Post the Third: Fall 2010 Schedule.

You know how I mentioned in my first post that I plan things out excessively? And how I was waiting for SFU to post their Fall 2010 schedule so I could plan that out?
They posted it.
So, here's what my schedule for next year looks like:


The classes I'm taking are:

HIST101 - Canada to Confederation
HIST151 - The Modern Middle East
GEOG161 - Canadian Geography
PHYS190 - Introduction to Astronomy
JAPN200 - Advanced Beginners' Japanese I

I'm a history major looking to become a SS teacher. To do that I need to study Canadian history and Canadian geography. Am I interested in Canadian history/geography? Not particularly. I don't really know what branch of history I'm most interested in at this point, I'm going to try and take a bunch of diverse courses to figure it out.

I guess what I'm really interested in is historical geography, which is a wacky mutant of anthropology, archaeology, human geography, and history. I don't know really how to go about studying that though? I mean, it's a very broad field, you can study literally anything. I'm probably most interested in the evolution of languages though, which adds linguistics to my field of study. Oy vey.

As far as Physics and Japanese go, I need a science course for my breadth courses and I am genuinely interested in astronomy, it was always the most interesting part of science to me. Chemistry was the easiest but it was mostly boring. With Japanese, I've been studying it all throughout high school and I'd like to pursue it as far as possible. At the university I'm going to, there are only 2 courses with which I can increase my understanding of Japanese (I actually think the first course I've already done in high school, but whatever), so I'm going to take them first year when the language is still fresh in my mind.

I am a nerd. I genuinely am interested in many many many MANY fields of study and honestly if I could do one thing for the rest of my life it would be to learn. That's sort of why I want to become a professor eventually. I mean, you not only get to continue to learn and explore your passion, but you also get to carry your learnings and passion onto others and hopefully inspire that same sort of interest.

So, yeah, bringing us back to the short-term, those are my classes probably for the Fall 2010 term. Registration starts in July, and our registration dates and times are going to be released in early June. I'll probably get a decent one because I got early admission and a scholarship, so HOPEFULLY I'll get into all my classes.

Post the Second: AP Exams & Grad Dinner/Dance

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile! I've been really, really, really busy.

Why? AP exams and the grad dinner dance.

I took 2 AP exams: English Lit and Human Geo. The English one was slightly horrific, thinking back on it, but I think I passed. The Human Geo one I studied REALLY hard for, harder than I've ever studied in my life (highlighting and Post-it Note flags -- something totally foreign to me), and it definitely paid off. I think I'll get a 5 for sure.

I think I'm legally allowed to discuss the exams now (the English one for sure), so I'll do it in detail.

The English Lit one was... eh. There's not really any way you can study for English, it's more skills-based. The multiple choice part is about 60 questions, you have 1 hour to answer them. There were 5 pieces this year, 3 poetry and 2 prose I believe. The hardest one and the easiest one were both poetry. I think I did alright on this section, I know I got a couple wrong after talking with friends, but definitely a pass. The written section is comprised of 3 essays, 2 hours time limit (40 minutes per essay). The first one is poetry, the second is prose, and the last one is a free response in which you're given a prompt and you write about a novel. The poetry one was... I'm not sure. I think I did the analysis alright but the structure sucked. The prose one was boss, it was a novel excerpt (I LOVE NOVEL EXCERPTS because they're narrative, and so I'm more used to reading them than say, an essay) from Belinda which is early 19th century. That's the period of novels in which they were all social commentaries. Jane Austen's era. AKA the era which I LOVE BOOKS FROM. So it was not only entertaining to read, I managed to write a decent essay on it. The free-response was... I don't know. You had to write about a person experiencing exile, so I wrote about John from Brave New World. I don't know how I did. It's either going to get a 9 or a 5. :/

Human Geo was a walk in the park mostly. The multiple choice (75 questions, 60 minutes) was mostly easy except for a couple of questions asking about agricultural concepts we NEVER LEARNT. I did alright overall, I know I got one question wrong so far. The written section (3 questions, 75 minutes) was mostly a godsend. The first question was asking about Weber's least cost theory which I had been studying a lot because I didn't quite get it, with the weight-gaining and weight-reducing and brick bunny industries. The second one was the worst, asking about centripetal and centrifugal forces. It was out of 8 and I got 7 at best, because it asked for explanation and examples for 4 things, and one was the relocation of a capital in the last 50 years. WTF, I didn't know any. Almost no one else did either, except for one guy who knew Brazil's capital had moved from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia around 1950. There were 2 Brazilians in our class; he was one of them and the other one had NO clue it had moved. The History teacher didn't even know. So there you go. The third one was laughably easy, it was asking about the Demographic Transition Model. SERIOUSLY. We learned about that LAST YEAR!!! So, yeah, we left the Human Geo exam pretty happy.

But then after that was the grad dinner dance. Literally the same day. WTF. It went well, it was fun. Here's a schedule of my day. (Yesterday.)

5:30 AM - Wake up. Stare grumpily at alarm clock. Alarm's due to go off in half an hour.
6:30 AM - Decide to get dressed after lazing around on computer.
7:00 AM - Leave for school, happy music blaring.
7:20 AM - Get to school, begin last-minute cramming.
7:45 AM - Exam starts.
8:45 AM - Break. Eat gummy bears.
9:00 AM - Exam continues. Stomach begins to rumble from not eating anything but gummy bears today.
10:15 AM - Exam ends. Hurrahs ensue.
10:30 AM - Water plants in greenhouse with Marie, then walk home.
11:00 AM - Enjoy cheese bagel at Safeway. Get picked up by mom and go for manicure/pedicure.
12:30 PM - Finally leave salon, now afraid to touch anything.
12:35 PM - Get donut at Tim Hortons.
1:00 PM - Begin to get hair done.
2:00 PM - Hair is done, holy crap it actually looks good.
2:15 PM - Go shopping at Lougheed Mall for tiara.
2:45 PM - Get home, begin to do makeup.
4:00 PM - Leave house late, pick up Kat, and go to Sarah's.
4:30 PM - Leave Sarah's house.
4:45 PM - Get pop and pizza pretzel at Macs.
5:45 PM - Get to Stanley Park, take pictures, gawp at how amazing everyone looks.
6:15 PM - Go to hotel, stand around uselessly in the foyer for awhile.
7:00 PM - Finally are allowed INTO the foyer, sit down at table, sit there uselessly for awhile.
7:30 PM - Food is served, we're one of the first tables called up, woohoo!
8:00 PM - Dessert nom nom.
8:30 PM - Walk around and take pictures/mingle.
9:30 PM - The parents arrive, and there are suddenly 3 times as many people as before. It gets very hot.
10:00 PM - They start playing music finally, slow dances with parents and then awesome retro music.
10:30 PM - Parents are dismissed, terrible music begins to play.
11:20 PM - Macarena and then Graduation by Vitamin C. Everyone links arms and sways. Many people hold back tears.
11:40 PM - Begin to file out of hotel to get on the buses.
12:00 AM - On buses heading back to school.
12:15 AM - Emergency window is open somewhere, annoying beeping, can't figure out which window it is.
12:20 AM - We figure out which window it is. Cheers.
12:30 AM - Bus driver misses the driveway up to the school. We boo.
12:31 AM - He drives up the other side of the driveway like a boss. We cheer.
12:35 AM - We go into school. Pictures holy hell.
1:00 AM - Change into t-shirt and jeans and record My Heart Will Go On.
1:30 AM - Rock Band.
1:45 AM - Racing cars.
2:00 AM -Begin to laze around, bored.
2:15 AM - Call mom to pick me up.
2:20 AM - Realize that I've picked up someone else's raffle package, teachers don't care and I just cross out her name.
2:40 AM - Go home.
2:50 AM - Take out hair. It has somehow doubled in size.
3:15 AM - Computer computer, not sleepy yet.
3:30 AM - Sleeeepy. Sleep.

So, just like that, the most stressful day of the year is over with. Now graduation seems really imminent. Scary.

I downloaded Vitamin C and started listening to it again. I loved this song in grade 6 and 7 when I was thinking about high school graduation, but now that it's actually here it seems way too real. The one line that keeps sticking out at me is "If you've got something you need to say, you better say it right now 'cause you don't have another day".

We'll see.

Post the First: Welcome to the Blogosphere

So starts my project!

My name is not really Midori, but for the sake of privacy I will pretend it is. I'm 18 years old and entering Simon Fraser University in the fall.

So "Midori", what's the point of this blog? Is this just another silly teenager's blog about OMG BOYZ MAEKUP LOLOL?

No! It is not. The purpose of this blog is to document the university experience. The ups and downs, the confusion, and of course the experiences.

I am sliiightly obsessive when it comes to planning things. I've been planning my university schedule since grade 9. Okay? Okay. I've looked into just about everything there is to look into about university, especially in the Greater Vancouver area (where I live), and I consider myself somewhat well-versed in university.

HOWEVER. One thing that I REALLY wished for is to find a blog from an SFU student talking about what their first year at SFU was like! For UBC, there's the UBC Blog Squad (an excellent group of bloggers, highly informative and entertaining), but due to my proximity to SFU and my lack of money for dorms, as well as SFU having a better Arts department, I wanted to go THERE.

So, to help out other neurotic planners like myself, I created this blog! I hope it will help you or at least entertain you.

Another secondary purpose of this blog is to keep in touch with my friends who are going to faraway universities or who aren't graduating this year. Instead of me rambling on and on and on to them about things, they can just read this blog to see what's going on in my life!

And believe me, I DO ramble. You will come to learn this, and perhaps, yes, even love it. Not likely, but crazier things have happened.

So, I'll talk a bit about my actual university experience so far.

I applied to SFU and only SFU back when they first opened up the self-reporting grades in December. Being the conscientious student (COUGH COUGH) that I am, I had a fairly high average, and was accepted in February or March I believe. I also got a scholarship. Woohoo!

One thing they DON'T tell you is that they're gonna start taking your money right away. There's the application fee, which is $45 for SFU I believe. Then, once they've actually accepted you, you have to pay $250 to actually get IN. What a rip-off! Oh well. I should get used to being shaken down by SFU.

Currently I'm waiting for the courses to be posted. It's sort of odd. They were posted for the Fall 2010 term for about 2 weeks... and then they disappeared. Now the terms in the online course calendar go "Summer 2010, Spring 2011". Fall 2010 is mysteriously gone. Oh well. I can go to each department's website and try and figure it out from there.

I'm currently planning to major in History. I say 'currently' because I'm sort of rethinking it. If asked what exactly I'm most interested in, I'd say I want to learn how we got to where we are today. This encompasses history, sociology, psychology, anthropology, human geography, archaeology, humanities, etc. Social sciences, basically, the entire department. But I don't know if I'd be able to survive 4 years of history classes. I think my teacher this year has sort of dampened my passion for it. She gives us notes and then we read the notes. That's it. And that's how it's gonna be in university, right? So... I don't know. I suppose I'm just wondering if this is the right path for me.

But I do have an idea of what I want my first semester to look like. So far this is the plan:
HIST101 - Canada Before Confederation
HIST151 - The Modern Middle East
PHYS191 - Introduction to Astronomy
JAPN201 - Advanced Beginners' Japanese I
????

See, I need to take GEOG 162 (Canadian Geography) if I'm planning to become a Social Studies teacher (my back-up plan in case I completely fail at becoming a professor), but it runs at the same time as JAPN201. I figure it's best to take Japanese 1st year while I still remember it from high school than to take it later.

As far as the other courses, I need HIST101 for SS teacher.
HIST151, I know woefully little about Middle Eastern history.
PHYS191, I need a science/quantitative course*, and I love astronomy. Plus I hear the class is really fun and the teacher is great.

I don't know what to take for my 5th course. All the other courses I'd like to take run at the same time as the other courses.
I'd like to take an English course (considering minoring/double-majoring in English, augh) but I want to see which courses offer which reading list BEFORE I decide. And, those aren't up yet.

I was considering taking FPA104 - Music Fundamentals. I know very little about actual musical theory. I mean, I know basic notation and such, I was in choir from grade 3 to 8, but I don't know nearly enough. I never learnt an instrument. But... the class starts at 8:30 or 9:30 I believe... rrrrngh... Plus I hear that non-music students have to work really hard just to keep up and I don't know if I want that sort of stress first term.

*For those of you who don't know, there are what we call WQB requirements at SFU. WQB stands for Writing, Quantitative, and Breadth. You have to take 2 Writing courses (courses that are writing-intensive, usually requiring a couple of term papers in lieu of midterms and finals), 2 Quantitative courses (courses that are math-intensive), and 2 Breadth courses each from Science, Humanitities, and Social Sciences. These requirements are in place to ensure that even though you're a Science major, you can still write a decent paper and know a bit of culture, or even though you're an Arts major, you can still do math and know a bit of science.

Anyways, at this point the most PRESSING thing is AP exams. Dun-dun-duuuuun. I'm in English Lit and Human Geo AP, the exams for which are on this Thursday and next Friday (also the day of my grad, ack). If I get good enough scores, that's like 2 university classes passed already! Alriiiight.

Anyways, I'm going to stop it here for now. I'll update at least once a week with details of university or of my life in general.