I'm just having a great news kick lately, aren't I?

A while back, I realized that my various stages of military training and education had almost earned me an associate's degree from the Community College of the Air Force. Even though I don't really work in a world where a 2-year degree means anything, I knew that having the CCAF degree couldn't hurt, and might be helpful if I ever apply for a position somewhere within the military. So, I sent my civilian transcript to CCAF to see if any outside courses would complete the requirements, and found out that I had everything satisfied except for 3 credits in Oral Communication (I've never taken a public speaking course).

Fortunately, CCAF will accept a certain number of credits through test-for-credit programs, and I signed up to take the public speaking DSST test. I left the test center feeling that I did great on the written portion, but lousy on the impromptu speech (I had 10 minutes to think about a topic, then 5 minutes to speak into a tape recorder). Well, I just got the news today that I passed both sections. Now I just need to see what I have to do to get that CCAF degree processed.

It will be kind of interesting to get my associates and bachelors degree at around the same time, huh?

What is it with me, anyway? I get so caught up in my assignments for school. I get behind on schedule... I freak out about the assignments... I delete entire pages, re-write them, and turn them in late because I just can't focus... but then when I get them back, I get comments like this:

Very good effort. I think you needed one or two more pages to finish the final thoughts about what Freud thought it was to be human and vice versa. Nonetheless, I think you accurately captured what it was this assignment was asking of you. You seemed to seamlessly weave between authors, drawing out their ideas and comparing them plainly against each other. You also drew out many nuanced conclusions from analyzing them. Well done. Your thesis was excellent and right on target. If you had a flaw it was in not finishing with the same gusto as it started and developed in the middle. Still, a vast improvement.

Yeah, my endings are usually a little bit weak. By the time I get to the end, my papers are usually so far behind schedule that I'm desperate to just turn the thing in and be done with them. I never have time to fully obsess over the endings as much as I do with the rest.

(I got an A-, which would have been a solid A if not for turning it in late)

Even though I still struggle with writing for school, I know I've come a long way over the last few semesters. Yesterday, I got the most wonderful feedback on my expository writing assignment, and it completely made my day. I'm really proud of myself!

I was hoping that the momentum from that would carry me through the paper I tried to write last night. That didn't go quite like I had hoped, though. Don't get me wrong, I got work done, but I did NOT finish the paper. Fortunately, I took some time to work on it during the day today, and I think I finally broke through the wall.

Instead of me vs. the paper, it finally feels like it's flowing smoothly from my readings, to notes, to ideas, to words on the page (or on the computer screen, really). I still have a bunch of writing to do, and since the paper is already late (1/3 grade deduction), I need to turn it in early tomorrow to avoid further penalties.

Anyway... that's me and my writing.

In other school-related news, I met with my advisor today to make sure that I haven't overlooked anything in my plans to graduate in the spring. The good news is that I didn't miss anything, and I should be set with the two classes I'm taking now and the two I plan to take next semester. The bad news is that I can't double count the same classes for a Field of Study (sort of like a major) and a Liberal Arts Citation (sort of like a minor), so I will only be eligible for the one (FoS in Bio), not both (I was thinking about a citation in Psych).

Oh well!

I absolutely love the fact that we watched this video in my expository writing class tonight:



Even more awesome were the things we all wrote about it in class (we're working on writing reviews this week). One of my classmates used the phrase "ballet of fur and fangs," while another asked, "why shouldn't there be a film of dogs flying through the air in slow motion?"

We also watched (and wrote about) Tomek Baginski's Fallen Art</a>, which was a little bit heavier material:

I've been working on homework most of the day... so I took a break and completed the 2008 Candidate Survey from ProCon.org. Here's what it found:

Obama (Dem) is in 57% agreement with you
McCain (Rep) is in 29% agreement with you
Baldwin (Cst) is in 37% agreement with you
Barr (Lib) is in 23% agreement with you
McKinney (Grn) is in 43% agreement with you
Nader (Ind) is in 51% agreement with you

No real surprises there, huh?

So, I keep saying that one of these weekdays, I'm going to ride my bike to work. The weather was good for it yesterday, but I sorta chickened out/got lazy and didn't do it. The weather today was pretty lousy, and it looks like tomorrow's forecast is for rain, too (I'm not usually one to check weather reports, but I might need to start doing so). Anyway... one of these days!

On a completely unrelated note, I need to figure out what classes to take this fall semester. I am at a fork in the road of my life, here... I need to decide between two different routes:

• Fast-Track to Done: I could satisfy all of my requirements and get my degree pretty quickly. At this point, I need two courses in my discipline (Natural Sciences), two writing intensive, and two expository writing. There are exactly two courses in the catalog that are both science AND writing intensive. I could take them both this fall, then an expository writing in the spring, do the paperwork, and finally be a college graduate.


• Almost-as-Fast, Done Better: To give my transcript a bit more marketability, I have the option to narrow my concentration to Biology, instead of just Natural Sciences. To do that, I would need ONE additional biology course beyond than the fast-track plan above. So, take the two writing intensive sciences this fall, then an expository writing and any bio in the spring. Do the paperwork, and finally be a college graduate.


• Not-so-Fast, But Maybe Much Better: If at some point I want to apply for graduate school of any kind, I will probably need to have pre-requisites like all of the basic sciences. Since I last took those basic sciences over a decade ago, I would need to retake them. I can't really take ALL of them in one year since they're much more time intensive than the courses I'm looking at now, but I could possibly spread them out over two years, with the fast-track classes above mixed in. The whole thing would take me another four semesters instead of two, and would be a LOT more work. They would all be classes I've had before, and done well in, but that was as an 18-20 year old full-time student.


Ugh... I've got some thinkin' to do!

So, remember a while back I talked about applying to the degree program at the Extension School?

Well, response letters from admissions are supposed to be mailed on or after March 1st, but I have a funny feeling computing services might have spilled the beans. Here's why:

Up till now, I've been an un-matriculated student. I just take classes a la carte. For any semester that I've been registered for at least one class, FAS computing services gives me an e-mail account and access to some online resources (library, etc.). At the end of each semester, since I'm not officially in a degree program, that all gets disabled unless I register for the following semester.

Since I'll be away this Spring, I didn't register for any classes. As such, I got an e-mail back in January telling me that my computing services account would be deactivated.

Today, I got this message:

The record of your FAS appointment/registration has been updated. As a result, your FAS account has been extended, and the expiration date that was recently set on your account has been removed. Your account will continue without interruption for the duration of your current appointment/registration. No additional action on your part is required.

Seeing as how I didn't do anything on my end, I'm hoping that the update was due to admissions accepting my application, and the registrar switching me to a degree candidate.

HOLY CRAP!

As you may already know, I'm taking two classes this semester. I've been doing pretty well in one (expository writing), but not so the other (Comparative Religious Ethics).

I had already attempted the religion class once before, but dropped it since my course load that semester was way more than I could handle. Even so, I had written the first two papers, and gotten decent grades on them. I asked the prof. if I could re-use the same papers this time around, given that nothing had changed in the course materials or assignment, and since I hadn't gotten credit for my work before. She agreed, but warned that the teaching fellow who will be grading my papers this semester is tougher than the one I had last time.

She was NOT kidding. I got heartbreaking comments and lousy grades on my first paper (we write each paper twice, as the class is designed to improve our writing as well as our knowledge of the subject matter), and equally rough feedback on the first write of my second.

Well, I just got back the re-write of my second paper. The teaching fellow only had 3 words to say to me:

Wow! Excellent, Eric.

Along with those words was a nice big red "A." I am SO INCREDIBLY HAPPY. I literally want to print it out and stick it on the fridge at home. And possibly do the dance of joy, right here in my office.

So, Fall 2006 was hardly a good semester for me, but I'll say one nice thing about it... it's OVER!

My final exam tonight (Proteomics) turned out to be long, tedious, and difficult... but that made it just like the midterm, and what we were all expecting. Also, unlike the exam last week, several topics covered on the practice exam actually appeared on the actual exam... in fact, several questions were the same. Of course, he didn't give us an answer key for the practice exam for that very reason... and even with our notes, textbooks, etc. many of us didn't have complete answers for the practice questions... but either way, he knows that his exams are long and difficult, and grades (and curves) accordingly. I'm not terribly worried.

Now, if there's any way I passed the exam last week, I might really be okay with this semester.

So, tonight I stay up all night, for several reasons:

• I have a meeting a 7:30 tomorrow morning. I don't make it to 7:30 am meetings unless I've been up all night. Yes, for those of you keeping track, I'm back to that total lack of ability to wake up in the morning... but that might change soon (keep reading!)
  
• I am leaving for a weeklong business trip tomorrow (to Ireland! HOW COOL, RITE?!!!111oneone) and haven't started packing.
  
• In addition to not having started packing, I need to do laundry (w00t 24 hour laundromats!) for the trip.
  
• I have a 6 hour overnight trans-atlantic flight at 7:10pm tomorrow night. There's NO way I will be able to sleep at that early hour unless I stay up all night tonight. If I'm exhausted from being awake for so long, I'll sleep most the entire trip. Hooray for earplugs, inflatable neck pillows, and being short enough to fit reasonably comfortably in a coach seat. Let's hope I don't drool on my boss.

The one nice thing about traveling to Ireland and back is that if I adjust to Ireland time, when I get back home, I'll be 5 hours early for everything. Seeing as how I already like to fall asleep at about 4am and wake up at about 11am, that should put me on some quasi-normal schedule, right? Eh? Maybe? Pipe dream much?

Also, whoever last used this computer (I'm at the computer lab at school) visited b0st0n. It was still up on the screen. I swear, this spring I'm finally going to pull off my "everyone wears their LJ username today" event... I'm sure I pass other LJers on the street every day!

So, I just found out that Extension School students now have access to the E-Research portal at Harvard Libraries. OMG - I now have online access to full-text journal articles from thousands of sources... Nature Genetics, Neuron, Journal of Neuroscience, New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, JAMA.... just to name a few! OMG WOW!