Friday, June 25, 2010

P for Progress

Well, lovely reader, I survived the Sociology midterm. Now, I eagerly await the results. I’m really hoping I earned an A, though I doubt it, so I’m hoping for a B at the very least. I studied hard and really thought I knew my shit, but as soon as I started writing my exam answers, I blanked out on some very important stuff.

You’ll probably remember that Sociology exams are blue book exams. This was my first experience with blue book style exams, and I’ve gotta say I’m not a fan. Not at all. First of all, they take a really long time to complete. Secondly, there’s no way to gauge how well you might have done. At least when you take a “normal” exam with multiple choice, true/false, and short answer type questions, you can kind of gauge how well you did based on how many answers you know you got wrong and how many you think you could possibly have gotten wrong.

All of that to say I have absolutely no clue how well I did on this exam, because I have no clue how the instructor is going to grade it! I hate having absolutely no idea or inkling as to how it’s going to turn out. I tried my best, and all I can do now is hope that my best was good enough. It would be a real bitch if this class were the one that ended up dethroning me from the kingdom of 4.0 GPA land! (And it would look especially bad considering that I’m planning on going into social work.)

The exam was broken out into three sections:
Section 1 was about Marx’s Dialectical Materialism versus Hegel’s Dialectical Idealism. There were three questions, each with multiple parts, and we had to select two to answer. The only thing I really got hung up on was the difference between the two theories, which isn’t exactly a small detail to forget. However, I could not for the life of me remember the distinct difference between the two. I’m the type who talks (or in this case, writes) as I think, so I hope that the instructor doesn’t think I was bullshitting her with my incorrect answer, because the consequences of that could be dire (more on that later).

Section 2 was about C. Wright Mills’ Six Classes. There were two questions in this section, and we had to choose one to answer. I had a good handle on what the classes were—Capitalist, Upper Middle Class, Lower Middle Class, Working Class, Working Poor, and Under Class (your welcome for that little piece of knowledge, lovely reader)—and the distinctions between them. I floundered a bit on Mills’ definition of “white collar worker” and why it’s so hard to determine who/what a white collar worker is.

Section 3 listed fourteen terms from Karl Marx’s theory, and we had to choose twelve to define using examples of scenes from a movie we’d watched in class. I had no trouble with this section. In fact, these answers were the only ones I was 100% confident of.

I finished the exam in about an hour and a half, which was nice, because I arrived home about an hour and a half earlier than usual. I’m so glad that this marks the halfway point for Sociology, because I just want to be done. I do have to say that the instructor has definitely grown on me though. She's a total badass.

As she was telling us what to do to prepare for the test and what we could expect in terms of the layout, she told us one of the most important things we needed to know: “DON’T BULLSHIT ME, GUYS!! These exams are a lot of work for me! A LOT OF WORK! I have to read through all of these exams, deciphering your writing and trying to follow your thought process all the way through. It takes me a lot of time, so don’t try to bullshit me!!! It’s a waste of your time and my time if you bullshit me! I don’t like my time being wasted; it pisses me off! You don’t want me pissed off while I’m correcting your exam! I’ll respect you a lot more if you write, ‘I cannot fully answer this question, because I forgot A, B, C.’ than if you try to bullshit me!” Yeah. So that’s why I’m hoping she doesn’t think I was trying to bullshit her.

I’ve completed the last paper I’ll ever have to do for Sociology, so now all that’s left for homework is group work. I’ve tried to get my group to change our topic for this project, because I still fail to see how sex addicts are discriminated against, but my attempts to enact change have been in vain. I will give my full effort and participation to the project, and that's about all I can do at this point!

I’ve completed my fitness plan for Lifetime Fitness class, which is one of the bigger projects I had to get done. I think I did a really good job on it; I hope my instructor feels the same way. He gave us little to go on in terms of measurable guidelines and examples, so hopefully I gave him what he’s looking for. I plan on taking the midterm for that class tomorrow. I’m really not sure how to study for it, but I’m going to assume that I have the knowledge I need to take this test, because I’ve read all of the assigned chapters of the textbook. Because the test is online, I should be able to refer to the book for help answering any questions I get hung up on. I believe the test is timed though, so I won’t be able to look up every single question. Hopefully I know what I need to know!

I thought I would be buried in a mountain of homework this weekend, but I’ve made good progress this week and this evening! All I have left to do is a fitness lab, which I’ll complete at the gym tomorrow, and my biweekly fitness log, which I’ll turn in on Sunday. Then, I have to do some research for the Sociology project.

I’m going to finish up my competency narrative for Public Speaking tomorrow, and I’m finally going to start writing my speech. I’ve found some good research, and I’ve narrowed down the direction I want to go in, so I’m hoping to get the speech together relatively quickly. I’m feeling a lot more positive about this than I was a couple weeks ago, which is very good, because I only have 18 days left to complete the written stuff (competency narrative and speech outline), prepare my visual aids, and practice my speech! I’m going to be sooooooo relieved with this is finally over!

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11 comments:

  1. That teacher is a piece of work. Some teachers give those kinds of tests to make students show what they learned and show that they can apply it, so as long as you can back up what you write in an intelligent way, you should be good. This teacher contradicts herself, so who knows how she'll grade it, I'm sure it'll depend on her mood! ;-)

    I think you'll be fine in the group work because your attitude is good. You don't agree, but you're doing it anyway :-)

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  2. Your teacher sounds like a real winner. I hated getting stuck with professors like that in college. I once dropped a class right before the final and took an incomplete because my prof was such a joke and I didn't think I was going to do well on the final because he couldn't teach.

    I had a group class once where we had to create and run a business and then give a presentation to the professor and his friends who were venture capitalists asking for capital to expand the business. My group chose to run an online sex shop. Of course, it was so mortifying standing there talking about vibrators and lubricant. MORTIFYING! I was worried about my grade because I thought our topic might work against us. But I ended up getting an A. My professor didn't penalize me for such a stupid topic. Hopefully you'll be fine.

    I think I need a lifetime fitness class to motivate me to get to the gym.

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  3. Gosh you sound so busy....love the energy you have in writing...I wish you all the best...you def. deserve;) have a lovely weekend hun:)

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  4. Good luck with your grade on the test! I am sure you did well! I remember those days!

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  5. I am sure you did great on the test!!!!

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  6. i'm sure you did awesome on the exam- i just know it! i kinda wish i had teachers that were as straightforward as that. i did a lot of bullshitting in my day.

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  7. You are doing incredibly well....I would not even be able to blog coherently, if I were knee deep in courses like you are.
    I was laughing when I read about the question pertaining to 'white collar workers' because, you know, I just posted yesterday about my daughter being a blue collar worker! Of course I was just assuming that she would fall under that class without much thought as to whether she truly was one. I only remember blue and white collars....are there any others? Just curious.
    I was always an early finisher of exams, too. No sense mulling it over and over, you know? Plus, like you said, it makes for a short night and that's like a little reward all in itself. I'm sure you did really well! Hooray for 1/2 way to the end!
    Did you mention before that you were going to practice your speech on us, your lovely readers? :) We're all bunny ears!!
    ♥HUGS♥

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  8. All sounding good! (I just got back from Greenland so it's good to catch up with where you're up to... you've clearly been very busy while I've been lazing!)

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  9. even being a student is no easy job, studies, keeping up with friends, the latest trends and above all studying for exams is too much sometimes, even though i miss my school and college days, yet i enjoy this life of great freedom working when i want and resting when i feel like.. i hope all of us choose a good path

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