Here I am…

After not posting in my Xanga for oh, three months, I decided that it was time to move on and leave natural separators where they lie. Xanga was my life throughout high school, and it looks as though Blogger is where I can call home for at least part of college.

Now… what to talk about? I guess college could be a good, broad topic on which I start.

College
JMU is so incredible. There are certain moments where I’m walking to class, or hanging out with people, where I take a look around and realize that this is definitely the place for me. I love so much of this new experience, but at the same time, I can’t wait for this first semester to be over with. My classes are kind of sketch – I’m only in four, and two of them aren’t so great from a professor standpoint.

Spanish 231: It’s a typical Spanish class. Hugo (the prof) is a cool guy, but he doesn’t teach much. Things are easy, and I have a pretty good grade from what I gather (I think it’s around oh, a B+), but some days it almost seems like a waste of time reviewing things I already know. I also seem to know an extraordinary amount of Spanish compared to others in my class.

Critical Thinking: Le sigh. Most of the material in this class makes sense, but the prof – if you want to call him that – sucks. Hard. He’s a grad student from U.Va and has no idea how to teach, therefore we more or less teach ourselves everything. We’re working on some really tough concepts right now, the midterm is next Wednesday, and everyone is lost. Our “grade” is composed of two exams and two tests. My first test grade was an 85% – not bad. But… that’s only 20% of the whole grade, so I’m kind of up in the air until next week.

Lifespan Human Development: This is the class that makes me feel like I’m in college. It’s a GenEd, but Dr. R treats us like we’re adults (because oh, we are) and it doesn’t feel like a re-hash of high school. The material is interesting, new, and different, and I’m positive that I have a solid A in this class. I love it.

Elementary Statistics: It’s last year’s AP Stats class all over again. My prof is a very nice woman, originally from the Phillipines, who has a bit of an accent. Fortunately, she speaks English well enough that we all understand her, but she also moves at a quicker-than-rapid pace. I just took her midterm last week and should find out my grade next week sometime. Hopefully it’s a good one…

So those are my classes. Some days feel rather tedious to be quite honest. The only class that I truly dislike is my Critical Thinking class, and that’s because the prof doesn’t explain anything and I’m lost. Maybe there’s a relationship??

The MRDs
I have a one hundred percent mixed opinion in regards to the MRDs. Performances are fun and the music is good. We sound incredible. From both a visual and aural standpoint, I am impressed. However… rehearsals are not so fun. I’m not a Scott Rikkers fan, and I’m not quite sure why. My friend Kathryn told me that she quit in part because of him, but that she couldn’t quite say why he played such a part. I feel the same way. I want to like him, but at the same time, I find him hard to like.

Drinking is some of the MRDs’ favorite activity. Others enjoy doing drugs. Some enjoy both. I really don’t care in regards to either – I’m not trying to be a prude – but I’m not a fan of people showing up to rehearsals and/or performances in such a state of inebriation.

This probably makes the MRDs sound bad and whatnot, but really, they aren’t that bad. I know for a fact that after five years of marching band, I’m on total burnout. It’s just time to move on and maybe I should have realized that over the summer before I made such a commitment. The MRDs count as a grade on my GPA, so I’ll have a 4.0 in there which will be nice to have. I can say with definition that I will not be re-joining next year. It’s not my style here. Funny thing is, I’m OK with that. I want to branch out and try new things.

New Things
I sometimes feel as though my involvement with the MRDs has prevented me from getting to know more people. The band is very tight within each respective section. However, the baritones are the smallest section – only ten – and we’re all pretty different. I don’t really like most of the section, which wouldn’t be an issue were we a bit bigger. Fortunately, I like two people quite a bit (I’d call them ‘friends’ instead of just ‘people in my section’) and we will all be sitting near each other on this weekend’s bus trip.

So, I’ve made friends within the band and from other sections. We hang out quite a bit and through each other have met more people. I still feel unprepared, though. Many people already know what they’re doing for next year’s housing – leases for apartments are due soon, and on-campus is in November – and I have no idea who I want to room with. Some of the guys I was thinking of asking are moving off-campus, which is not my first choice. I may still go off if I find people that I really click with. Not having my own room right now is slightly frustrating some days.

I’ll have to finish all of this later. I need to run to the post office and then to MRD rehearsal.

Go Dukes!