Hm, I had my first “interview” in Spanish this morning, although it was different than I had anticipated. I thought that I would be one-on-one with the instructor, speaking with him and answering questions “en español.” However, the interview was conducted in a group setting, with two or three students conversing among themselves with the instructor looking on and listening. I teamed up with Briant, one of the few other guys in the class, and as we reviewed and touched up on some vocabulary, we threw together a sketchy outline for our interview. Once we were in the classroom, it really was not all that bad, despite my nervousness leading up to the oral test. After three minutes of basic conversation, our time was up, and the instructor commented on our performance, and quizzed us on a couple places where we had messed up grammar or pronunciation (one does not eat coffee (“yo como el café”), but rather drinks it (“yo bebo el café”), and yes, I misspoke and said that I ate coffee as a part of breakfast). Overall, we both scored well on the different facets of the exercise, and we came away with 96s. With that, and the 94 on my test, and nearly perfect homework, I should have a solid A for midterms.

I got both my Spanish 101 and Accounting 289 test scores back. On the former, I made a 94, which is respectable, but on the latter, I made a 99, which was unacceptable. Why? Because the one question I missed was a mere transposition error: I bubbled in the wrong letter on the ScanTron sheet! I even had the correct letter circled on the test--which confused me when I compared it to the answer key, because all of the answers I had circled on the test paper matched up--but somehow when I went to the ScanTron, I shaded B instead of A. Do not misunderstand me, I am very glad and thankful for the 99, but I kicked myself for making such a minor error on a question that I knew. However, with the A+ in AC289, A's in AC310 and SP101, and a B in MGT300, my current GPA for the semester, without having taken or received scores for my AC371 test, is 3.8325, and if I make an A on my AC371 test, that will be bumped up to a 3.866.

So, yesterday was my first AC310 test. Aaaaannnd...I was the first one done with both the multiple-choice section in lecture and the problem-solving section in lab! :-)
It is a little thing, I know, but when I really know a subject, I want to do it well and do it quickly. All last year, I wanted to be the first one done with just one test in just one of my classes, but every time when I thought I had it, I came up a few questions short. Even this past spring, on my astronomy final, when I plowed through that 50-question exam in 12 minutes--there were still a couple people done before me! I was flabbergasted. I bet they did not score a 98 though. :-P Anyway, So we had a 32-question multiple-choice section in the 11 o'clock lecture, and then a 20-ish-problem section of problem solving to complete in the five o'clock lab. In a lecture section of about 30 students, I was the first one done (and ironically, the next two people that walked out of the room were guys that I had been studying with), and in the combined lab of about 120 students, I was also the first one finished. And not only was I the first one, but to the best of my knowledge, I aced the problem solving, and I am fairly confident that I did well in the multiple-choice questions, especially once they started being about problem solving as well. Now for Excel on Friday, Spanish on Monday, and Individual Taxation on Wednesday...

Yesterday in Management 300, I took my first test of the 2007-08 school year, and despite the casual and random easiness of the actual lecture, the test was surprisingly tricky. However, I did take fairly thorough notes during class--even though I used the majority of one class meeting to study Accounting 371--so most of the questions' answers were quickly recalled and put to paper. There were several I knew that I knew for sure, most of them I was fairly sure I knew, and the rest were in the “I have no idea” category, so I took a wild--well, calm, I suppose--guess at them. My grade was posted today, and I came through the ordeal with an 84. Hardly stellar, but I cannot realistically expect myself to do better than that. It is not a horrible grade, one that will drag me down and force me to nail all-A's for the rest of the semester, but in the same way, it does not leave me much wiggle-room. Next week I have my Accounting 310 test on Tuesday, followed by my Accounting 289 test on Friday. Hooray for exams!

This time next week, I hope to be in Tuscaloosa and moved into my dorm. If all goes well, and my assumptions are correct--and I have reason to believe they are--all that should go smoothly, and I will be in before the major rush later in the week when everyone else gets there! I was hoping to stay with Stephen and his family for a couple days, but unfortunately, my trip south will coincide with a trip west for them, but it looks like we should be able to connect sometime next Sunday in Tuscaloosa. :-D

It's hard to realize the second month of 2007 is already complete. It's even harder to believe that after 57 days of writing “07” in all the dates on my notes that I could still mess it up in Legal Studies yesterday morning! :-P However, for the most part, I've handled the yearly date-change trauma rather competently.
I took my second Calculus test this morning after English, and I improved my score from the last time around. Although I had aced nearly every homework and quiz through the last test section, I only made an 88 on the test, which pulled my near-100 average down to a 90. *blah* Through this section, I didn't do quite as well on the homework and quizzes, but I took most of the concepts on the practice test and reviewed a slight amount right before I took it, and this time I scored a 92, which made my average a 91 for the period. Now I need to couple those two good things--namely, good homework/quiz scores and a good test score--and try to anchor myself securely in the “A” range. No, an A- isn't bad, per se, but an A is better, especially with the minuses and pluses being counted in one's GPA. Oooh, last night was the first skills test in dance. 'Twas scary, especially since I was in the first trio of couples to take to the dance floor. I was completely frozen for the first two dances, which fortunately were the rumba and cha-cha, and then I finally relaxed and got into the groove with the swing. I was able to do a lot with that one, which was really good, especially after my prior flops. :-) The rest of the night was pretty smooth sailing after that. I had to dance one more test round, but I wasn't graded for it, only the girl was. *sigh* I didn't do fantastically on the second time around for the cha-cha and rumba, but as there was less pressure, I did do a bit better. Anyway, I'll have to wait and see how badly I bombed this test. I'm so glad now that it's only a one credit course!

One of the older academic buildings on campus is Manly Hall, which is adjacent to Clark Hall (I don't believe there's any relation). Ironically, one of the subjects held in the building is Women's Studies!

So before Calculus this afternoon I counted the number of pages of notes I've taken since school began. Any guesses as to the number I came up with? (Without the use of any obtuse-but-snazzy formulas, I might add.) Four dozen and one. And that was before class. I added three more during the class by copying the exercises on the board. That's nearly five pages of notes per day of classes. I'm not even going to try to calculate how many pages I may have at the end of the semester if I continue at this rate!

Unlike Tuesday, where I spent most of the day perpetually crisscrossing the campus, I planned to be gone for most of the day when I left for crew this morning. With my backpacked stuffed with books, my note binder, various writing implements, my “clicker” for astronomy, and a bottle of water, I took off and didn't step foot back in my room for 10 and a half hours. In that time, I got quite a bit done; besides an hour and a half for crew and three and a half hours of class, I studied for my “case” in Legal Studies (I'm one of the defendant's “lawyers”) before class, during breakfast, and again at lunch, sessions which totaled another three and a half hours; add another half hour for my second crew workout of the day, a half hour of cumulative bike riding time, and several random chats, and there you have it: a long day of roving the UA campus.
Calculus is going very well, which is a big thing for me. Going into the class for the first time, I was more than a little intimidated by the idea of calculus...*shudder* A torture device disguised as a discipline of mathematics would be a better name for it--or so I thought. After five class periods and six sections of homework and quizzes, I'm beginning to change my mind. No, I don't enjoy it, but it's no longer a hate-hate relationship. In fact, I've been doing better on the homework and quiz scores than I was in PreCalc last semester!
My other enjoyable class has been Legal Studies. I am incredibly grateful for having been able to switch instructors; instead of being required to attend three hours of a trial case, we are doing mock cases in-class. We started the first one on Tuesday by naming the plaintiff and defendant and their respective lawyers and going over the facts of the incident. This morning we began walking through the procedure, beginning with a settlement offer from the plaintiff's attorneys (which my fellow attorney and I declined on behalf of our client, the defendant). From there, we proceeded to figure out what to which court the lawsuit should be brought, the various advantages for either litigant of state and federal courts, and the different options available to the plaintiff in the way of bringing additional defendants into the case for strategic reasons. I didn't say a whole lot in class today because things the teacher was talking about didn't line up with the chapter I had read in the book. I found out later that my edition of the textbook is set up quite differently from the latest version, and so the information he was talking about in class was in the next chapter of the book. So between classes and during meals, I read that chapter and took notes in order to be better prepared for Tuesday's continuation of the case.

The crew club interest meeting is in a half hour at the rec, and while I'm not required to go, the varsity guys would like everyone to come. So I'm going to be heading over there in a bit; much like Get on Board Day, it's going to be fun to see things from “the other side” of a semester of rowing.

For the first week of school, we didn't have class on Monday. But then again, we started on Wednesday, so it's kind of hard to have Monday classes.
For the second week of school, we didn't have class on Monday. But then again, Monday was Martin King Luther, Jr.'s Birthday (observed).
For the third week of school, we did have class on Monday. And what happened? Oh, I slept until 7:40, and that's when I got a call from Stephanie and actually woke up and realized what time it was. That's not bad in and of itself, it's what I was supposed to be doing while I was sleeping that makes it bad. What was I supposed to be doing? Let's see, getting up at 5:20 (and I did wake up then, and I was coherent enough to even turn down my stereo so it didn't disturb my roommates), giving Stephanie a wakeup call at 5:40 so she could have plenty of time to finish up a few things before class this morning, going to crew practice and giving Coach my 6K time trial time, eating breakfast at Burke with the guys, and walking with Matt, Steven, and Stephanie from Blount to Rowand-Johnson. No, it wasn't the greatest of starts to the day. Then of course I sat through another session of Brit Lit, had a three-hour Astronomy lab, and then a dry “discussion” session of Arts of Tuscaloosa.
I'll stop complaining now.
There have been high points of the day, such as getting the providential wakeup call from Stephanie (if she hadn't called, I probably would have slept through English as well...), breakfast with Stephanie, finding out that Matt is in lab with me, having lunch with Toaster and Matt, getting a pair of voicemails from Steph regarding a second visit to Bama Bean with her and Keri and Stephen, and emailing a couple people.
However, all that already puts me at a quarter till five, and in the next five hours I'd like to complete the following:
-read chapter two in my Legal Studies text,
-make up my workout for crew,
-go to Bible study,
-eat dinner and/or go to Bama Bean,
-and get to bed at a reasonable hour (not that 10:45 last night wasn't reasonable).
Now to get to work. :-)

As I biked back from Bidgood after Legal Studies this morning, I spotted a new Honda CR-V parked in the faculty/staff section behind Gorgas. My immediate reaction was, “They ruined it!” 'Tis very sad, because I really like the old style of CR-Vs, and I just had my first ride in one last Wednesday after the Well. :-(

Another first occurred yesterday afternoon: I sang in the choir at Moody in the bass section with Rudolphy, one of the coxswains that was on the crew team last semester. 'Twas partly a spontaneous choice and partly a matter of coaxing on Stephanie's part. After crew and English, we had walked to the Ferg for breakfast, per usual, and then she found out from a classmate that her French class was canceled, so she was done until one o'clock. Having had only five hours of sleep (the previous night it had been more like “late to bed, early to rise, makes a man sleepy, lethargic, and...zzzzzz”), I dozed for about an hour and a half on the floor in Stephanie's suite while she did homework (at breakfast I did all of my reading for English, so I wasn't completely unproductive!). Around noon, we went back to the Ferg for a quick bite of lunch before she headed to Moody for choir and orchestra.
Fresh Food and the food court have been absolutely packed between 11:30 and 12:30, so we were going to lunch along with the other 22,000 people on campus! Okay, there weren't that many, but there was not an open table to be found until we had finished eating! Anyway, I ended up walking with Stephanie to Moody, intending to then go to Rowand-Johnson to pick up my season tickets for the university's plays and dance performances as part of my Arts of Tuscaloosa requirements. However, as Stephanie was getting ready, I was thinking: singing in a choir would be fun. I've done some singing, but I haven't really learned all that much about singing different parts and such. It seems that she had been thinking the same thing, and when I expressed interest in singing, that sealed the matter.
When we walked into the room, I was surprised by how many people I knew, including Rudolphy. He was in the bass section as well, and not really knowing what part(s) I could sing, and at Stephanie's recommendation, I sat with him among the Bass IIs. It was really fun, although the song we worked on the most was very confusing. :-P I learned the second song very quickly; it was much more upbeat and energetic, and the entrances for each part was very straightforward...none of this entering-on-the-third-beat-of-a-measure stuff! By the end of the hour, Rudolphy emphatically deemed me a definite Bass II because of my range.
So, all this to say that I'm going to talk to the instructor and ask if I may take part in the Wednesday and Friday sessions, just as a participant, not as an actual member of the class. Brian (also in Blount, but different from the Brian in my dance class) and Stephanie are going to help me learn about the different parts of music so I can pick up on things more quickly. Stephanie already gave me a quick quiz about measures and notes, and I was very glad for my experience playing keyboard, regardless of how minimal, because I can recognize the types of notes and how they're measured--at least in 4/4 time...

Now that I've been to all of my classes--except for my Astronomy lab--I can give a synopsis of how they have been thus far.
English (MWF 8:00) continues to be less-than-looked-forward-to. Ironically, the time slot for the class has been the least discouraging, and that previously been the main deterrent of the class. However, since I'm already up for crew, that has been nary a problem. When the class started, I knew fully 60% of the other students in class! What a change from last semester! Matt, Stephanie and I walk to Rowand-Johnson from Blount, and today Stephen (another Stephen, not to be confused with Stevo) joined the group as well. Our instructor still refrains from opening her teeth if at all possible, and that along with her near-constant smile prove to be an unsettling combination.
Legal Studies (TR 8:00) rounds out a week of eight o'clock classes, five days a week. Originally I had been taking the class at 12:30, but I switched sections and instructors at the recommendation of an acquaintance, a choice I have found to be very good, even after one class period. Since we were given a day off on Monday for Martin King Luther, Jr. Day, LGS 200 was my first class of the week, and the first class I had immediately following crew practice. As with English, I had plenty of time to arrive at class. There was just one problem: I didn't go to the right room, and I didn't discover my mistake until 8:02! The first classroom I tried was an Economics 500 course (rather beyond my level, I would assume), but the second was the correct course, so I stayed there. But when the teacher finally walked in, I realized my mistake, rapidly packed my book and binder, and bolted. After I left the classroom, I tried to remember where my class was to be held; my first instinct was to find a computer lab and look up my schedule. However, as I walked by Bidgood, I remembered: my class was in the room that I had taken my Economics test last semester. With that realization, I bounded up the stairs and slipped into the classroom. The good thing: I wasn't the last one there, and the instructor was just going over the syllabus.
After a nearly two hour long break (we got out 25 minutes early from Legal Studies), I went to Astronomy (TR 11:00) at Gallalee. I had already been sitting with a friend from my Bible study group, and as we walked in to our seats, one of the girls that had been in my English class last semester was sitting right behind us. AY 101 has been relatively interesting so far, and there's a “technological twist” to the class: we use “clickers” to answer interactive study questions through the course of the class. While participation with the clickers is not required, I've heard that it helps significantly to use them. Out of five “clicker questions” through the morning, I believe I answered four correctly. Oh, and the other incentive to use the clickers in class is that one may receive up to 10 bonus points on his final grade!
My next class was Calculus and Applications (TR 2:00) over in Gordon Palmer. MA 121 is the only class in which I did not know any other people beforehand. That has not been a problem though; I met the guy sitting to my left, and he seems amiable, and I like the teacher. The latter is short and to the point, has a dry, at times sarcastic, sense of humor, and goes through examples very thoroughly during the class period. Even on the first day, which was last Thursday, I took three pages of notes, and most of them were example problems!
Following math, I biked down Hackberry to Shelby for my Arts of Tuscaloosa class (M 3:00, T 3:30). To my surprise, the class was in the same room that I had been in with the Outdoor Action group for the presentation from the Alabama Power representatives. The room is nearly theater-style, and the seats are cushy and well padded. However, they're hard to get comfortable in, and the provided flip-up desks are hardly worth mentioning for their minute size. I knew a lot of people in that class; percentage-wise though, I still know more in Literature. One of the student founders of Creative Campus spoke to us about CC's mission at UA and how the organization began. Part of the requirements for the class include “personal responses” to the weekly lecture/presentation. The two instructors were not very clear on what exactly constituted a personal response, so I just took notes and picked out one interesting thing to write somewhat more extensively about.
Last, but certainly not least, I finally got to go to my Intro to Social Dance class at Moore (T 7:00). After 20 minutes or so of the course overview and syllabus review, we plunged right into learning the Swing. :-D Since there were nearly twice as many girls as guys, I got twice as much practice through the course of the evening, which was a lot of fun. The dance instructor split us into two groups (guys and girls) across the room, demonstrated the basic swing step, and then we paired up and dance for a clip of a song with one girl, switched partners, and danced for another length of song, after which the teacher split us back up and showed us the next sequence. That went on for six different steps through the two hour class, and I made a point of dancing with a different young lady each time, so I had a lot of names to remember. Fortunately that somewhat daunting task was made a little easier by the fact that three out of the first girls I danced with were named Rachel! Three others were named Cristy, Krista, and Christina, and then there was Connie, Kellen, Ashley, Heather...and I can't remember the last three off the top of my head... One of the guys from Blount, Brian, is in the same class, and he was very good at the Tango last semester, so he caught on pretty fast, and I was close on his heels. 'Twas a little awkward the first couple tries, but as everyone grew more comfortable in the group, the steps started to come easily. By the end of the night, I had a reputation with the girls as “a good dancer.” :-P
And those are all my classes. At this point, I know I can pull all A's this semester; the hardest class will be English; Arts of Tuscaloosa will be the most time-consuming; Dance will be the most fun, and the rest will fall somewhere along the spectrums of ease, enjoyability, and energy consumption.

I seem to have bad luck--not that I believe in luck--when it comes to getting English teachers. My latest instructor is Dr. Kathryn Brewer, and she is an adjunct teacher from Stillman College. Formerly hailing from Maine, she moved to Alabama to teach, specializing in African literature. She speaks with a hint of Canadian in her accent, and rarely opens her teeth, but rather uses only her lips in forming the majority of her words. A nervous laugh intermittently intrudes upon her fast-paced spiels. We shall “never get out early,” and “never get sick days” (because she never gets sick...).
Albeit, first impressions can be bad impressions. None of this means I dislike the teacher (or the class itself; there are only three students in the class that I don't know) or will drop the class (provided crew doesn't interfere with it very often), but there is a good possibility of severely clashing worldviews in that little classroom. 'Tis going to be another eventful and challenging semester of English.
There is a bright side to this: it is making me all the more thankful for Matt Marafino, my first college English professor!

So, since I have *all* this free time on my hands while on break, I decided to calculate my GPA using a basic ABCD scale like at ACM instead of an A+AA-B+BB-C+CC-D+DD- scale like at UA. Despite the fact that such a scale would drop my A+ and B+ down to an A and a B, it would also pull my pair of A- grades up to A's. In layman's terms, I'd have a 3.93 instead of a 3.85. It's nitpicky, I know, but it was still fun. :-P I guess one perk of having a possible “+” grade is the tantalizing attainability of a GPA above 4.0, which would be pretty cool. Sarah and Stephanie both did extremely well, posting all-A's in some very challenging classes...like Blount Origins. Blount, as Ben fittingly dubbed it, is a prison to those in the program--to everyone else it's just a fun place to hang out. :-P

The deadline for the posting of final grades was today, so I checked MyBama for the last grade I was waiting for: Beginning Racquetball. I logged in, clicked the last half of “Check your final grades” and was directed to the Final Grades page, where I found something even better than what I'd hoped for: an A+! In addition to that A+, I received an A in Principles of Macroeconomics, Introduction to Philosophy and Outdoor Action, an A- in Precalculus Algebra and Honors English Literature I, and a B+ in CBE: The Call of Service. Totaling up my GPA from the seven classes, I finished my first semester at the University of Alabama with a 3.85 (rounded), which is 0.04 better than I had expected. :-)
I walked into town today (it's interesting to see how living at school for four months and walking around campus has affected my mood towards the basic mode of transportation) and went to the bank, the library, and HeBrew's Coffee Company. During my jaunt, I saw several more friends about town, and I got my second coffee in two days at HeBrew's. When I stopped in yesterday, Amanda was working, and I had walked in with Katy. As Amanda prepared my order, Katy asked if I had a punch card, and I answered that I didn't, as they hadn't had them when I left for school. Katy pulled one out for me and made the first of 10 punches needed for a free coffee. Amanda expressed concern that I would be unable to use the card before I left for school again, but Katy and I assured her that it shouldn't be much of an issue; “He was here every day during the summer,” was Katy's reply. So far, I'm two for two...

I made a 102.5 on my Macroeconomics final!! :-D *dances around excitedly* ...I needed a 95 to make an A in the class, and the stab I took at the second part of the final failed miserably as I floundered through with a 70. But that doesn't matter 'cause I got 102.5 on the first part! AAAAAAAAAAAAHH!! :-D

Okay, I'm done now. :-)

*Edit* I nearly flipped out again as I started figuring out my grade a couple minutes ago; I thought I had managed to get a 99.7 average, which would translate into an A+ for the class! However, I mis-added one of the columns when I was averaging my test scores, and instead of the correct 92.025, I came up with 97.01, which when multiplied by 0.9 and then added to my 12.3 points from homework and attendance equaled the stunning 99.7. When I double-checked my work on the calculator, I realized my mistake and resigned myself to the reality of my 95.3. That is a solid A though, and I am still quite pleased. :-)