Romii

If people didn’t know already, I’m living in DC/Maryland again this summer. This time I’m alone in a basement of a fairly nice house in Takoma – it’s been renovated to be more or less like an apartment. It’s pretty sweet, minus all the bugs (which I can’t avoid no matter where I go).

So these are my plans for the summer:

• Try to wake up by 7am every weekday, by 10am on weekends (so far this has failed…).
• Work office hours (9am-5pm) every weekday to earn some money!
• Bike ride a lot!
• Explore Silver Spring on bike.
• Make my place suitable for living (aka. unpack and clean up the cobwebs…).
• Spend time with Brendan.
• Cook more meals.
• Make a new design!
• Possibly switch to Habari in the process of making a new design.
• Record more solo songs.
• Play Starcraft 2 Beta until it goes retail.
• Play any other games I’ve bought a while back and need to start and/or complete (i.e.: Persona 3 FES, Persona 4, Suikoden Tierkreis, Suikoden IV, Suikoden Tactics, etc).

My class schedule for next year is still a bit wonky, as I haven’t gotten that independent study approved yet. Life’s been pretty good otherwise; Brendan and a few of my friends are graduating this Saturday since they’re seniors, and it feels a bit lonely now.

It’s a bit scary thinking about senior year, as I still haven’t come up with a plan for my senior project that will actually work. All my ideas are kind of lame and web-based showing, as opposed to something you’d want to display as an actual artwork in an exhibit. It’s hard trying to switch to that mentality. Hopefully something will come to mind…soon.

Speaking of classes though, I did fairly worse than last semester on grades, so my GPA has dropped to a 3.377. Personally, I don’t care that much as I’m still good for the loans and grants I have, but it’s still slightly sad. Hopefully next year I’ll be able to do better now that I have most of the boring requirements out of the way.

Now it’s winding down to my last year of college. Seniors just signed up for courses today (started at 7:00am on the dot), and so of course I deprived myself of some sleep to do so. Here is the tentative class schedule; I may be taking another independent study this semester, this time in Computer Science, if the Director of the School of Engineering gets back to me sometime before the summer…

Definite classes:

• ART 451 – Senior Studio Art Coordinating Seminar: This is my senior seminar class that I must take. For some reason it’s not letting me sign up for it, so it’s not official, but seeing as we only have seven senior Studio Art majors, it shouldn’t be a problem. Of course, this is for my Studio Art major. This class kind of cut off some of my options for other classes though, ’cause it spans over 3 class meeting times (Mondays and Wednesdays, 12:10pm-2:30pm).
• ENG 312 – Norse Mythology: Although I now have heard mixed reviews about the professor teaching the course…it’s Norse mythology. I always have been interested in Norse mythology, and have been trying to take this course for a while now (but it’s either always full or during a time slot where I have another class I need to take). It meets every Tuesday and Thursday, from 11:10am to 12:25pm. Right after a nice class about ancient gods, I’ll be having lunch! I’m taking it to fulfill my English minor.
• PSY 376 – Cognitive Psychology: Apparently the professor is good (and easy), and I’m taking it with a friend of mine. I’m not so sure how interested I am in cognitive studies, but might as well try it out. It’s an early class on Tuesdays and Thursdays (9:35am-10:50am), but not as early as the Lifespan Development class (8:10am-9:25am) I’m taking this semester so I’m not complaining. This is for my Psychology minor.
• TRS 260 – Christianity and Culture: Eh…the advisor for TRS majors/minors suggested that I take this because the professor is good. I need to a take 200-level Christianity related course in order to fulfill my general requirements for my major. Since I’ve already taken four TRS courses (Confucianism and Taoism falls under elective since it doesn’t fit my remaining TRS requirements), I figured I might as well minor in TRS since I would be forced to take five either way, and just need one more to make a minor (six courses). This one fits in pretty nicely with my schedule, meeting at 11:10am-12:10am every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It’s a pity that it’s my only Friday class though, but oh well. 300-level courses is where it’s at though…to be honest, I really put off taking a course to fulfill this requirement because the classes that actually fit for that requirement sound so terribly boring. I mean, Introduction to the Old Testament? New Testament? I had to go through all that in grade school/high school. I don’t need a recap in college, thank you very much.

Possible choices:

• CSC 696 – Independent Study: This is all to fulfill a requirement in Natural Sciences. Argh, it’s so frustrating that the most advanced web design related course they have is “Introduction to HTML”. From what one of my friends told me, it was a joke, and probably would’ve been an absolute joke for me to take it. So my supervisor at work and I worked out a proposal to make a more advanced course just for me, which would essentially teach me the programming aspects that I don’t know (ColdFusion, Java, etc). We were going to do it this semester (Spring 2010), but I had another independent study, so it wouldn’t work.
• ART 309 – Introduction to Photography: Now I know that I’ve already taken the Introduction to Digital Photography and Photoshop course, but this is different. This is old-school photography, with the darkroom and all. It’s so exciting! Though, since the Art department doesn’t officially have a professor for this yet, I can’t say that I’m definitely taking it. It’s sad. It meets Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:35pm to 8:55pm, so I’m not sure how much photography we’d be doing in class, but it’s definitely good conditions for using the darkroom and whatnot. And of course, it hopefully fulfills my concentration in Digital Arts. I’m not too sure about that though…my advisor never made it really clear…
• ART 303 – Painting I: This is a maybe. I may take this if I can’t get into the Photography class, I may take this even if I do. This depends slightly on whether or not I get the Computer Science (CSC) independent study course that I want. This may or may not help me with my senior project, seeing as I still don’t really know what I want to do. We’ll see. It meets right after my senior seminar class (Mondays and Wednesdays 3:10pm – 5:30pm), so that would be kinda bad in terms of work hours.
• ART 360 – Sculptural Self Portraits: Again, like the Painting I class, this is a “maybe” class. Depends on the Photography class mostly, as it meets at the same time as the Photography class.
• PSY 226 – Close Interpersonal Relationships: I signed up for this, but I’m not sure if I’ll actually take it. I was kind of interested in it, but now I feel like it’s not as interesting as I made it out to be in my head. It would be an easy class, but it also divided up my Tuesday/Thursday afternoons weirdly (it meets from 2:10pm to 3:25pm) so I wouldn’t be able to work as many hours if I took it.

There were a few other Psychology classes I considered, such as Psychology of Terrorism and Forensic Psychology, but the scheduled class times don’t work well for me.

Speaking of Fall ’10, I was able to get the housing I wanted off-campus. It’s technically an apartment in someone’s basement, but they just call it a room in their house. It’s so nice though and I’m so glad I was able to get it, because it’s only $650 per month, all utilities included (cable, internet, electricity, heat, water, etc). It’s a fully furnished room, and in the “hallway” area of the basement, there’s a kitchen – refrigerator, kitchen sink, stove/oven combination all included. The only thing not included is the microwave, but hell – I already have one! There’s also a washer/dryer combination near the bathroom (which I can get to through the hallway), and it’s my own private set. I’ve worked out the pricing, and if I max out on transportation costs (always going back and forth during peak hours, which I probably wouldn’t), then I still save a good couple hundred each month. I start living here in the summer (so after finals), since I’ll be working on campus again over the summer break.

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…

There are only 2 1/2 weeks left of the fall semester. Needless to say, most of my classes have projects and/or papers due within these weeks. I’ve been scrambling this week to get work done this week.

It feels weird. It’s already the end of the semester – I’m almost halfway through my junior year. Soon I need to think about what to do about senior year and about graduation. What should I do after graduation? I’ve thought about it a bit. I do have a potential job after I graduate on campus, continuing what I’m doing now at work for a higher wage. I could go to graduate art school. Maybe I could even travel if I had the money to do so.

For those of you who are older, how did you deal with the never-ending questioning of what to do after graduation? Did you already have a clear idea of what you wanted to do? Did you debate about it up until graduation? And for those of you who are my age or younger, have you started to think about it?