End of the semester wrap up...

You all knew it was coming...the much 'anticipated' school rant.  I call it a rant because despite the semester being over December 13th, I still do not have all my grades, which were due in the 20th, and because I don't have all my assignments back from two professors.  So far, I have two A's and one A- out of six classes.

The group internship was ridiculously unorganized, despite any attempt on my part to get it situated.  I finally conceded leadership to another student, mostly because none of them responded well to my tries to get us going.  This girl, who was very nice, had an annoying habit of waiting until a day before something needs done to let us know which parts we need to do.  They were all campus students, of course, with part time jobs and ample time to do homework.  Add to this a non-profit that also dumped content on us at the last minute...imagine my frustration.  The work--meaning building an entire website--was completed, and a manual for the computer-illiterate non-profit head.  I thought at the presentation we were done and I could move on from this nightmare, but then two weeks later I got an email from the non-profit...they had never received the manual.  This center has very strange office hours, and I had been trying to get down there while they were open to drop off the paper version, knowing that our group leader was to email the electronic version so if it took a while to catch them open, it wouldn't be an issue.  Well....she never emailed the manual, and my well over ten attempts to catch their office open failed.  So, I dug out my electronic copy, and put the paper one in the mail.  Talk about a cluster-fuck.

For my Women Writer's the class that I was so excited about...well, the reading material was good, that's about it from my vantage point.  I read six books and wrote two papers on each, for a total of twelve papers. As of today, I have six papers back with grades.  I only had two papers back at the end of the semester, so I emailed the director of my program.  I got four more papers after that.  I've been told I shouldn't worry, because there's probably nothing wrong with my assignments, but according to my syllabus, I have the option to revise one paper per book, and because of her slowness in getting the papers back to me, I won't have this chance.  I was told I could appeal my grade if I wished to.  Oy.

This isn't to say that all my classes were horrible- they weren't.  My Modern Literature class was amazing, and I read some really talented authors from all over the world.  My advisor taught this class, and he rocks so I expected nothing less.  My Images of Beauty in American Women, or what I like to call Feminist Training 101, was very interesting and an eye-opener, despite having to revise a research paper (oy).  The best experience of my semester was being on the Aurora staff.  I wasn't sure what to expect, and had high hopes.  I wasn't disappointed.  We met once a week to go over submissions, and made the ultimate decision whether or not they were to be published.  We saw a wide variety of work: poetry, fiction, non-fiction, photographs, artwork, and a lone political essay.  The faculty advisor for the Aurora was my former poetry professor, so I had a good relationship with her anyway, and it carried over into the discussions.  So far it is the best experience I've had being a college student.

During the course of my semester, multiple people told me "I don't know how you do it all" and I never had a good response to that statement...until now.  I couldn't have done it all if it wasn't for my hugely huge support system in the form of family and friends, who were willing to watch Caris while I went to a *shudder* Math class, or who gladly lent an ear, or laptop screen while I whined about the amount of work I had due, or a group project that I just knew was going to lower my overall grade.  I have a saint for a husband, who gladly watched Caris while I went off into another room and read or worked on a paper, never once complaining, but probably feeling a little stifled.  My thanks go to everyone for being there for me: in person, over the phone, or through cyberspace.  You are how I did it all.