About time the semester’s over!

As those of you who know h0w I am by now probably know, I hate community college. I am soooooooooooo (that’s right, I put in extra o’s for emphasis) glad  the fall semester is finally over. Is it just me, or do semesters just drag along really slow? It never felt this way during the winter session. I hope I don’t hate school as much during summer either. Even though I’m still taking classes in the summer, I can’t help but be glad to know that this semester is finally behind me. It was such a drag most of the time. I only wish I did good in the math class I had and never needed a reason to drop it. I feel so behind now, still having to take remedial math classes. FML.

On a brighter note, I walked out of my English final in a really good mood. I don’t think I did as well on my in-class essay as I’ve done on others, but that’s okay. As soon as I turned in the in-class final essay, Dr. Norton gave me back my previous two essays. One of them was an in-class essay written in a Green Book, and the other one was one of those fancy typed-up ones in MLA format. I looked through the essay I wrote in the Green Book and read the little notes he’d written on it. It made me laugh that he put a happy face next to something I’d written. Then I reached the last page, where he wrote at the bottom “Great job, Reyna — Thanks!” followed by my grade. I noticed that he always writes “thanks” on essays and wonder what he thanks his students for. Is he thanking us for doing the assignment? ‘Cause if he is… then boy, he must have some really bad students. Is he thanking me specifically for doing good? Actually, he wrote “thanks for all your work on this paper” once. I guess he is thanking us for doing the assignment. Interesting. I guess I’d thank my students too. The mere fact that they chose to go on with their education says a lot about them… ANYWAY! I totally went off on a tangent.

Okay, back on topic… I looked through the pages of the other essay he returned (the one that was typed and all that jazz) and noticed there weren’t many markings on it. I turned to the last page to get a look at my grade, but there was nothing. I looked at the back of every page, and all the little corners and margins. Still no grade. I went up to Norton’s desk and asked if he graded my paper. He looked at it and then told me “Oh, it’s because I wanted to ask you…” then he wrote on my paper “Would you mind emailing this to me as an attachment so I could use it for future 101 classes?” I was confused for about half a second because I thought it said “lol” and not “101″ (as in  English 101). Yes, only Reyna would make that mistake. Then I was like, oh! sure! when I realized he actually meant that I did so well on the essay that he wanted to use it as a sample. It was awesome! Lmao. Then he was like “Yeah… because your grade is” and then he wrote on my paper “A+” I was so happy! It totally made my day… as if the fact that it was the last day of the semester hadn’t already lifted my spirits.

LACCD Cancelling Summer Classes

So, the community college district over here is getting all these budget cuts. They decided to cancel all summer sessions that start after June 1st. I was planning on taking four classes this summer, now I can only take two. Totally lame. Also, I think other forms of financial aid (EOP&S, Cal Grants, etc.) are gonna be offering less now.

I’ve never really been much of an activist… even when it comes to something that directly affects me. But I do like to spread the word about issues around me sometimes. I don’t have much time to blog about this because I have stuff for finals to work on all this week. Otherwise, this would be a pretty long post… but I’ll share some links and whatnot for those of you interested in doing something about it.

Information: http://www.laccd.edu/news/documents/LACCD_Summer_Cancellation_2009.pdf

Also, there will be a protest at Trade Tech — Information on that is here: http://laeastside.com/2009/06/community-college-and-cut-backs-protest-230-today-trade-tech/

Let’s hope this doesn’t cause me to be at ELAC longer than I had planned :/

This week was meh.

Not much out of the ordinary.

Went to classes at ELAC, did some homework at the library, blah blah blah.

Friday, I went to the movies with Gerard and saw 17 Again for some reason. It was… awkward. After that, we went to the Montebello Town Center and tried on clothes and took photos, like always. hahaha. I like the way we matched, but Gap clothes are way too expensive.

Then I got so bored at 1am that I photoshopped our photos a bit. Here are the results:

I got a haircut yesterday. It’s not that short but I prefer having long hair. (Short hair + fat face = VERY fat looking face!) My hair is sooo damaged, though! Now I want long, dark hair instead of blonde. I got tired of it.

It used to be this long:

Now it looks like this:

I don’t even know if there’s much of an obvious difference xD

Now I have to work on an essay, search for a few things for my English class, and write a profile on my Journalism professor. Ugh. I hate Sundays. They’re all the same: church, food, internet, homework, shower, sleep.

Random ELAC Moments

I recorded this a longgggg time ago, but YouTube never let me upload it. I decided it to try out Viddler for the first time. It works. lol.

Sorry if I talk too damn slow. I must’ve been uber bored. This video is wayyyyy longer than I wanted it to be :/

No, I’m not trying to be racist.

And yeah, I know… I referred to all hispanic/latinos as Mexicans.

rofl. Sorry?

Garfield part two? I think not… not yet, anyway.

As I was washing the dishes, my brother walked into the kitchen and said “Heyyyy. How’s life been?” To which I replied, “Boring.” He responded with “Man, you’re part of, like, the bored generation…” Then I explained to him that my days have pretty much only consisted of going to school, coming home, eating, washing dishes, reading or doing something online, going to sleep, and repeating the same process the next day. Then he asked me something about how ELAC is like Garfield part 2. Of course, anyone that went to Garfield High School has probably heard that comparison made at one point or another. To my surprise I responded with “No… Garfield was way better.” Once again, I reminded myself how much I hate the way my life’s been progressing (or not progressing) lately. Boy, do I really wish I was still in high school… or at least that I had as many things to do in college as I did in high school. It’s been really slow and I hate it. There can be many reasons my time there hasn’t been so great.

Maybe it’s because I don’t really have friends or many regulars at ELAC, so there’s less people to laugh with or even talk to in class. Most of them already have cliques of their own and it seems like it’d be uncomfortable joining a new circle if they already have their own inside jokes and unofficial traditions. I mean, I’m not really a shy person. It’s just really hard for me to make friends sometimes.

Maybe it’s the teachers. Not to say ELAC has bad teachers or anything, I just haven’t had any like the ones I’ve had in the past. They were the kind that, even if you weren’t really into the subject, they made you not hate it as much as you would’ve with a regular ole’ teacher. Grandpa Woessner, for example. You can tell he loved what he did and that he truly cared about his students. Just the little things he did like keeping individuals after class just to talk to them about how bad they’ve been doing and wondering why they do it, or compliment them and letting them know that he’s proud of them… or that day nearing the last day of school when he gave all his seniors roses and gave a little speech about each one of them. Even the way he went about teaching the class and scaring the shit out of people while pretending to be some historic character. Or teachers like Ms. Gardocki, who would write advice to you on your journal entries and talk to you about it if you were comfortable enough with her, rather than just skimming through it and giving you credit for having done your assignment. Then there was Mr. Bennett… boy, could you tell he liked what he did. He didn’t seem to just teach for the sake of teaching either. I loved the way he’d get all happy and excited when we brought certain things up, and suggest that we make a survey about it. Then there was Rocha… that asshole. I can see myself being the way he was with students too, though. Boy, did I love to hate him. I didn’t even want to cry at graduation til is saw tears on his eyes. Ah, and Buchman. What a sarcastic and handsome old man. Hahaha. Anyway… I haven’t really felt any sort of connection like that with any of my professors here. The ones involved in the arts (my dance and theater teachers); I can tell they’re really dedicated their professions, but they don’t make teaching their priority unless they know the person is heading in the same road of that art. I guess I don’t mind. I’d probably do the same. Haha. The others just seem to teach because it pays the bills.