Where The Hell Am I?: school

Showing posts with label school. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

That Last Push

Today is my mom's birthday, but she's been dead and gone for a few years now. However, of course, I still think about her quite often. Happy Birthday momma!

Today is also the day before my last two finals in my international studies program. I thought I'd post the essential items I have here with me in my office to help me study. I have one more class to teach in about 30 minutes and then I'll rush back here, order take out (probably sushi - 초밥, "cho bap", as they call it here) and then I'll study until it's time to take the last bus back to Seoul.

The items:

My coffee mug with my school's logo on it - I take it everywhere
bottled water
Bacchus-D, 박카스 D, energy drink
Guylian-No Sugar Added dark chocolate
And a lot of drive that I'll do well on these last two exams ;-)

Wish me luck!

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Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Scatterbrained Calendaring: Yeah!

I'm overzealous this term due to sheer paranoia that because my work and school schedules when put together are so intense that something will go horribly wrong, and I'll flunk out my last term. I also really am just busy because I'm at work four days a week. The one day I have class I have to rush from the two morning courses I teach to then attend class in the afternoon and evening. I also spend pretty much all of the weekend reading, writing or studying.

However, I chose it, and, while my schedule was lighter, I did do it last term. I think the fact that it's my final term turns up the paranoia level for me. The logical side of my brain has gone through it step-by-step and is secure that short of the apocalypse all will be fine. However, it's the emotional or the survival mode side is motivating me. That paranoia has lead me to a pretty funny mistake I made regarding this week's schedule.

This week the college I work for has midterms and no classes. However, my program also has no classes but also no midterms because of a special workshop. For some reason I thought my second midterm was today. I realized last night as I was taking the subway home from my office that the midterm is NEXT week! Yeah!

Of course, I had my professor confirm it, just in case somehow I was wrong because I did have it calendared on two consecutive weeks.

I crack myself up. This is good because I've already done most of the studying I need. Most importantly, mentally, even though I must shift gears and dive into work on my thesis today, I feel like I have a bit of a mini-vacation!

Okay, time for me to see if there is any edible food in my fridge. The bad side of being so busy also means I usually eat breakfast, lunch and dinner on the go.

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Thursday, March 8, 2007

Back Into the Abyss

I'm bringing sick back!

Okay, that's a lame play on Timberlake's song, but, damn, do I feel like crap. I have a cold that is so bad that yesterday the nurse at my job gave me medicine so strong that I ended up going from one side of Seoul to the other while sleeping like a baby in a subway car.

When I finally did wake up and figured out where I was, I then turned back around and headed to school. I missed my first class, however, I was present for the second course, International Political Economy, taught by an MIT PhD.

Now I'm set to graduate after this term, and I really don't need to take this course. I went crazy my first year and took the maximum load of four courses per term. However, it's an interesting topic and one I think I should have some knowledge in if I plan on further study. This is the kicker though.

The professor has assigned eight books:

Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis by Graham T. Allison
Introduction to International Political Economy by David N. Balaam and Michael Veseth
International Political Economy by Benjamin J. Cohen
International Political Economy: Perspectives on Global Power and Wealth by Jeffry A. Frieden and David A. Lake
State Power and World Market: the International Political Economy by Joseph M. Grieco and G. John Ikenberry
International Political Economy: the Struggle for Power and Wealth by Thomas D. Lairson and David Skidmore
International Political Economy: Interests and Institutions in the Global Economy by Thomas Oatley
Global Political Economy edited by John Ravenhill

The professor said that each week will consist of around 400 pages of reading. Now that really didn't phase me as that's par for the course in law school. However, what is freaking me out a bit is I'm also taking the department's required statistics course (it was my grand plan to take it in my last semester as to not risk my GPA.) Also, this term I have to write my thesis. Now that I could handle, but I'm also working teaching 14 hours a week.

I think this load will be okay because my new job likes their teachers to spend way too much time in their offices.

Well, guess what? I've got a rolling bed in my office, and, I think that I will be spending much more time than they ever imagined here.

In fact, I'll start today. I've got Celestial Seasonings Tangerine Orange Zinger tea and tons of Splenda. I've got take out menus, and I've got the school's shuttle bus schedule. I'll be taking the 9:30 bus home tonight.

My plan is to read the articles I've printed on my thesis topic and summarize them for a literature review. Then I'll start reading for the class with the reading list from hell.

Wish me luck. My blogging will definitely take a nosedive now that school and work have started.

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Monday, August 21, 2006

Exhausted Anticipation

I've done nothing for about a week but I'm completely burnt out.

It's weird because this is a burn out that comes from anticipation. It’s not because I'm actually working my ass off right now.

Basically, here is my time schedule from September 1st through mid-December. The part of the schedule that is in italics is my school stuff and the part that is in regular font is my work stuff.

Mondays: 9 am to 1pm - RA/TA work, 2:30pm to 5:30pm – East Asian Regional Order and Inter-Korean Relations

Tuesdays: 9 am to 1pm - RA/TA work, 2pm to 5pm – Special Topics in Development

Wednesday: 10am to 1pm - Special Topics on International Public Relations, commute from Seoul to Anseong and teach from 3pm to 8:10pm

Thursday: Teach in Anseong from 12pm to 3pm and from 8:20pm to 10pm

Friday: Teach in Anseong from 9am to 6pm

And, for the sake of privacy, I've actually left some stuff out of that schedule.

Lay it out on a grid and it's just brutal to see. (I couldn't figure out how to format a chart that didn't completely screw up the layout of my blog, hence the layout above).

Let me explain that on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesday mornings I'm a graduate student. On Wednesday afternoons, Thursdays and Fridays I'm a university English instructor.

School is pretty easy. Not academically, but it's just that I know the system and can get around it easily. However, on Mondays I'll be taking a class at Seoul National University. The problem is Seoul National is across town.

For work, that's routine now too. Now I commute from Seoul to Anseong which is about one hour if traffic is behaving. However, once school starts traffic doesn't behave as there are two universities in Anseong and the bus is full as is the train, so when school is in session it's more like ninety minutes. Commuting isn't really that bad. Usually I read or sleep in transit. The bus station is a five minute walk from my office, so that's not bad either. But during the term I usually take the train because you avoid traffic with the train. The wrinkle is getting from my university to the train station. I've perfected the train station commute, but walking five minutes to the bus station is much easier. It's just that taking the risk that traffic will behave isn't worth the ease of that short walk. It ends up that the five minute walk ends up being a two hour comuute back to Seoul if there is bad traffic.

What's bad will be Thursday night/Friday mornings. I'm seriously thinking maybe I'll sleep in my office and just bring a change of clothes. I can stay, study, crash and not commute. I think that is what's going to happen. I have the right to an apartment, but I'm not sure I want to deal with it. However, I also don't want to feel homeless, so I'll probably talk to someone about getting a key to that apartment so I can sleep there one night a week.Don’t worry about lunch folks. I squeeze that in even though the folks who make my work schedules don't.

So, for those of you who know me, you probably won't hear from me until Christmas.