Shadowfiend23 @ Wrocław

I am up very late right now, but I just can’t seem to sleep. This is my first post from my Droid, so we will see how this goes. I have a physics test this Friday, and I am pretty worried about it. I did not do well on my last graded homework (I missed a negative sign), so my grade looks quite weak right now. I have high hopes for it though. I had a very fun time on the hay ride last Sunday! It was also fun making cider, giving presents, and seeing the family again. It really is nice to be home. French is proving to be more difficult than I originally thought, but I think I can handle it. It just isn’t something in which you can fake proficiency. It takes a lot of work. Java is fun but my programming partner is bugging me. He always disagrees with me and erases any code I write without checking whether that is necessary. Ugh, I really dislike that. We made chocolate chip cookies today, and they were very delicious. I probably ate too many though. Oh well. I would like to write more, but I need to drift off to sleep with thoughts of great circles and tangent vectors…(no joke probably)

Well, the first week is now under my belt, and I remember how stressful it can be. I am currently juggling with the decision of dropping or keeping Astrophysics…so far, I don’t really enjoy the homework (as I do with math), and the professor is not as adept at explaining as I would like him to be. He obviously has great knowledge in the subject, but he’s not imparting it in the way I need. I can drop it without penalty until the 20th, so I have some time to mull it over. I am mostly enjoying all of my other classes (especially Math), but physics has been pretty boring since it has been all review. My Math teacher is actually pretty bad this year – he doesn’t explain anything very well and he is completely unapproachable. My Physics teacher seems very stereotypical of a university professor – he is old, gray-haired, long-bearded, and wears glasses – he is exactly what I expect from a physics professor. He teaches pretty well, and he is very deliberate, something I especially appreciate. My Java professor is very good – he seems to be “talking down to us”, or explaining all the topics as though he were speaking to those who have never really programed. Since I haven’t, it is very helpful. Also, he has a British accent, and I think it sounds very cool. My French teacher is abrasive and loud, and I am very tense when I am in her class. She yells certain words when she thinks they sound strange, and although it might help someone remember how to pronounce said word, it always scares me when she does that and is a large disincentive to speak for me. I wish I had a different French teacher… We still haven’t been given any closet hooks or a door (as we were promised), so I getting pretty upset about that. It is really difficult to study in the room when the tv is on downstairs, and the bar outside the apartment still keeps me up until two every night. On the whole, my first week in school has been very good. Sean stayed over on the weekend, and we had all kinds of adventures trying to find an AMC in which we could watch Resident Evil: Afterlife. Part of our excursion involved a homeless man falling over onto me, and a prolonged argument between two screaming women. I wish that we could have had another week or so to enjoy our apartment without school “getting in the way”, but it’s useless to hope for that I suppose…anyway, I am struggling still to find the right balance between sleep, recreation, and studying (and I am very thankful for the absence of “a job” in the previous list), but that always requires some fine-tuning. I accomplished it somehow last year, so we will see this year…I suppose that’s enough for now. More later, I hope!

So, as you can see, here I am on my first day of my sophomore year. It was a little hectic because I am not used to leaving from the Dinkydome, but thankfully it is very close to my classes. I woke up an hour before my first class (11:15 a.m.), showered, ate, finalized my schedule, took the above picture, and headed off to Honors Physics 3 at about 11:06. I timed the walk there using my phone’s stopwatch, so I now know that it takes about seven minutes to walk there. I hope to have my bike here soon, and I also hope that will speed my “commute” considerably. Physics was pretty dry, but the professor seems more serious than my professor last year. Is this a plus? Maybe…anyway, after physics, I scooted on over to Honors Calc. 3 discussion, where we basically reviewed all hour. I then returned to the Dinkydome, played a little plants vs. zombies, ate a wonderful sandwich (made by me), a bag of chips, a fruit-roll-up look alike, and drank a bottle of coca-cola. After that, I left for Astrophysics at 2:20 with part of the sandwich and the bottle of coke in hand. After sitting through a two hour lecture about the universe, I met Deanna and her brother on University Ave. We took Deanna’s bike to the Dinkydome, where her brother parted ways with us. After that, Deanna and I took her bike down to the garage for storage. After that, we went to Coffman to buy some school supplies. After purchasing some lovely binders and several hundred sheets of paper, we checked out the poster sale and decided the line was far too long. After all of that, Deanna laid down for a good nap and I went to work setting up bookmarks and things for my classes. Well, that was my first day of my sophomore year at the U of M. See you later!