Some people talk in their sleep. Apparently I sign in my sleep. I know, that’s weird. Why on earth would I be signing in my sleep? Well, two reasons that I can think of for my recent “sleep signing” are 1. I cannot go to bed at 10:30, my brain is too active and I’m far from tired, and 2. practicing for my ASL presentation is affecting what language I dream in. I swear people were signing in my dream. Do I remember what they were saying? No. But I remember seeing it and I understood them in my dream. Dreams are a weird thing.
Moving on, today has been a long day. Actually this whole week has been long. It’s the getting up at 6:30 I think. Or the going to bed at 10:30. The whole sleeping schedule in general. I know I’ve talked about this a lot, but it’s a big part of my week. Normally I go to bed around 12-1. That’s a good 2-3 hours of time I’m awake. My body is use to it. I’m use to working off of five hours of sleep as opposed to eight. Now that I’m getting eight I don’t know what to do with myself. I also feel rushed to get work done. It’s hard when you get out of class at 5 then have to eat dinner then have to do the nightly activities. I feel like I don’t have enough hours in the day to get things done, even though I totally do. And it’s not poor time management. Okay, well maybe a little. I’m not the best at it, but I’m improving. I just feel like I’m constantly doing things and I always have more that needs to get done. But I have a surprising sense of calm too. I know that I’ll have enough time to finish everything and I know that things will work out. That’s definitely a good feeling to have in college.
The day was pretty normal. I kind of didn’t go to my tap class because I needed to get some more work done on my paper, but I have absences to spare in that class and I catch up fairly quickly. So this wonderful paper that I’m working on is for the lovely class of American Heritage. What is American Heritage? It’s like government, economics, and U.S. history all mashed into one class. Pretty much a headache of a class. Though I find the lectures to be interesting most of the time there’s a lot of things to know for that class. Like the Constitution. Our last test was based heavily off of the constitution, so if a question ever pops into your mind about the articles in the Constitution or about any of the Amendments feel free to ask me. I’ll probably know. Or not. I’m still learning and there are A LOT of things to remember in regards to the Constitution.
While we’re on the subject of American Heritage I’d like to take some time to share the experience I’ve had with writing essays in that class. For me writing has always been pretty easy. I love doing it and I’m really good and making myself sound smarter and more knowledgeable than I actually am. History papers are kind of a different story. I’ve done fairly well in my AP career with them, but coming into American Heritage is a whole other ballpark. For my first essay, which was just the intro and thesis, I did alright. Not the best grade, but not the worst. For the second essay, an expansion of the first with two arguments, didn’t go over so well. I got a super low score. I wanted to cry. I was frustrated because I spent a good six hours revising my paper and refining it, trying to narrow down my argument and make everything concise. It was really disheartening to get my paper back with such a low score after all of the work and time I put into it. I talked to my American Heritage peer mentor about it and she told me to talk to my TA and try to get her to help me figure out what to improve in my paper. Instead of going to random TA like I did the time before I went to my TA for help. I told her how I felt about the last score I received and expressed how much I really wanted to do well on the next essay because writing is kind of my thing. If I don’t have writing I kind of feel like I have nothing academically. She sat with me and took the time to go through my entire paper and give me some pointers. I even emailed her part of my paper and she helped me revise it. When I got this essay back I was ecstatic. I received a really good score and felt great about my paper. Moral of the story is, talk with your TA. I just wanted to take this time to thank my TA for being such a wonderful person who never got frustrated with me and helped me out so much. TAs are great people. If you just ask them for help and show them that you really are willing to put the time in to succeed they will definitely help you out a lot.
Day 3 of missionary week ended with a wonderful fireside about missionary work and how to prepare and things like that. I’m so glad I have the opportunity to participate in a week devoted to growing closer to my Heavenly Father and learning more about the gospel.
blueskybrowneyes 