Life continues past the months of June, July, and August and so must the counselors of Day Camp.

9.16.2005

Am I (slightly) crazy?

An update, sorta', on school, I guess:

I'm taking 18 units - all English classes - during my first semester, @ UC Berkeley. I'll be reading 35 books plus a couple course readers. (Not that I'm complaining (Fish); reading is the domain of an English major, and I'm down.)

See, I've always had this thing with failure/competition/whatever - I guess it's really timory, though: I've been in situations my whole life where I could pass as "smart" or even represent myself as such. Until now. In high school I was homeschooled. My bragging of straight-A's to friends was laughable (for me, in hindsight; for them, immediately.) In junior college I did well, but it's easy to say, "well...it's junior college." So now I'm at Berkeley - a difficult school by all accounts - taking 18 units, trying to prove something. If I can do well under this load, I think I'll feel, finally, like I belong. I'm happy to finally face this, but nervous as to what it will mean.

All this is to say: if you can, pray for me. I get my first paper back today. An A or A- would be a nice vote of confidence. At the same time, I hate the idea of the letter-graded system; more precisely, I hate the idea that it matters so much to me. I get a lot of enjoyment and stimulation out of what I read, so why should a simple letter matter?

Anyway, I've already talked a little bit w/ Meredith about this, but I figured it never hurts to let people in on what's going on, and what's hard, in your life.




And, oh, my roommates still rock. We got Chris. Yeah, he's on TV. It's crazy. Women LOVE him. Then there's Julian, Joe, Miguel (he's from Spain), and Jesse - who is our token freshman and somewhat irritating. I would give you pictures of everyone else, but they all have facebook accounts and you need a password, et cetera to look at them and I didn't feel like signing up. Basicallly, the first 4 roommates I mentioned are amazing guys, and Jesse's not bad, either. I'm fortunate to be in such a warm, sincere place. Nonetheless, it's hard being away from "home", i.e. Meredith. Only 10 more months...

3 Comments:

Blogger Ryan Sears said...

Hooray Michael! I am glad to hear that you are doing well. Did you tell Miguel that you hoped that his mother had died so he wouldn't show up to school? Bummer that one of the new guys did actually (at least kind of) suck. Kick some ass at Berkeley and have some good times.

And you guys (English majors) do read a helluva lot. You're allowed to complain about reading so that I can complain when I start writing philosophy papers.

Take care friend.

4:32 PM

 
Blogger alexandra said...

he even gave a shout out to your site. what a pal. i'm praying for you and meredith! i'm glad to hear things are going well, and keep us updated on those papers. :) i'm serious, i want to hear how things are going for you.

7:59 PM

 
Blogger Michael K. said...

and just so you know: i didn't get my paper back yet. bumped to this friday.

waiting & hoping in northern california...

12:05 AM

 

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