Marina (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} marinalives) wrote,@ 2004-02-02 23:41:00 |
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A year and a day in Portland
I really seriously love my life. I was afraid that today would be bad, I'd be exhausted, grumpy, slow and wouldn't enjoy anything. This weekend was great, but not very relaxing. I worked Friday and Saturday nights and spent all day Saturday and half of Sunday at Zack's, eating truffles and pretending to do homework. I spent the other half of Sunday actually doing homework, and I even made dinner. (Very, very yummy mashed potatoes. The secret? Yogurt.) I realized I wasn't doing too well in my math and sign language classes (I'd gotten about 80% on tests in both, which is just barely a B if they're not grading on a curve) so I studied my butt off and feel much better about it today. Anyway, I was worried I hadn't got enough relaxation before my big 14 hour day, especially since I stayed up a little too late last night sitting around the kitchen with my roommates listening to a CD Nick had of P. D. Q. Bach and laughing til my stomach hurt.
But today was just fabulous! Work in the PCC cafe and cafeteria was exciting because a bagel caught on fire, and five different people I knew showed up and bought things and said hi. I love Portland Community College, I really do. Three of my four teachers are Great, and the other one isn't too bad... one person I talked to characterized him as "very laid-back" which pretty much says it. The other students are great. I've talked to far more single mothers with full-time jobs and a full courseload than high school students who're just there because they don't have anything else to do. Almost everyone I've talked to is really serious about being there because they want to learn and study and do other things at the same time. It really is a community college, and I really really love that.
Math class is starting to be really fun, now that I've got the hang of fractions, negative numbers, and division. Algebra makes sense to me, unlike dividing negative fractions, and word problems amuse me. I like the teacher a lot. She's very gentle about teaching math, and she really loves it.
ASL is getting more and more fun too. The teacher is tough. About half the class has dropped out, some to the class below ours and some just completely out. The people who are there are at a slightly higher level (or just didn't drop before the deadline and don't want a Withdraw on their transcript) and we're all starting to be able to really have conversations. We played a game tonight that I was very good at. That Friedland sense of competition comes in handy sometimes... Whodathunk that late night Thanksgiving games would get me better grades in college. *grin*
Tomorrow is writing class, with the "very laid-back" teacher. There's a couple other students whose papers are well worth hearing, though. I'm liking it more and more too, and reading my textbook of essays for fun.
Then I spend two hours looking through the Gary Snyder and Nikki Giovanni books I got from the library tonight, finding a poem on which to write a four page midterm paper for my International Political Poetry class. That class is just as cool as it originally sounded. Not much more to say about that.
Then a rehearsal for the Vagina Monologues. Fourth to last rehearsal too, which is scary since I've only been to two total. But I think it's going to be really good...
Basically, everything's really good. There's a lot of it, but I can't think of when I was last this steadily happy for this long, especially being this busy.
On the home front, we've only got six people in the house, and Liz will be visiting her family for a couple weeks later this month. Nick keeps making cookies and buying ice cream. Chris reads hilarious books about algebra and writes interesting college admissions essays. Tessa and Dawn are continually cute around each other. Zack buys me truffles. Life is just good!
I should really be asleep now, though.
I really seriously love my life. I was afraid that today would be bad, I'd be exhausted, grumpy, slow and wouldn't enjoy anything. This weekend was great, but not very relaxing. I worked Friday and Saturday nights and spent all day Saturday and half of Sunday at Zack's, eating truffles and pretending to do homework. I spent the other half of Sunday actually doing homework, and I even made dinner. (Very, very yummy mashed potatoes. The secret? Yogurt.) I realized I wasn't doing too well in my math and sign language classes (I'd gotten about 80% on tests in both, which is just barely a B if they're not grading on a curve) so I studied my butt off and feel much better about it today. Anyway, I was worried I hadn't got enough relaxation before my big 14 hour day, especially since I stayed up a little too late last night sitting around the kitchen with my roommates listening to a CD Nick had of P. D. Q. Bach and laughing til my stomach hurt.
But today was just fabulous! Work in the PCC cafe and cafeteria was exciting because a bagel caught on fire, and five different people I knew showed up and bought things and said hi. I love Portland Community College, I really do. Three of my four teachers are Great, and the other one isn't too bad... one person I talked to characterized him as "very laid-back" which pretty much says it. The other students are great. I've talked to far more single mothers with full-time jobs and a full courseload than high school students who're just there because they don't have anything else to do. Almost everyone I've talked to is really serious about being there because they want to learn and study and do other things at the same time. It really is a community college, and I really really love that.
Math class is starting to be really fun, now that I've got the hang of fractions, negative numbers, and division. Algebra makes sense to me, unlike dividing negative fractions, and word problems amuse me. I like the teacher a lot. She's very gentle about teaching math, and she really loves it.
ASL is getting more and more fun too. The teacher is tough. About half the class has dropped out, some to the class below ours and some just completely out. The people who are there are at a slightly higher level (or just didn't drop before the deadline and don't want a Withdraw on their transcript) and we're all starting to be able to really have conversations. We played a game tonight that I was very good at. That Friedland sense of competition comes in handy sometimes... Whodathunk that late night Thanksgiving games would get me better grades in college. *grin*
Tomorrow is writing class, with the "very laid-back" teacher. There's a couple other students whose papers are well worth hearing, though. I'm liking it more and more too, and reading my textbook of essays for fun.
Then I spend two hours looking through the Gary Snyder and Nikki Giovanni books I got from the library tonight, finding a poem on which to write a four page midterm paper for my International Political Poetry class. That class is just as cool as it originally sounded. Not much more to say about that.
Then a rehearsal for the Vagina Monologues. Fourth to last rehearsal too, which is scary since I've only been to two total. But I think it's going to be really good...
Basically, everything's really good. There's a lot of it, but I can't think of when I was last this steadily happy for this long, especially being this busy.
On the home front, we've only got six people in the house, and Liz will be visiting her family for a couple weeks later this month. Nick keeps making cookies and buying ice cream. Chris reads hilarious books about algebra and writes interesting college admissions essays. Tessa and Dawn are continually cute around each other. Zack buys me truffles. Life is just good!
I should really be asleep now, though.
