This is How to Spend Your Time

Classes began on Monday. Since 9:00AM that morning (when Rika and I walked to our first lectures in Hammerschlag) I've been keeping busy. Occasionally I've come back to the apartment during a two-hour break to make lunch at home or run some errands, but otherwise I've been spending a lot of time at CMU. By a lot I mean 9AM to 9PM. Sometimes later.

As far as classes go, they all look pretty good. I'm unhappy with some of my TAs, but there's a simple remedy for that. The professors seem better, though, which is a relief after last semester. That's also good because most of my courses this semester are renowned as "hard." The last thing anyone wants in a challenging course is a professor with poor lecturing skills (which could lead the course to be more challenging than it has to be).

I'm already planning to drop a course, however. I'd rather spend more time concentrating on five difficult courses than spreading myself too thin on six. Plus there are other activities in which I'm taking part that are taking up a lot of time (more on those later). At this point, the course in question is programming (15-111). I'm allowing a weekend (and a long one at that!) to mull it over.

Classes only last until 4:30PM or so...so where does all the other time go?

Well, first there's ballroom. Andrey and I teach lessons on Mondays in Beginner 2. Officer's are also supposed to table every now and again, which entails signing in people, answering questions, etc. Then there's the personal enrichment: intermediate and advanced lessons. I feel like I haven't danced in forever.

Then there is SWE, which hasn't really kicked off yet. My role on the executive board is not large, but I've resolved to volunteer for more events and take a more active role in the general body.

I also recently got an on-campus job. It's about as close as you can get to free money. I sit at a desk behind a computer, hand out surveys to people as they come in the Modern Language Resource Center, input the surveys online when they leave, and occasionally attempt to answer their questions. No, I don't have a copy of the Italian I syllabus.