Good Luck on Finals!

         

    Another semester is closing to an end. I feel torn about this. Of course I am looking forward to summer without class, sleeping in late, lounging by the pool, and not waking up to that pesky alarm clock. However, I am not looking forward to finals week ....


            So this is a quick blog to tell all my fellow Patriots LOTS AND LOTS of luck as we embark on yet another finals week here at UT Tyler . Remember to do your course evaluations as well on myUTTylers , so you can check your grades earlier!

          It's a bitter sweet moment for me as well, having to say good bye to friends here at Tyler as I go back home to Allen next weekend. For all of those who are moving out for the summer and moving back home, I wish all of you a safe travel!

   

 Just remember that the end is almost near! Do not give up! Always remember that pain is temporary, so stay up late night, chug those coffee, and get those bags under your eyes, because we have less than two weeks of school left! After these last few days pass, it's going to be worth it and to be able to say that you got through another semester. So finish strong! See you guys next semester! 

Brace For Finals

We are now approaching the home stretch of the Spring 2014 semester and that means we all have very few weeks until Finals come at us. For many this point in time right now is not explicitly when you might want to think about Finals, but hear me out as to why this is the most important time.

That Big Book Review: 10 Slightly Clumsy Steps

AKA my writing process.

AKA
Via All Voices

So I'm taking a shot at writing about my writing process. I am also doing this to avoid writing a paper I have due next week. Get ready, y'all, I'm about to blow your minds. Drum-roll please! I have no idea what I'm doing. 

Carver's Guide to: Dealing With Stress

The end of the first semester is right around the corner, which means papers, projects, and tests are coming all at once.  Unfortunately, with the substantial increase in work comes a substantial amount of stress.  Some people have methods of coping with stress, but others just let it build up until they cannot handle it anymore.   According to Harvard, many people do not handle stress correctly.  My goal with this blog is to help you maintain your health, both physically and mentally, during highly stressful periods of time.

Summer Days Are Here Again!

‘Tis that time again where students finish up their final exams and give shouts of glee, or try to forget about how much of a slaughter this round was. Everyone is tired and ready to walk the stage or take a break for summer.

Or maybe you’re one of the souls who has chosen to continue the work this summer with The University of Texas at Tyler or your local community college. That’s cool too, and I wish you all the best. I was supposed to visit Japan this summer with GATE here at UT Tyler, but my plans fell through. It was sad, but I’m okay with it.

I’m on the precipice of a summer full of new things and I can’t express how excited I am to have a break from academia for a little bit and focus on work and leisure for just a little while during the time I attempt to work out the kinks in my career path that showed up this year (see this blog for the previous episode in that saga). I’m so ready for a moment to breathe, and I know all of you are, too!

Here’s a list of things I’ll be up to this summer:

• ! Working here and blogging with you all!
• ! Earning some monies to do other fun things (or pay for college next semester, that’s good too)
• ! Paying some much needed attention to my poor neglected Book Blog
• ! Read more amazing books!
• ! Go to schliterbahn. I have to. HAVE TO.
• ! Visit friends and family around Texas
• ! Go to California for a weekend in August
• ! Plan a vacation to Portland with two of my best friends
• ! Spend time with said best friends and other ones too, new and old.
• ! Play me some video games!
• ! Get to all the other neglected things that need my attention this summer.

Yup, that’s a really long list. What about you guys?!?! Ready for the long summer days and time for leisure?

5 more weeks at UT Tyler!!

As I was registering for classes for fall semester, I came to realize that we only have 5 more weeks left till summer. This is kind of scary because that means only 4 more weeks till finals! 

That just absolutely scares me because I am a #1 procrastinator. This semester has been really long for me and just can’t wait till it’s over in May. Even though I won’t be able to get a long summer vacation because I’m registered for summer 2 classes, I am still looking forward to ending this semester smoothly.

I think this is the time when everyone should be sorting out their last minute assignments and getting ahead of their agenda. I am trying to study for my finals to avoid last minute pressure. And I think everyone should start doing that as well. Especailly for all the procrastinators out there. It will all be worth it at the end.

Remember guys, the finals seems far but it’s not!

Let’s finish this semester and start planning out our summer 2013!

Here Come Finals

There are less than two weeks until Christmas break here at UT Tyler, and that means... drumroll... FINALS!

I stress over tests badly, and I look enviously at the couple friends of mine who only have one or two finals to take. (I am however thankful that I am not one of the people who have more than one a day).

I have four finals coming up this week and I'm handling it the way any typical college student would: living at the library, pulling all-nighters, and drinking liters of coffee a day.

Many of you may be like my roommate, calmly studying in our room, going to SI sessions, taking lots of breaks and lots of naps, and eating 3 well-balanced meals a day.

I hope for the latter. Take care of yourself, get some sleep, and DON'T STRESS. A nice post I came across from earlier this year gave some awesome tips on how to destress.

Good luck on finals everyone! You can do it!

UT Tyler Wind Ensemble Concert!

                With finals just around the corner and tensions running high, it’s definitely time to find some kind of way to relax and stop worrying about everything. Luckily for me, I found a way to chill pretty quickly. I decided to go to the last UT Tyler Wind Ensemble concert of the semester! If you have read any of my previous blogs you know about my ridiculous obsession with music, so this was the obvious choice for me.

                After my semester concert for my percussion ensemble ended, I no longer had to go to class. I feel like I have been musically deprived since then. I have a few friends who are in the Wind Ensemble, so I would always ask them when their final concert was. Plus I’m just really pumped to actually be in the Wind Ensemble next semester! It’s definitely going to be different, because I've been playing percussion for the past four years and now I’m going back to clarinet! Hopefully it’ll all work out in the end.

                I went to the first concert that the wind ensemble put on earlier this semester, and I was really impressed! From what I have been told by my friends that are in the wind ensemble, they are playing really cool (but yet difficult) music. I know that I will be blown away again. I am definitely ready to get my finals over with, and move into a new semester. If the school  never put on things like this, or any other campus activities, I know I would go crazy.

                The UT Tyler Wind Ensemble concert will take place this Thursday night at 7:30 in the Vaughn Auditorium in the Cowan Center! It’s free and open to the public, so please come see what the ensemble has been preparing for! Hope to see you there!

Thanksgiving Break is Next Week

Thanksgiving Break is fast approaching The University of Texas at Tyler campus, and it is almost rude to say because none of us are ready. You see, breaks in college are not truly breaks. This is what makes attending a university so trying; it has a lot to do with endurance.

I have 35+ pages due after Thanksgiving break is over. I am just currently thankful that I get that time out of class to complete a few of these papers and eat some sweet potatoes in footie pajamas in the privacy of my own Grandparent's home.

This may or may not be a gratuitous picture of my boss Amelia and I at work on
Patriot Preview Day, with Swoop between us. Did I ever mention that I love my job? 

Finals To Do List

I wish I could partially cross things off of my list. That paper about The Matrix is about half-way completed.

One last week till freedom

Alright y'all, it's that time again. Time to take finals and be off into the summer! After a long semester of work I can't say I'm sad about it and I have a feeling you aren't either. I encourage everybody to hold on for just ONE more week and you can claim freedom! Trust me it only makes it more worth it. I'm not going to be in Tyler for the summer, so this will be my last blog post in a while. I wish everyone a fun and safe summer. Live it up!

Final Projects in Communication "Impress Me"

This was my professors final project in our small group class. “Impress me.” Not only do I have other classes, but now one of my classes gives me an assignment and NOBODY knows what it is... not even him! How did this turn out? Well, it didn’t. Let me explain.

After MANY ideas got thrown around, my group decided we would post signs from our professors’ house to the classroom telling him about how much we loved our semester in his class. (A pervious assignment included a meal at his house, see my Girls Just Wanna Have Fun blog, so we knew he lived only across the street.) To accomplish this task we decided to meet at school at 6AM the day the project was due. This was the first of our many mistakes. Our Morning:

6:00 AM: One of our group members forgot their part of the signs, another member did the wrong part, and yet another member would not wake up no matter how many times we called. We had no Markers and no paper!

6:15 AM: Borrow supplies from the Herrington Patriot Center to make our missing portions of our project.

6:30 AM: Head back to our get-away-vehicle.

6:35 AM: Our missing group member finally wakes up.

6:40 AM: The stapler newly purchased for this project does not work!

6:45 AM: We remember our professor has a dog after he chases us out of the yard.

7:00 AM: We split up one group to get a camera and one group to run and get Duct Tape from their house.

7:05 AM: Sign hanging officially begins

Things Not To Say To a History Major... Especially during Finals Week

Yes ladies and gentlemen... That is Teddy Roosevelt fighting Sasquatch. The only way this could be more American is if Sasquatch was replaced with Jane Fonda. Anyway, fellow blogger Megan Allen recently wrote about things you should never say to an English Major the week before finals. I read it, laughed with it, and agreed with it to its entirety. Liberal Arts Majors have always been misunderstood or shunned as lower majors in comparison to things such as engineering and that whole nursing thing this school has
 (One of the best around I might add).

 History majors get a lot of flack as well for seeming to be an easy major. to all of those who are agree with this I have some bad news for you. There is no such thing as an easy major. Each field of study has the same relative amount of work that goes along with it. So here is my short list of things not to say to a History Major... Especially during finals week.

Things You Don't Say to an English Major the Week Before Finals Week

• "At least we get dead days."
  
  No, no, a thousand times no! If you are an English major, and writing you have to do must be turned in by the last class day (this Wednesday for me). Three of my classes will be done in two days time.


• "It's just an essay."
  
  Just... a... WHAT? You try any tell me that something worth THIRTY PERCENT of my grade is just an anything, I'll end you. I will.


• "OMG I just wrote ten pages for this eight page paper, I hope it is enough!"
  
  Just shut up, okay? 

This picture is from my favorite new blog: Click here for English major humor.

Midterms.

             Today I had a test in my Developmental Psychology class, which wouldn't have been so bad, except it was over 11 chapters. It's hard to keep up with a class knowing that you don't have your first test until the middle of the semester, especially when you have 4 other classes to worry about.
            Overall I think I did pretty well on it, but I just don't think midterms are a very good idea for many reasons. The test is over 11 chapters but there were only 75 questions so the professor really isn't going to be able to see if we actually learned the material or not because that's not many questions for the amount of information we covered. I'm definitely not looking forward to the final, because it's over 15 chapters, but I'm going to try and keep up and read the chapters we cover each week.