what a semester...

I just checked my Wes portfolio and found out that I got all As this semester! Alhamdullillah... I wasn't sure at all if I was going to get As for SOC 202, and especially SOC 316 since I was quite worried about our final report (it was worth 30% of the final grade..). But yesterday Rob emailed us and he said that it was an excellent report and he liked the sugesstion section we wrote. Oooo.. I'm so happy that this semester turned out well at the end (^_^)

I remember my conversation with Gina Driscoll after spring break when I was so down and blue coz of the frustrating internship search. "you're a student, you should be worrying about your performance in class and your final grades..." I told her that i'd be so disappointed if I got bad gardes this semester coz I was too focus on my internship search. I didn't do any intense search actually after spring break for two reasons--too busy and didn't have the motivation to look for more coz I wasn't sure the purpose I was looking for one (@_@) OMG, those stressful days... I realized how important doing well in 4 of my classes. Mmm... I don't really count econ as one, coz I wasn't into it ever since we came back from spring break.. hehehe... I didnt go to class when things got busy with soc 202 and 316 and at the end of the semester. And, the book review was very BAD considering I wrote it at the very last minute with a high fever :( On teh last day of class, I was kinda worried if I couldn't pass the minimum atendance requirement to skip the final (>_<) but I did, heheheh...

Hard work, determination, patience!

Coz Lynn never really gave us any feedback on any of our work, I didn't know exactly how I did in his class. Based on people's opinions on how he grades, I was like, "oh well, just do my best and see what happens. he seems nice..." Although I was kinda disappointed with his class coz basically I didn't really learn how to conduct social research despite the title of the class and the purpose written at the department's website, I WORKED HARD! For every assignment, I always spent a good amount of time to work on it (although I sucked at analyzing the SPSS data sicne I thought Chi-square was a correlation measure :p) I just wish we had done more individual work... but...but... what happened was actually better considering Rob's class took up so much time throughout the semester, so it's all goooooooooooooooooood!

Stress, tired, annoyed...

There were many ups and downs in this semester, especially with Rob's class. Some weeks the work was so intense that I felt I needed a break from everything, especially during the interview period. It was really tiring and stressful sitting alone at the CCP office with a list of incorrect contact information of my potential interviewees (thanks to WUB who doesnt update their contact info!). Ooo.. I just came up with a brilliant idea--I should post some of my soc 316 journals here, mmm... but there were weeks when things were quite "steady" so that I could focus on something else. But in general, there is just so much work for this class, and we ONLY got 1 credit for this! Aaaaarrrgggghhhh???? how come class like Chinese gets 1.5? The school should give us 1.5 as well, I mean... we work like REAL consultant sometimes--meeting with agency, compromising your ideology with the agency's needs, doing all the work which leads you to frustration and tears (mmm.. I dont think anyone actually cried when they're doing their projects :p) coz you're chased by deadlines and Rob's comments could sometimes tear apart your work you did (but, thanks to him though everything turn out well at the end... he's such a great professor!).

It was worth my time and energy...

Definitely! I told several people that this semester is quite unique compared o the previous ones, well Argentina was something else. But the point is that I was very content with all of my classes this semester coz I was learning things that I never did before. I like the combination of the classes. Although I took 2 research classes, I learned different things in each. Like WUB group didn't administer survey, but I did it at Lynn's class (plus for the final paper, with Holly we made a survey!). I finally was able to learn gamelan... the one and only percussion ensemble from Indonesia at Wesleyan (once known to be one of the first most complete gamelan sets in the US.. ooo...). It was pretty cool, especiall during our final performance coz we accompanied the wayang kulit performance! I'm so going to take the advance gamelan class in my last semester... :) Well, I took econ class for the purpose of learning the jargons (and slightly trying to understand the intense conversations that my econ peers sometimes have). But since I took it pass/fail, I had on intention of studying hard for it... I kinda set quite a low standard, like "well, as long as I pass the finals and do the prob sets, I'd be fine." mmm... I think after I took the second midterms, I basically stopped going to class. I remember one Thursday night, Yuri asked me if I had done the pob set. I was like "huh?? there's a PS? holy cow!!!" Yuri, Cedric and I would spend hours at ST lab doing our problem sets and desperately looking for econ majors to help us out with the questions that we sometimes had no idea the meaning of the questions :( yeah... econ 101 was just "some class" that I took at Wesleyan.. :p And just like the previous semesters, I was a TA for a Jap class, this time with Takahashi Sensei. I told her that I wasn't confident enough with my Jap coz I didnt use it at all when I was in Argentina. But it turned out fine and I really enjoyed being a part of the class. I got to know quite well some of the students (and Mori Sensei, considering that she left Wes for good... hix..hix..). Although I dont think I improved my Jap, I learned a lot from Takahashi Sensei coz I was more conscious this time about teaching; she helped with UES too by writing a recommendation for me! (^_^)

Time went by so fast...

Thanks to Allah SWT for everything that happened this semester... I hope things go well from here on (^-^)