Saturday, December 18, 2010

Fall Semester

Since I had last blogged I have taken a total of 6 classes 2 over spring, 2 over summer and 2 over the fall and will be taking two more spring 2011. I have taken the basic math class that I needed and that was an easy A for me and the last of the classes that I had to take for my generals. I have also taken Introduction to Political Theory with the grade still to be posted but I expect a B+ or A- and Introduction to International Relations with a B+ and with these two classes down I only have to take upper level classes between now and when I graduate. The other three classes were Political Parties which was an easy A for me even though I grew to hate the class and did not really care for my teacher. The two classes I took over the summer were State and Local government which was an online class and I got a B+ and the other class was International Relations in the Middle East which I also got a B+ in. These classes and working full-time have kept me fairly busy. I also got off to a slow start this last semester because I missed the first two weeks of class because of the annual training with the Army Reserves. So all told this had been a very challenging year and I will be trying to do better on this blog over the course of the next year.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

First Test of Fall

Well right now I'm doing well in the classes and things seem to be coming to me. There is a lot of reading that I have to do and this is what is taking the most of my time. The best part is that I do not the subjects that I'm reading about even though I do not always agree with the points that are being made. That is the most wonderful thing about it that there are some many different ways to view politics and no one can really prove any one wrong.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Fall Semester

Well it has been a while and no I haven't forgotten about this. I have been busy with taking care of things for the house along with getting 2 B+'s in both of my Summer classes. It is the Fall Semester right now and I'm taking two more classes. After this semester is over I will only have 25 more credits to get my BS degree. I know that some people will think that I already have a degree in BS and to them I now blow a raspberry. I missed the first two weeks of class because I'm still a part time army grunt and had to go to Fort Irwin California for two weeks. I was able to come back home early but I still had work to do in the army and so was not able to start going back to classes after Labor day. I had been in contact with my instructors and think that I will be able to do very well in both classes. I'm really looking forward to my Thinking Politically class because of the amount of interaction that there is. I do still need to go over my work schedule and when the tests are and make sure that I'm off the night before any tests which means I'll have to use some vacation but after taking a math test when I was tired from being up for 12 hours I'm not going to make that mistake again. I've also been very busy trying to help my wiffy out with Emily and all of the demands that she places on us. I feel that I haven't been able to do enough and am torn with all of the different responsibilities that I have. Hopefully I'll be able to strike a balance but the one I feel worse about is that I have been neglecting my duties with my church calling. At least I see where I need to improve now I just need to work on it and hope that I can do better.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Well the first semester is over and the results are in I have a A in my Math class and a B+ in the POLS class. This is about what I expected an you may be wondering why I don't have a major with more math and that is because the more complicated math confuses the heck out of me and I don't like it. Even though the POLS class was harder I really liked what I learned and how it made me think. There is a lot that I know now that I wouldn't have otherwise like the fact that Free Trade is a good thing and it has been known to be a good thing since the 1700's. This is because the winners win more then the losers lose. The problem is that you don't get to pick who the winners and the losers are and this can change the balance of power.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Day 1

Well today was the first day of school. Math 1030 is going to have a quiz each week along with homework due the same day as the quiz and several tests but it will all be math in a practical application so it should be easy. I don't hate math I just don't love it and hence the reason that I wont be taking any more math classes after this one. I'm also taking UGS 1010 as a class to help me get to know what there is at the U and to help me with getting my degree. POLS 2100 is one of the classes that I have to take for my degree and there will be a lot of reading and 2 midterms and a final. The biggest problem that I'm looking at right now is that both of my finals are on April 30th which is the first day of a three day drill at Camp Williams. I'll be talking with my professors and hopefully things will be able to be worked out. On top of this I checked to make sure that my Tuition had been taken care of by the Purple Heart wavier only to find out that I owed money for tuition. Well I went to the tuition/scholarship office to find out why. After waiting in a rather long line I was able to talk to someone that did get the information that I needed. Evidently the wavier is treated by the U as a scholarship and so you have to be full-time. This means that the system will not process it because I'm not a full-time student at this time. However they will go ahead and put it through manually but it will take a few days. Also while I was there I turned in the form for the subsidized student loan to help pay off other loans and we will use the money saved to be able to pay off the student loan when I'm no longer in school. That is all for now and best of luck to me in all of my work.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Start of school

Well school is about to start up and I can't wait for it. I have all of my books with two for one class that were purchased from Amazon for just over $100 and one from the University book store that was just under $70. I know that books are going to be expensive because the only classes that I have left to take are all upper level except for three. I need to take a total of 30 credit hours of upper level classes along with 2 lower level classes in Political Science and 1 math class over 1030. I'll be taking the math class and one of the lower level classes in Political Science starting January 11th. I'm also going to be taking a class that is meant to help people that are transfers to U of U to help me with the change. The thing that has me the most concerned is changing from the online environment that I have been doing for the last 5 years to the classroom environment. I know that it will be a change and just hope that my grades don't suffer because of it. With my plan to become a professor I want to keep a GPA of 3.5 or above. Well I won't know how things are going to go until I start doing it and here is hoping that things end up going well.