Blog 4: Impresiónes

I cant believe how behind I've gotten on the blogging lol! For this entry i'll just write about my first days of school and in the next entry I'll just write a mega blog on all the fun stuff I've done from then until now :)

Wednesday (09/24/11)

Today marked my first real day of college. I didnt get a great nights sleep since I was nervous and excited about starting school but I woke up with a lot of energy, got myself and everything ready, and left a good thirty five minutes before class started. To my surprise, there were only a few people going downstairs at that moment and everyone looked like they'd just gotten run over lol. The energy level was no where near the excitement for school shown in the movies, like in Grease for example!

Needed an excuse to post a grease video just for you Mai lol.

After I left the building, I realized I'd left my map upstairs. Since I'd done a walk through a few days before of where my classes were I felt confident now using the map. Just go straight down and it'd be on my right. I had estimated a seven minute walk to my Spanish class but it was taking me longer to find the building and I finally realized I was completely lost! I asked some people for help and they told me I had walked straight on Speedway when I shouldve walked straight on 21st street (these are the two perpendicular streets that surround my dorm). I looked at the phone and I realized I had less than 15 minutes to get to class from an even further location so I hauled ass a jogged through the increasingly crowded mob of students.

I ran into my spanish class, 5 minutes before class started, panting, sweating, and probably smelling not too fresh. The class was smaller than what I expected, about 25 people in desks arranged in a circle. As I looked around I didnt see our professors, the wonderful Sra. Nevarez. I finally found out who my Spanish teacher was the night before and my heart sank when I saw her name under my course list. The MyEdu community had some less than stellar things to say about Sra. Nevarez, like how she talks to you like you're four, grades very inconsistently, and can be quite condescending sometimes. Worst of all only about 16% of her students made A's in the class and since Spanish is worth 6 out of my 15 currents all excitement I had for the class vanished.

A few minutes after sitting in awkward silence, this young guy comes in and introduced himself. At first I thought he was the TA since he was so young but he stated he was the teacher for our class. Turns out there was a last minute change of instructors and this guy was going to be our instructor for the semester!!

Had I not been with complete strangers I probably would've done this.

His name is Mr. Destafney and he's a first year teacher (he was a TA for a few years before this). Though I was nervous about getting a first year teacher, I would've rather had anyone over Mrs. Nevarez!

Shes the first one in the Spanish Departments video. Her voice...I can't

For the beginning of class we spoke in English and made awkward introductions of ourselves and after that we went into full on Spanish mode. I was really thrilled at how much I understood from him. Sometimes it was hard to understand because he's a bit more monotone and sometimes mumbles but overall, it was fine. As I looked around, I saw alot of blank and confused faces probably thinking "What the eff did I get myself into". I cant imagine going into a language class cold turkey and this is supposed to be the beginners Spanish! Whenever they were asked to speak or asked if they understood they would just shake their head and say "No Entiendo" (I dont understand, though sometimes they'd say it like No Nintendo lol).

Though he assured us its okay not to understand for now, they still were really embarrassed and I felt really bad for them. The class lasted from 8 to 10 and though it was a two hour class, it soared by quickly for me. As I left the room I felt weird entering the world of the English speakers again lol. I really enjoyed class that day and it got me more excited for college and the rest of my classes!

The next class on the schedule was Biology, set to start at 1:00. Having a 3 hour gap in between my classes is a good and bad thing. Good thing is it lets me have a nice breakfast while watching Fresh Prince of Bel Air and gives me ample time to complete homework or studying for the class. Bad thing is I know one day i'm going to fall asleep or forget about that class lol. Lets hope that doesnt happen to me for a while.

I leave the dorm at around 12:30 toward the Pharmacy Building where my Biology class is being held which is a grueling 10-15 minute walk. I enter the building a good 15 minutes before class has started and the hallway is PACKED with students. With everyone talking, the hallway was booming with conversation and it felt like I was in a loud Vietnamese restaurant like Bistro. After a few minutes the doors opened and we began trying to squeeze ourselves through the tiny doorframe as we entered the classroom.

I managed to maneuver myself towards the front of the line and got a seat right in the front row of the classroom. To my left was this creepy guy who's a Pre-Pharm major (that explains it lol) and is that guy who always raises his hand to try and refute what the teacher says -___-. To my right was this nice Asian girl from Houston who I didnt talk to much since she would vigorously copy down the teachers notes. My professor then started class and began introducing herself.

Her name is Professor Karin Akre and I have a feeling she may be the next Mrs. Barclay or Mrs. Jordan hahaha. Shes pretty young and does a good job at  speaking with a lot of enthusiasm and making her lectures interesting. She does alot of animal research and frequently makes reference to certain animal studies to tie it in with whatever she's teaching. Looking at the course calendar I know I'm going to have to study A LOT for this class but since I like the class, I dont mind it so much.

Thursday:

Today started bright and early again with another 8 am'er. I woke up, got dressed, and made sure I had a map before I headed on out to class. The first class of the day was Sociology located in the Geoscience building not too far from Jester. I entered the classroom and it turned out to be in an auditorium which could seat hundreds of people. I sat down next to this girl named Modupe and though it was really awkward at first, we eventually struck up conversation and became sociology buddies :)

My professor for the class if Mrs. Fulton and so far she seems like a decent professor. She's incredibly lenient with grading, for instance she'll drop your lowest grade for assignments, tests, and quizzes and even said if we were borderline, that we could talk to her and she might bump up our grade. She's also a very approachable professor so I dont have to fear that i'll get my face chewed off when going to office hours. The only thing that sucks about the class is that because she always uses powerpoints the turns off all the lights making me want to fall back asleep hahaha. The subject matter is pretty boring too but it's gotten more interesting these past class periods so hopefully it will continue to be that way.

Last but not least came the class I was looking forward to most...Healthcare in Multicultural Societies!! -____- For UT, all freshman have to take a UGS class which is pretty much an easy freshman only class which covers a wide array of topics, from Chinese Literature to Southern Cooking! It was incredibly hard to get into UGS class during orientation because everyone was attempting to get into them at the same time so thats how I got stuck in this class. Though I wasnt too thrilled on taking this class at first, its become the saving grace of my class schedule! Our professor, Dr. Brown, was really down to earth and since our class was so tiny (only about 20 people) we got to get to know each other alot better. We learned more about the course which is basically learning about how other cultures view healthcare and how to be culturally aware and sensitive health professionals. She then handed out the syllabuses and revealed to us that our entire grade would result from projects and writing assignments rather than exams!!!

Thank you Baby Jesus!!

Overall, I'm really liking my class schedule right now. I start pretty early but I usually only have two classes a day, finish in the early afternoon, and like most of the material which is being taught. I'm glad I had a good start to my year and hope it stays like this the entire semester :) Now that the school introduction is out of the way, I can finally start writing about the real fun ;)