to accept things as they are because they didn’t think to inform the poor student that they will not turn on the heat at all until Saturday.

The other bad thing is that it’s prohibited to have space heaters because it’s a “danger to the dorm and the student”…at least, that is what they’ve written in the student handbook. I think it’s more of a danger to not have heat and to allow someone to live in that kind of condition. Had I known I wouldn’t have heat, I would’ve disregarded the rules and brought a space heater from home.

I might still disregard that stupid rule and buy a space heater…

Yep, after two weeks of gruelling boredom, winter break is now over. Don’t get me wrong; I love to relax and the break from constantly doing work, but it’s no fun when I’m back at home with nowhere to go. There are no friends who live close by me. I end up stuck inside, on the couch, wasting away. Even my eating habits have deteriorated to one meal a day because of the lack of energy used! I’ve concluded that being back home is actually bad for my health.

In any case, I’ll be hopping on the New Century Travel Express Bus that goes from the Chinatown in Philadelphia to the Chinatown in Washington, D.C. Personally, I’ve liked the service. I try to avoid the busy holiday times – there are usually hundreds of people waiting for a bus during that time, and you have to fight your way to get a seat. Mornings tend to be a good time to go; not many people like waking up that early (8:30am-9:00am). There are no reserved seating, but they have given priority to those with tickets bought online during the busy holidays. It’s not luxurious, but it gets me where I need to be for a cheap price ($30 round-trip tickets for DC/Philly travel).

My plan is to leave with my mom who goes to work somewhere near that area. Leave at 7:00am, hop on a bus that goes to 69th Street terminal, switch to Market-Frankfort Line, and end up at Chinatown. Then catch either the 8:30am or 9:00am bus to D.C. Make it there around 11:30am-12:00pm. Get back to campus a half hour later. Put things away, shower, and wait for Brendan to get off of work. Then after that play lots of games and relax with my boyfriend! Good plan? I think so.

Being back on campus gives me more options for enjoyment. I can hop on the metro and go into downtown D.C. for some sightseeing, or I can just spend my time working in the morning and playing with Brendan in the evening. Perhaps even meet up with friends if they’re back already! I really should be preparing myself for classes that start in a week, but eh…whatever! Fun times must be had first!