Uczmy Się!

Today in Polish class, we were watching this video that's titled "Uczmy Się Polskiego!" which translate's to "Let's learn Polish!" There was a dumb little song that went with it. It was highly entertaining when the teacher made us all sing along with the video and then on our own. I'm quite bummed that there's not a video of it online for me to share with y'all.

Anyways, let's get to the point of this post. I think my future career path may be that of a teacher. And I was thinking the other day, I'm taking some pretty cool classes this semester: intro to the study of language, architecture and society, second semester of Polish, UTeach, and microbiology (+lab). There's a lot of cool and diverse things I'll be learning this semester. I figure I should try to enjoy going to class and learning if I'm going to hopefully be teaching students myself one day.

So for this semester, my plan is to post a list of cool things I've learned in all of my classes for each week. It'll get me to be proactive in both my education and my blogging! Double win.

Some examples off of the top of my head from this past week:

-There are 10 times as many microbes in/on our body than our own cells. There is a bacteria with the genus name "Thiomargarita". We also had a mini geography lesson on where Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal are.

-an apron was actually called "a napron" back in the day, but it gradually changed to "an apron" over time. I explained this to my roommates as we were watching Adventure Time. In the episode, the ice king shaved his beard, and when he told a princess he was "an ice king", she misheard him as saying "I'm a nice king!" Then hilarity and ridiculousness ensued as per usual on that show.

-in architecture, we learned that "Gnomes are working in the garden" at the "Beasley House" =p

-and in Polish, we've been learning to order things from restaurants and coffee shops. There is also a new girl who's pretty much fluent and is showing all of us up. Jaka szkoda!

But yeah. You people who still check this thing will have things to read (hopefully) weekly! Yay!

Peace out homies. (I obviously don't know how to end this post.)

2012

Hola. So I actually started writing an entry on New Year's Eve. Then I tried to finish it about two days ago. Both attempts failed miserably. So I figured I'd just start with a new entry! Also, forgive my poor grammar in this post. I've been lacking in practice, and just capitalizing the beginning of sentences is not something I'm quite used to any more haha.

Anyways. So it's a new year. Last year... well last year was a doozy. I was planning to go over it a bit in my previous attempts at this post, but I got nowhere. So let's skip that. Focus on this next year.

2012. A fresh new start. Moving forward. For real this time.

Some of my goals this year:

Make no lower than a B in all of my classes.

I came reasonably close to this last semester, but I made a C+ in a class I definitely could have done better in. I will get my GPA above a 3.0 (thank you engineering).

Get a job.

I'm actually going to apply for this tutoring job I think. Get some money and also grow in the area I think I might actually want to make a career out of (O.o)! But first, I need to actually create a resume and then figure out what the heck a cover letter is. =p So if anyone's an expert in either of those areas, I might need some help haha.

Spend time studying.

I did a pretty good job at this last semester actually. With some of my classes. Not the one I got a C+ in haha. But I can do better. And I'll have even less distractions this semester hopefully.

Monthly (at least) confession.

I got fairly good about this last semester as well. But I could definitely go more often, still. And maybe be more scrupulous about keeping track of my sins.

Spend more time in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.

I mean, sure I go to daily mass. Sure I go to adoration for an hour every week. But if I'm going to be studying at the ucc, might as well take advantage of having Jesus right downstairs. Maybe I'll even show up to some of the holy hours FOCUS does haha. I mean, if Mike can do it... =p

Be more involved with Schoenstatt and my life group.

There's so much to say here, but I can't seem to find a good way to phrase it. Important though.

Prioritize/Balance life.

Gosh it's hard balancing studying time, spiritual time, and social time. The latter two have definitely taken priority the past few years, but I've been learning how to integrate the first one better.

Move on.

Some things on my hope to do list:

Read more.

Textbooks included since I hardly ever read those haha. But besides that, I'd love to be able to set aside some time maybe even once a week to read something for fun, and I have lots of spiritual reading I could definitely do for my own growth.

So far this break, I've re-read HP: SS & CoS, I've read the Hunger Games trilogy, and I'm currently reading The Hobbit! Good start that can hopefully not die off once school starts haha.

Get back in the choir.

I started off last semester pretty well on this front, and singing with the youth choir back home reminded me how much I missed it.

Dress better.

I'm going to attempt to stop wearing athletic shorts and a t-shirt 4 days a week. I still probably will probably once a week, but I'll try to cut down on it. I did buy two new pairs of jeans over the break and am going clothes shopping sometime before school starts, so that's a start! However, once it starts getting over 90, the cargo shorts will be quite commonplace. =p

Get better at socializing.

I'm awkward. Not as terribly as I was in middle school/high school, but I'm still not the greatest at making conversation. But shoot, if I want to become a teacher, I'm gonna have to work on that. A lot. So yeah, like at STRONG retreats, I'm going to make a more conscious effort to mingle at the beginning with the kids. And hopefully do a better job at talking with my kids in my UTeach class. They're supposed to be middle school kids though, so that's kind of frightening haha. Hopefully, if I get that tutoring gig, that will help me develop my one-on-one skills and stuff.

Not worry about having a girlfriend.

Dude. You're 21. Finding your future spouse isn't of the utmost importance right now. Even if all of your high school friends seem to be getting engaged and married and stuff. Your grades might need to have more priority. And you need to keep working on your own soul. Are you even ready to take care of another person's heart right now? If something comes along, then great, but if not, no te preocupes.

Besides, there's still that whole priesthood thing too. Even if you think you know what you want, God might have bigger things planned. Trust Him. If only sensible side of me was at the forefront of my mind all of the time...

Anyways, yeah. 2012. Bring it.