Follow Up to My Crazy Week

Well, as of Friday, I am now an official survivor of test madness week. I had tests in English, stats, and human bio. I studied my butt off for the latter two with my friend Amy. Since Amy understands math more than I do, she did the problems on the board step-by-step. Her roommate and our friend Christina joined us Wed. and Thurs. since she had a test Friday (Amy and I are in the same class, but Christina isn't. All the stats classes use the same text). Surprisingly, when I took these tests, I felt like I really knew the material and am hoping I did better on these tests than I did on the previous ones. I don't want to drop the classes if I don't have to because we only have four more weeks left of classes.

Sadly, my bio professor is still frustrating. As ususal, I went to his office twice this week for help, but he was not very helpful. My friend Mallory who is a senior bio major was helping me study for this test. I showed her the power points, and she recognized many of the diagrams from her anatomy class (a 300-level course) two years ago. She thought it was outrageous that my professor was expecting a 100-level class to know as much as a 300-level class. She suggested I talk to the department chair, which I did on Thursday. Unfortunately, the department chair told me there was not anything she could do. Although she was nice and wasn't trying to be full of herself, I left feeling frustrated because I was not 100% convinced that she couldn't do anything.

Now that I'm done, I can take it easy and have fun. This week, we had three visitors. On Tuesday night, Cady's sister and a friend of hers spent the night and had lunch with us the next day. On Friday night, Cady's best friend spent the night. In honor of Africa Week, my friends and I went to see the documentary Invisible Children Friday night. Invisible Children is about the children in Uganda who are forced to be soldiers. :( Afterwards, we wrote letters to our senators asking them to increase foregin aid. Last night, some of my choir friends and I watched Jesus Christ Superstar, which essentially told the story of Jesus with music.

Remember how I told you last week about my English professor telling me he was pleased with my work in his class and admiring me for working so hard? On Monday, I wrote him an email telling him that what he said made my week. I also told him that as someone struggling in two classes, it meant a lot to me to hear that, and that he gives me hope that I can survive these last few weeks just by my knowing that I have a professor who genuinely cares about me as a student and person and sees what I can do. He wrote me back telling me that I don't have to be angry with myself for not being perfect or reaching every single goal, and that regardless of how I do in these classes, I have what it takes to reach my goals. He also gave me a quote that I have on post-its in my room and in purse: "everyone gets muddy from falling down and the thing to do is just get up, brush off the dirt, and keep at it." Whenever I feel stressed, anxious, or sad, I'd just look at the quote and think "I can do this, and I will get through it."

I will be getting both tests back next week, so let's hope that I did well enough so I don't have to drop the class. Think positive thoughts for me! :D