It's a residence hall NOT a dormitory - 7

After seventeen years in school I guess old habits die hard. I mean, I tried to be a better student this semester. I started off strong, taking my Hello Kitty notebooks to class and keeping detailed notes. I even was up-to-date on the class reading for a while. But sometime between the first fire alarm in my building and the annual Christmas party at a professor’s house, I lost a little bit of that drive. So, of course, last week was the academic week from hell.

Against all the incessant urgings of my know-it-all (in an annoying big brother type of way) coworker, I decided to co-write a paper for my history class. I probably wouldn’t have written the paper with anyone else, but my best friend in the program asked me to so I decided to give it a shot. Honestly, we started earlier together than either of us would have started alone. Regardless, we stayed up until 5 a.m. on Saturday, slept, then got back up and worked for a whopping 29 hours straight finishing the paper. On the plus side: I learned a lot, I ate breakfast at IHOP. I can now say I’ve been up at 7 a.m. for a reason other than a fire alarm, AND our paper wasn’t half bad. Now I’m just hoping for that A so I can give my coworker a big, fat “I told you so!”

I was up again just two days later working on a paper for my Intro class. But, the worst of all was finishing a semester-long group project to build our very own college. I’ve never really hated group work. Until now. There was a non-traditional grad in our group who liked to butt heads with everyone, especially me. We would decide on an idea as a group and later, she would try and explain why it was a bad idea and her idea was better. She also liked to have input on everyone else’s ideas (usually negative). And of course, what would a great group member be without a little bit of a controlling streak? Anyway, at least she worked hard. And the professor has already turned in our grades so I’m happy to say my first grade in grad school is an A. I earned it in this class for sure. I’m just crossing my fingers for no more group work.

So the week was stressful and I probably gained about 10 pounds from all the pizza I consumed, but I still learned a lot. I learned that I can work really well in the right group or the wrong group even though one is way more frustrating than the other. More importantly, I learned where the library is on campus and how to navigate its 900 floors. I also learned that grad students can check out library books for four months at a time, slightly disturbing if you know my track record with overdue library books.

Despite having a better understanding of the Dewey Decimal System, APA style, and the local pizza scene, I’m still planning to put “be a better student” at the top of my list of goals for 2009. Maybe it will work this time around.