Disappointed :(

I ended up getting a B in my fluids class. :(  I was SO counting on an A!  I had a 94% average before the final, and I ended up bombing the final, which brought me to a B. :(  I'm so upset!  He's made mistakes on previous exams, so I asked him if I could take a look.  I'm really, really hoping he made a mistake.  All I need is four points to bring my grade up to an A.  Just four points!  GAH.

I also got a B in environmental history, which I was expecting.  My final GPA for the semester is 3.46 (would have been a 3.77 if I'd had an A in fluids), which I realize is still a good GPA, but I just keep creeping closer and closer to the 3.4 needed to get into the 5-year BS/MS.  Eric said a 3.46 is still a great GPA and isn't the end of the world, and I told him that school IS my world right now.  Sigh...

It's finally here... Christmas break!

I'm so glad the semester is over.

I studied my ass off last week for finals, and so far it's paying off.  I got an A in water/wastewater engineering, a class I was fully expecting to get a B in.  I also got an A in the lab for that class and an A in economics.  I'm now just waiting for fluid mechanics and environmental history.  I'm expecting to get an A in the former and a B in the latter.  Grades aren't due until Wednesday, though, so I won't know for sure until then.  I'm refreshing the website every 10 minutes...

We're leaving this Friday to go up to DC, and then leaving on the 26th to go to Omaha.  I'm so excited!

I'm so ready...

...for the end of the semester.

It's been a trying semester for me (although I probably think that at the end of every semester).  Two of my classes aren't going as well as I'd hoped--water/wastewater engineering and environmental history (of course!).  I spent hours on a midterm paper for environmental history, and I got a B+.  I was really hoping for an A on that one.  I had even spoken to a TA and received some feedback before submitting my paper, so I figured I would do very well.  The TAs grade everything, and I'd spoken to them about my grade on my midterm exam, the exam I studied hours and hours for and felt I would receive an A (I got a D--a fucking D!!!). One of the TAs said that he can't believe the professor requires as much detail on these exams as he does, and that he never had this kind of class in undergrad.  And this is a freshman-level history class!  I've taken college-level history classes before, and did quite well in all of them.  After talking to the TAs, they gave me back enough points to get a C+, which I still wasn't happy with, but I didn't want them to give me a grade they didn't think I deserved, so I didn't push it.

(Side note: one of the essays we had to write required that we write out the "three levels" of environmental history and explain them.  It's practically the thesis of the class.  I did so on my essay, but the guy who sits next to me couldn't remember all three, so he wrote out two and put a line for the third level, saying "can't remember :)".  Literally, with the smiley face.  And he received a better grade than I did.  Are you freaking kidding me?  The grades are so subjective and arbitrary.  It drives me freaking crazy.)

Anyway, so once I received the grade for the paper, I decided that I'm sick and tired of talking to the TAs about this because it's getting me nowhere, so I wrote to the professor instead.  I doubt it'll get me anywhere either, but I'd rather try.  I've never had to fight so hard for a grade.  In fact, I don't believe I've ever contested any grade before in my life.

Sigh.  Is this semester over yet?  Two and a half more weeks, two and a half more weeks, two and a half more weeks, two and a half more weeks...

WHEW!

I had fluids class yesterday, and the professor had planned on handing our exams back so I was fairly anxious.  We have 60+ students in our class, and mine was one of the last ones that he handed back.  It drove me crazy, and the longer I waited, the more anxious I got.  He finally called my name, handed it back, and said, "Nice job, Ms. Griffith."

Whaaaaa...?

I got a 92!  Holy hell.  I knew I didn't do well on one (out of three) of the problems, and I guess I just kept focusing on that one problem, thinking I did horribly on the entire exam.  However, the professor had a typo on that problem, so he gave credit for it.  So as it turns out, I had points taken off on only one problem.  As we went over the exam, I closely followed it to see where I had points taken off, and realized he had taken points off for something I did correctly.  I spoke to him about it, and he gave back 6 points.

So, yeah.  I got a 98%.  HA!

(Still waiting on all my other exam grades... argh.)

Blaaaahhhhhh

My classes aren't going so well.  I feel like I'm busting my ass this semester, and don't have much to show for it.  I've taken four exams in the last two weeks, and although I don't have my grades for any of them (side note: I hate professors that take forever to return exams), I feel I didn't do well on two of them (fluid mechanics and water/wastewater).  I probably did okay on my environmental history exam--what a joke that class is--and I think I did pretty well on my economics class.  Thing is, I need to keep my GPA above 3.4 in order to do the 5-year BS/MS.  I only have to achieve a 3.1 this semester to keep my GPA above 3.4, but I'd rather have as much breathing room as possible.  I'm taking difficult classes this semester, and the way my exams have gone, I'm beginning to feel I'm pushing the GPA limit.  I have my heart set on the 5-year program, and I just know that if I can't keep my GPA above the limit, I'll feel like a failure.  I hate this feeling.

My water/wastewater engineering professor isn't all that great.  He screws up a lot in class and doesn't explain things very well.  I'm mostly enjoying this class, but I'm not getting as much out of it as I expected.  However, my favorite professor teaches the second half of the class, so I'm looking forward to that.  Fluid mechanics is kind of interesting, but difficult.  Economics has been mostly easy.

My environmental history professor is SUCH A FREAKING BORE.  He's the kind of guy who loves to hear himself talk.  I was expecting to enjoy this class much more than I do.  It's really just history with some environmental disasters thrown in.  And the authors of the books that we're reading are even more long-winded than my professor.  Our exam consisted of four short essays and two long essays.  I've ALWAYS dreaded essay exams.  I despise them.  The way I studied for my exam was to memorize, memorize, memorize.  I hate memorization.  Did I say I hate essay exams yet?

Aaaaggggghhhh.  Sorry for the debbie-downer post, but I just had my water/wastewater exam tonight, and I'm feeling particularly incompetent and crappy.

The kind of day I'm having...

I decided to color my hair this morning.  I've done this on numerous occasions, and only once did it not quite come out so well (I ended up with a patch of hair in the back of my head that didn't get as dark as the rest).  So, I know what I'm doing, mostly.  Last time I did this, I decided to go with semi-permanent, and chose to do the same this time.  (Just as a forewarning, this story doesn't end as bad as you're probably thinking.  When I called Eric, he said he was mentally preparing himself to hear that I went bald or something.  I told him if that had happened, he'd be hearing a woman in hysterics.)

I got everything ready, and squeezed the color into the activator bottle (or whatever it's called).  (I promise, I do know what I'm doing.)  So, I start putting it into my hair, noticing how good it smells and how thick the stuff seems.  Oh well, I've only used it once before, and I can't really remember what it smelled like.  Due to the thickness of the stuff, it took a while, but I finally got it all through my hair.  I put my shower cap on, waited 10 minutes, and hopped in the shower.  As I was rinsing, I noticed the lack of color going down the drain.  Strange.  Still, I figured since it was semi-permanent, maybe there wasn't really much color?  Again, I can't remember from last time I did it.

Got everything rinsed out, and started to spread the conditioner they provided through my hair... which didn't smell so good.  In fact, it smelled a little bit like the color cream... LIGHT BULB!  After inspecting the tube, I realized I switched the conditioner and color.  Thankfully, my hair was didn't seem much different (I think maybe I stripped it a little of color), and in fact was pretty soft, after having conditioner sitting in it for a good 10-20 minutes. ;)  I had to run out to the store to get another box though.

Sigh.

My first semester...

at Clemson feels like it was both ages ago and just yesterday.  But it was only a year ago (and a whole year ago).  It's weird.

I went to campus Tuesday to help out the AWWA with the Tiger Prowl, an event for incoming freshman to scope out the organizations they might be interested in joining.  I'm president-elect for the AWWA.  I don't think I've mentioned that.

In April/May/something like that, the AWWA (the same organization that held a great "employment panel," a networking event for those interested in the water/wastewater field) had a meeting to determine next year's executive committee.  The way it works is that the president-elect, treasurer and secretary are all voted in.  The president is last year's president-elect.  So, next year's president-elect is this year's president-elect.  ANYWAY.  I signed up to be treasurer since I'm good with money (lame, but I wanted to be involved in some way).  I noticed one of my classmates was signed up as president-elect, and he seemed a good fit, so I wasn't going to "fight" him for the position.  What happened though, is that nobody actually signed up for president-elect, and they just randomly chose someone.  So, long story short, I became the president-elect since they already had people for all the other positions.  What this means is that next year, I become the president, and that this year and next, I have an all-expenses-paid trip to the South Carolina Environmental Conference for this year and next, which is apparently a great event for networking. :) I'm thrilled!

Did I mention a few years ago about a job offer from University of Pennsylvania (basically I would have been doing exactly the same thing as a previous job, being their all-around tech person--something I really enjoyed)?  I've been watching a TV series for teens that's really more like a soap opera for teens and they're all going to college, etc., so I've been thinking about the "status symbol" of going to an Ivy League college. (I WILL NOT divulge what show I'm watching.)  The person that offered me the job said that it wouldn't be difficult for me to get into UPenn as a student.  I sometimes wonder if I made a mistake in not taking the job.  How awesome would UPenn look as an employer AND my alma mater on my resume?  Think of the networking I could've had.  They also offer a B.S. in environmental engineering.  On the other hand, as the #5 school in the country, I might have a 2.5 GPA instead of a 3.5.  *shrug*  Who knows.  Maybe in some alternate universe, I'd be regretting my UPenn decision. ;)

So, anyway, those are my thoughts over the last few days.  My classes are mostly "blah" so far.  I hate my schedule.  My classes don't start until 11:15AM at the earliest, which drives me CRAZY.  I like to get my classes done as early as possible so I can focus on studying/work, and besides that, by the time I arrive at class, I'm a sweaty mess and THERE'S NO PARKING.