When I got into a long-distance relationship with my wonderful girlfriend I didn’t think it would be this hard. See, I had been in long-distance relationships before, and they weren’t that bad. But then again those relationships were with the wrong girl. I didn’t feel for them what I feel for my girlfriend now. I didn’t miss them as much as I miss her.

Last week I went to go visit my girlfriend for the weekend, knowing full well that this would be the last time for quite a while. I thought, as I left, that time would go quickly. That we would be together sooner than we knew. But that hasn’t been the case. It’s been one week, with 13 to go, and I’m homesick even though I am home. Every night I dream of her and every morning I wake up wishing for her. It hurts. It sucks. But I can’t fix it, and I know this is for the best. So I just pray that she’s safe and that time will move quickly, because this will be the last time we have to be apart this long.

museumofusefulthings:

Saw this here. Books repurposed as library counter.

My apologies if I write a post that is too long and it doesn’t include a read more link. I don’t see that option on my iPod.

Today marks the end of the first (half) week of the semester for me at NJC. I already took a 3-credit course in January, so I’m taking 13 credits of regular classes and two different one-credit courses this Spring so that I will be eligible to graduate. Considering I took 20 credits last semester and still achieved a 4.0 GPA, I fear that this semester I will get overly bored and manage to forget some class assignments. Hopefully that doesn’t happen, especially since I recognize the potential for it to happen and have it in my mind that I don’t want to do that.

At any rate, the semester began this week much like semesters always begin: the introduction of the syllabus and some way to get to know everyone or some kind of speech about how much you should study for the class. 2 hours of studying for every one hour of lecture, they say. That means that I should be studying 26 hours per week and add that to the 13 hours of lecture per week I am literally taking on a full-time job without technically being a full-time student (15 credits). This is bologna. I hardly studied at all last semester, and the reason I did well was that I paid attention in class and did what the teacher told me to do. I buy textbooks because they are required, not because I need them.

But I suppose I am the exception to the rule…or maybe our school system is not training students to study effectively and efficiently. They teach students to read the passage and write down what they think are important words or phrases. To the untrained mind, everything in the passage is important or they wouldn’t put it in there, and I have seen students copy word-for-word what is in their textbook. Then they’re told that in order to define a word you need a glossary or a dictionary. I had a student in a class I help out in who looked for 15 minutes to find a glossary in her math book. There wasn’t one, so she was stuck and too afraid to ask a question. So I went up to her and explained to her my method for studying quickly and picking out the important things. Headings, bold words, examples, pictures. That’s all I look at when studying a text book. Then if I still don’t understand, I go back and read. It was like she had never heard of such things before (which she probably hadn’t) and she ended up doing quite well on the homework.

Now if only more students understood this method rather than being lost and frankly scared looking at their first college textbook. Perhaps this is something that should be taught in the school system as they grow up so that they are ready. Maybe then the full-time job of a student can actually be learning instead of studying.

vwalker:

theyuniversity:

Drat. I say this all the time and the Boyfriend always corrects me. He wins.