Once upon a time, Diana thought she'd take a break...

School, work, work, school, church, school, family, work, school... play? This summer I made the silly decision of going to school both Spring and Summer terms at BYU. I like school so I thought it shouldn't be too much of a problem, but considering I am required to go to school next Spring/Summer too for my major I ran the risk of turning that like of school into a very bitter resentment after I go for two and a half years straight. Here's why I thought I'd be ok: There's a whole two weeks of break between summer term and the start of fall!! Who could ask for more than that? Two weeks is plenty for me to recuperate and maybe even get bored so I'm all fired up to go back to school again.

Well, a couple of days ago (which was part way through the first week of break) I decided to look on Blackboard to check my grades from the term I just finished and saw that one of my teachers for fall had already posted all of the class info we needed. I thought I'd take a little peek at the syllabus because the professor had warned me the reading load for this class was pretty massive so I thought I'd find out just what the damage was going to be. Here's what I found out:

• Three text books I have to buy and about eight more that are on course reserve in the library, as well as many <- (I will define this word later) articles and books she has on electronic reserve. Doable. I think.
• Fifteen films we have to see outside of class and write reports on. Ouch.
• Six 7-page papers. Yikes.
• A written mid-term. Oral final. Now this is NOT a language class, so I have no idea what this oral final is going to consist of, but I have a terrible hunch that it is going to be me and my prof sitting across a table from each other and she gets to ask me any question she wants and if there is something that I seem slightly unclear on she gets to probe until I have proven my idiocy and ignorance in her pet subject!
• Finally I decided to open the document that has the title of all our reading assignments for the semester and what did I find? With just the bibliographic info (Title, Author, Year), the list of reading assignments was... anyone want to take a guess how long? A page, two, maybe five? (Keep in mind this is in adition to the regular text books we'll be reading). Ok, are you thinking of a number? Ok, here it comes... The document is thirty pages long! Those are just the names of the articles, studies, and books I have to read, and they take up thirty pages!!

Maybe I'm over-reacting. But as someone who is just begining to take uper-level courses on a university level, I was completely unprepared for this. I am going to have a full semester as it is without this class, so as I read the syllabus, my heart began pounding out of my chest. What was I going to do? Drop the class? If I drop the class I drop my minor. Drop my other classes? If I drop those I drop my major. So, I finally decided that the only thing to do was drop out of school all together! Ok, so I didn't actually do that, I just considered it. So, since there was very little I could cut out of this upcoming semester there seemed to be only one thing to do... Get started on that 30 page list now... Sigh...

So, instead of the two weeks I had anticipated, a half a week break will have to suffice, because once again, I am speanding my days in the library. And the guy at the reference desk thinks I'm crazy. Who in there right mind is checking out 6 books on course reserve in a day with a week and a half before school starts? Me... apparently... At least I like school! :D

Beginning

I have been promising myself and everyone else I know that I would start blogging. Seeing as I have been completely unsuccessful at journaling, chances of blogging consistently are slim, but it's worth a shot.

So to start out, I thought I would tell you a little about what a brave and daring chica I am. For example...

Do you see those girls trembling behind me? But I was fearless. I also got rid of the scorpion we found in our cabin, went on a tarantula hunt, and held a poison dart frog (the kind coated with poison 200 times more powerful than morphine). I thought I was pretty cool. I usually make it a point to show how brave I am by being the first to take a dare, the first to try crazy foods (chicken heart, guinea pig, strange blue mush that was sitting at our door, etc), or the first to jump off high precipices into icy water. This might not seem that impressive to some, but coming from a family with 6 girls, some of these things are a pretty big deal! (Ok so my sisters are pretty daring too...) But here's my confession, as brave as I think I am, I practically cried through the entire movie When a Stranger Calls, while on a date to the movie King Kong, I was curled up in fetal position in my seat for at least a third of the film, I still get squeemish when I think of getting my blood drawn, and I am completely terrified of mold.

What am I trying to say? I'm a work in progress. If I pretend I'm the bravest person I know, but moldy bread gives me the shudders, I clearly haven't figured myself out yet. So, if one day I write one thing on this blog and the next I write the complete opposite, forgive me because I don't know what political party I belong to, I have a love/hate relationship with sports, my taste in music has no rhyme or reason to it, and nearly every opinion I've ever had has changed and probably will again. You've been warned. :) Enjoy!