Grades are in…

MY spring quarter grades are in. I got two A’s in American Community Colleges and Adult Psychology and an A- in Higher Education law. I’m a bit disappointed in the A1 because I thought I put enough effort in that class to deserve an A. I’m quite proud of the 19-page paper I wrote for the final.

With my first year of graduate school in the books, I have a 3.856 GPA, which I think is pretty damn good.

Grades are in…

My grades for Winter, ‘08:

• Social Justice: 4.0
• LEadership in Education: 3.7 (B+)
• Student Development THeory: 3.3 (B+)

My grades were a little bit strange this past quarter… I lucked out with one class and got a bit roughed up by another.

Based on my own calculations, I didn’t deserve a 4.0 in Social Justice. Our group bombed the group project (long story), which cost us enough points to make a 4.0 mathematically impossible. I busted my ass on everything else hoping the professor might cut me some slack… I guess it worked.

As for the Theory class, I’m told I did very poorly on the final which explains the (relatively) poor grade. The final involved writing short essays in class, which is *not* a good fit for my learning style. I do quite well on essays that I have days to work on… but as for sitting down and having an essay question throw at me, that’s tough.

As for this quarter, I’m taking Law and Higher Education, Adult LEarning and Psychology, and a class on American Community Colleges.

Another day…

Another day… another case of being harrassed by Republicans on the road because they don’t like the bumperstickers on my car. I just love sharing this country with such people…

Internship

As part of my master’s program at Seattle University, I need to do 300 hours of intern work in the field. I start my first block of 100 hours next week in the Disability Support Services office at Cascadia Community College (which, btw, was recently named the #2 community college in the country).

Grades are in…

My first quarter grades are in:

Foundations of the Student Affairs Profession - 4.0

Multicultural Perspectives - 4.0

Intro to Educational Research - 4.0

I never imagined getting a single 4.0 in my first quarter… let alone three. I need to celebrate!

My First Sale

I finally sold a book of mine at Half.com.

I’ve been trying to unload some old books for about two months now with no takers (I guess there isn’t much of a demand for books on New Testament studies and English grammar). My Fall quarter ended last week so I was able to offer some of my textbooks for sale, such as Beverly Tatum’s Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria. Well, it appears that another college student needs that book and she is willing to pay 6 bucks to buy it, which is 3 dollars more than what I could have gotten during the school book buyback period.

My goal od becoming an internet millionaire is underway!

Flag Football

So I signed up for our school’s co-ed flag football team for a bit of exercise. We played our first game last weekend and let me tell you, it was a huge physical challenge. I don’t remember the last time I put my body through the ringer like that over the course of an hour. I was stiff, slow, and out of shape. So bad, in fact, that I spent most of the game just rushing and blocking, two roles that don’t require a lot of speed. My personal highlight moment was when I called a specific play for a successful TD pass to myself. As I spent most fo the time blocking on offense, I figure if I faked blocking for a moment than drifted out for a short pass into the TD I would be ignored… and I was right. Our QB lobbed me the ball and I caught it for 6 points, falling down in the process, of course (something I did alot of that day). We ended up losing that game though. For the next day or two, I could barely walk.

We played again today and this time we had an excess of players so I was only able to play for about 6 minutes. I know I’m probably something of a liability to me my team because of the shape I’m in, but I signed up for the league for exercise. It was a bit disappointing to have to stand on the sidelines and watch. But still, we barely won today after some very sketchy play calling on our part late in the game.

I showed up early today to exercise and practice a bit before the game. Even just lightly warming up, I could feel the strain it was putting on my body. Even a simple jog and catch would leave me limping and out of breath. It sucks getting old.

THe age issues reminded me of one of the challenges being a grad student at my age: a distinct age gap between me and most of my classmates. It’s a bit awkward getting to know everybody.

My Wallet…

As I posted about earlier, my wallet was stolen 2 days before leaving Korea and after after I resigned myself to never seeing it again, I received an email message from the American Embassy in Seoul telling me that someone found it on the street and returned it to the SHinchon police station, who gave it to the embassy people. Well, to finish the story, I received it in the mail today.

What’s in it?

Too my surpise and great delight, everything was in it except for the money. I got back all my credid cards (cancelled now, of course), my social security card, my collection of stamp cards from a number of businesses, and, most importantly, my pictures of my wife.  As I thought, someone simply swiped the money and tossed the wallet aside.

Another bit of good news is that I finally received the final box that I sent from Korea. I’m always a bit nervous when I ship stuff home from Korea, but I’ve had good luck so far with everything arriving in pretty good shape.