wink     ; )

How I think I did

Jim says: "I filled in all 85 bubbles, so I'm done now. I'm pretty confident about 20 of them, so that guarantees me at least an F in my final. Hooray!" That pretty much sums up how I felt about the second my my foreign language exams. I think I did very well on my other exams. My Akido kyu test went well too. Unless I completely misjudged my performance, I should officially be 7th kyu in a few weeks. As I said before, the paper went very well--the best I've written in a while. Certainly the best that I've written for a class in years, if not ever. When I presented the short version of the paper to the class, my professor suggested that I present it at an upcoming conference, and he hadn't even read the full paper yet! I was, as you might imagine, quite pleased. But I deferred on sending the paper to the conference committee until I actually get my grade back.

What I've learned about myself in the past semester. 1) 2nd and 3rd (and 4th and 5th) languages are not my thing. I will never be passionate about non-english language classes no matter how many of them I take. 2) I am much happier when I am taking classes that I am passionate about, even though I work much harder and spend more time on those classes.

(Not that I didn't already know these things about myself, but it is good to be reminded from time to time.)

So, what to do about it? First, get these stupid language requirements out of the way as fast as is humanly possible. I have 4 out of 6 required semesters completed. Only two to go. I can do this. Second, take interesting classes while taking those remaining language classes. If they happen to also be required, so much the better. Third, start looking into independent studies so that I can work on stuff that I really care about. Fourth, if at all possible, crank out another draft of my thesis. After all, that's the stuff that gets me really jazzed (so much so that I've already written 1.5 drafts without an advisor).

Basically, write more cool papers so that I don't realize that I'm spending all my time memorizing stupid vocab lists.