Finals

Finals...

My score is 1 down, 3 to go. My Sociology final was yesterday; it wasn't really a final, just Test 5. We have no cumulative final in that class, so that's nice. I went into it just hanging by a thread though. We had soooo much reading to do, and I just couldn't do it in a nice comprehending manner. I did some fancy speed reading; I had Sharon help me out a little with the online resource part of it (making up study sheets), so that really saved me some time. I went in to school at 7 and studied what I could before and during my algebra class. I was really stressed out about it because it's the type of test that even though it's multiple choice, it can be kind've difficult if you haven't thoroughly read your chapters. You can usually narrow it down fairly easily to two answers, and from there, you need a little God-intervention. You do a little praying, you do a little guessing, and you do a little "art design," i.e., "now which bubble would look the nicest to complete the pattern?"

I was, as usual, in the last fourth of the class to hand my test in. I walked down the hallway toward the restroom; I noticed a small congregation of girls in front of it and as I got closer, I recognized them to be my classmates. When I got close enough, they asked me, "Did you know the Amish questions?!?" We were supposed to have read a chapter on social change amongst the Amish. Some of them somehow missed that they were supposed to have read it, so they had to totally guess on those. I had actually fallen asleep in the middle of reading that chapter, so I just went with what I thought I knew to be true of the Amish. This one girl was so melancholy about it. As other classmates joined us, she said gloomily, "You probably put down 'family and faith' for that one, didn't you? I didn't. I put down 'patience and obedience' because they are soo much more patient and so much more obedient than we are." That kind've struck me as funny. The question had been something about the cornerstone of the Amish way of life. She went on to say, "I mean... everyone puts emphasis on their family." I should've told her that no... not everyone does quite in the way the Amish do. They know every branch and every twig in not only their family tree but in everyone else's too. What's more, they expect every branch and twig to show up at their reunions, etc. There's no shipping off to nursing homes. It's just different. Anyway, I'm kind've going off track here.

I have an algebra final first thing on Monday. Because I have the maximum points possible going into it and because it is only 20% of my overall grade, I need a 50 to still make an A in the class. I'll have to do a lot of brushing up to solidify everything, but I should be ok with some extensive review. My speech final is Monday night; it is open-book, so I'm not too worried about that either. I'll have to go through and familiarize myself with the chapters but once I have good notes made and am able to quickly find the material I need, I'll be fine on that one too. I have an English paper to hand in on Wednesday--no final--and my teacher said my rough draft is pretty well ready to go already. I need to finish up a reader response journal, which will take a while, but after that, I'll be done, done, done... Oh the sweet, sweet taste of freedom! I am SOO going to enjoy my vacation.

My Art Appreciation teacher from next semester accidentally included me on his email list of current students and sent me the review for the final in that class. He sent a "please disregard" email several hours later, but it's encouraging to see things go wrong for others sometimes too.
President Ransdell has invited all the students to join him and his wife for a free breakfast next Monday--finals week--which I thought was pretty cool. Trouble is, I have a final to take right at that time. He and his wife will be serving the students. Should be interesting, at any rate.