Awkward Photo Award

From our latest newsletter at work. The photo caption says he "...symbolically passes the torch of leadership..." That looks like a pretty literal torch pass to me.

A Psychology Major.

It's the end of something I did not want to end, beginning of hard times to come. But something that was not meant to be is done, and this is the start of what was.

This is the first semester I've started at FSU with a declared major. Since I passed General Psychology and Intro to Statistics, they admitted me to the major. But it's not like I can say something like "there's no turning back now," because I have another two years here; although, considering my current courseload, it would be futile to change majors (I'll probably get done with this one this fall).

One of the aspects of high school I really enjoyed was the opportunity to investigate various fields of study at their (relatively) upper echelons. That is, I could study calculus, advanced Latin, the English language, and music simultaneously. This whole specifying a major field of research is kind of limiting for me- if I enjoy studying all those things, why can't I keep doing that? Well, the answer is that I can, it will just be expensive and time-consuming with almost no practical long-term benefits.

In just one half week of classes, I've had the opportunity to assess things concerning the rest of this semester.

Introduction to Latin: Mostly independent work (translations prepared in advance) with a quirky instructor that I was all-too-entirely not surprised was teaching a course like this. Her laid-back attitude was a main part of the reason I decided not to do the "right" thing and take the Latin placement test at FSU, but just signed up for this class, which is what I believe to be at my level of ability. This'll show 'em for not accepting my SAT II score in Latin.

Research Methods in Psychology: This is one of those common knowledge classes that's a requirement for the major for all those people that believe studies and all experiment results without question. As I've already learned, people lie, and stuff doesn't always turn out like you expect it would. So, I'm guessing this will turn out to be a class to join the ranks of Intro to Stats (hopefully the statement "stuff doesn't always turn out like you expect it would" will apply to this prediction). Essentially, a pushover.

Psychology of Personality: This guy is funny. He's gonna do all lectures, with no pictures or powerpoints. I think I will learn a moderate amount of information from this course, though the topics presented aren't exactly what I initially thought would be in a course with this title.

Abnormal Psychology: I guess this will be cool too. On the first day, I had to snicker every so often because the professor was such the typical old-man-with-monotone-voice-and-use-of-big-words that you see in the movies and whatsuch. I guess I will learn some stuff in this one too, and I should enjoy reading the textbook.

DIS in Zwaan Language and Perception Lab: We haven't yet met to start running experiments, but based on last semester, I can predict this will be a good 6-8 hours a week in the lab that I can use to read again. Sure, it's not glamorous, but sometimes they give me food, and I get to see a lot of people who are taking General Psychology, and get to make fun of a lot of people who are taking General Psychology.

I'm gonna go ahead and give this semester's classes a good 6.5 out of a possible 10 points. A couple of those points reflect the nice colors of my textbooks- they're all pretty, soothing shades of blue (the Latin book is more greenish/aqua, but it works).

And your idols - who are they? They too dreamt about their day, positive steps will see your goals.

Yeah, and Brandon, I'm still laughing at "And don't forget the Twizzlers."

Cell Phone Conversations Part 1

As I rejoin the masses on campus, I find numerous chances to overhear people speaking loudly into their cellular telephones. I've only heard two so far today:

"My English teacher is soo hot. Yeah, I walked in and then this guy walked in behind me, and I was like... he is so hot! He's the teacher! This is gonna be a good class. Except it's at 9 in the morning."

"I'm in intro to theater, we learn about plays and stuff."

Yeah, well, these conversation tidbits aren't that exciting, but I felt like posting about the first day of school and this was all I could think of. I plan on making this a recurring feature, as I've heard many funny things from this that I should have written down before.

SLC @ the SLB, man.

I knew a few good movies were coming up. Now I have the list. Here are some highlights:

Garden State
Animal House
Sky Captain & The World of Tomorrow
Alice in Wonderland
Stepford Wives (remake)
Hero
Goodbye, Lenin!
Ray
Jackie Brown
Casablanca
Shaun of the Dead
Clue
I Heart Huckabees
Silence of the Lambs

Yeah, those are just the highlights. They have 33 movies listed (of which, I've only seen 5)... and that's just up until February 28th. I won't proclaim anything at this point, but there are rumors that I'm thinking about watching every movie they're showing this semester. I think I'll start going to the film committee meetings, too.

With this and the CDU schedule, I have my work cut out for me. And then there are those pesky classes...

Back in town today, and I'm perfectly, perfectly okay.

I received that same strange feeling of distant recognition previously discussed when I made it into T-tilly-tally-sass-ville today. As soon as I was in range, I cranked the radio to 89.7 WVFS, The Voice of Florida State. I head this crazy drone that sounded like someone sat on a few keyboard keys with distortion on and this faint hum/drone whistle that came in and out of auditory perception every few seconds. It stayed with the same notes pressed down for a good three minutes, and I knew I was back (I think the DJ said it was by somebody/group called "growing"- I could be wrong). When I got into town, the moment I turn off the air and roll down the windows, I hear firetruck sirens.

Theo, my Asian RA, put up pictures of the same two football guys on every door, writing the residents' names on them.

Then, thefacebook.com... Yeah, I got a profile there. What? Wanna fight about it?

***

My classes, you ask? The whole reason I'm back in Tallahassee? College education? Yeah, I guess they're gonna be cool. /Not too worried about it. Not too stoked about it either. Well, there you go.

Notice:

ACNS will begin charging $0.05 per printed page starting Spring '05.

"The Dude minds. This will not stand, you know, this agression will not stand, man."

This is pretty shocking- going from 35 free printed pages per day in the computer labs to charging $0.05 per page. Why don't they just enforce the limit, or lower the limit, or both? I'm sure this new policy will deter an abuse of the system, but it's pretty upsetting to me.

Next thing you know they'll be making us pay for our parking permits, football tickets, rock concerts, top-notch movies... Hey, I guess it's not that bad afterall. Oh well, maybe I'll just get a printer.