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Praise God, all of my teachers have (finally) *coughs* uploaded my final grades for the semester.

I got ALL A’s!!!! ^^

All glory to God for His grace and mercy that he has shown me all semester long while I went through my first semester as a SIUC student!!

Thank you to all of you for praying me through these difficult times of hard studying!!

I know I couldn’t have made it through the semester without you guys!

Dun dun dun!!! Today was my ECON 302i final, one of the ones besides pre-calc and geography that I had seriously panicked over. Because my professor does the exams in the form of essay questions (very LONG ones), I was a little worried that I might forget something.

Well, as it turned out… I had been really nervous about this one, so I got up early this morning to study some more. I even studied in the car on the way there. And NO, I wasn’t studying and driving at the same time (that’d be dangerous (and pretty dumb…)). My dad was the one who drove us to campus because he had a meeting with some people at Starbuck’s in the Student Center (lucky…).But a friend of mine treated me to ice-cream at the Student Center. We shared a double scoop, waffle cone, mint chocolate chip (my second favorite ice-cream flavor) for only $2.70. And it was huge!!!!! It was fun (random cravings for ice-cream or sherbet in the winter always seem to come in at some point…) ^^

I get to my class at Lawson (a few minutes late…>_<), and our professor tells us to pick up the blue sheet of paper (that he folded and stapled shut) that has our names on it that he had put on the desks. Funny thing is, the first one I looked at happened to be mine, so I took it, and went to my seat. He told us to sit down and open them all at the same time, saying that “this is a once in a lifetime chance. you have a minute and a half to decide what you’re going to do”.

So, I open the paper, and it said “To Ariel Loh, your current grade in this class is an A, 95%. You have the option to not take the final. If you do not take the final, your grade will remain the same. If you agree to this, sign on the line below. Have a good winter break.” Then our professor said, “If you take me up on my offer, you can just sign the paper, put it up here, fill out a class evaluation sheet, and then you can get out of here.”

I was like “0.O! are you serious?!?!?!?!??!?!?”

Signed the paper, filled out the evaluation, and left the class with a 95% as my passing grade. WITHOUT having to take my final!!!!!!!!!! I’m SUPER HAPPY with the way things turned out!!!!!!!!!

Praise God and all glory to Him for His awesomeness in making my finals this semester go so well!!!!! ^^

Only one more to go!!!!!!!!

~ Rin

Okay, so to those of you who are praying for me during this finals week (my first one after starting college >_<), I just want to say thank you SO SO MUCH!!!! I know that it was definitely only be the grace of God that I’m still sane after all of this! lol

Here’s how my first day went:

Got up at around…6 am because my first exam was at 7:50.

It was the pre-calc final, and it was going to be in the Engineering building, in a computer lab. The “test” is actually a calculus level test, so to get “100%” for the pre-calc final, we had to get “60%” of the calculus test. There were two sections: trigonometry and college algebra. In order for our grade on the final to count as a 100% for pre-calc, we had to get 60% on EACH section.

I finished the test in about 35 minutes, and I got a 64% on trig, and an 80% on algebra!!

The next exam was the English final. My hands were hurting for AGES after this final was over. We started at 10:10 am, and I wrote all the way till 11:50. In that total of 1 hour and 40 minutes, I handwrote 4 pages for the analysis paper. I think I did well on it, but we’ll see…I’ll keep you guys updated as to the results (once I find out what they are, anyway…XP)

The last exam of today was the Geography final…Please pray that that went well, because I studied a lot for it, but there were a few things that I just couldn’t remember…I went over it three times, and I STILL finished really early (in about…50 minutes out of the 2 hours that we were given to take it). So…I’m praying that that went well. I’ll let you guys know what I got as my final Geography grade…

All right, Day One’s over, I get a break on Tuesday, and I have only TWO more to go!!

By God’s grace, I’ll make it through!! ^^

~ Rin

So for some reason, my body decided to be uncooperative, and I’m sick today T-T

Brilliant XP on the day that I have an exam in Economics that makes up 1/5 of my grade, I’m feeling horrible.

It’s not going well at all. I seriously almost walked into a wall earlier this morning…

Head-spinning…headache, dizzy…

*sighs* I need Jesus so badly that it’s the only reason why I’m still even able to function!!

~ Rin

I still can’t believe it!!

After just 2 extra hours working with my instructor yesterday on the Trig worksheets, I’m actually understanding some of it!!

This is really surprising!

So, I took the quiz today. Didn’t do as well as I would have liked, (i got an 85 T-T) but that was mostly due to several small errors…

I got 17/20, so…I guess it isn’t that bad.

But hey, I understand trig now! ^^

We still have two more lessons of Trig to do, and we will probably be having the Trig exam next Thursday, so please pray for me!

Thanks! ^^

~ Rin

I think I’m done for. Seriously…T-T

Tomorrow- Test in GEOG 103

Thursday- Test in ENGR 111B

Next Thursday- Test in ECON 302I and in SPCM 101

Monday after next- 6 page paper/analysis thing in ENGL 101

I’ve been studying basically the whole day today from when I got home to dinner.
Then after dinner, i started studying again, until now, and I’m going to be studying until maybe 12-ish tonight…

Keep in mind people that all of the studying going on tonight is just for the GEOG test…which is only the FIRST out of FOUR tests in the next two weeks!!!

I’m so tired, I was only half-way coherent while talking to orithath just now on the phone….

*sighs* don’t know if it was all that noticeable, but I could seriously fall asleep now, and the only thing keeping me awake is the fact that I’m scared of failing that test tomorrow…

Like I said earlier, I think I’m done for…

All right, back to studying…T-T

- Rin

As I’ve said before, God is so faithful!!! And it’s SO true!!! He’s amazing!!!

Ever since I joined the GEOG 103 class in Lawson 161 about a week later than everyone else because I changed classes, i had been studying for this map quiz where Dr. Weinert would give us 10 pages of blank maps of different regions of the world (here’s the order: Europe, the region around Russia that stretched down to Turkey, Middle East, Africa, North America, South America + Latin/Central America, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Australia/New Zealand area).

The “quiz” was going to be worth 200 pts, and there were 163 countries that we had to memorize. Dr. Weinert said that since most of the time, the grades turn out badly, we had the opportunity to retake it but that if we did, the new grade would replace the old one, regardless of whether it was higher or lower than the original grade.

Anyway, I sat in front of a computer for 2 hrs just noting down all the location on these practice maps that she said that we had the option to print off from Blackboard, which was a website that some SIU professors use to communicate with students about assignments/grades.

We took it last Friday, September 10, 2010, and Dr. Weinert told us in class today that our grades were posted on Blackboard. I was really nervous b/c I had studied like crazy on Thursday night, starting from after dinner (8:30) until (1:30). Then on Friday morning, I studied while I was eating breakfast and in the 30 min that i was on campus before my class started. (I had a piano class in between breakfast and GEOG 103 for those of you who were wondering about the gap in timing…)

She showed the ranges of grades, and in a room of 175 people (I looked up the number on SalukiNet. I didn’t actually count heads, I’m too lazy for that haha). There were only around…20-25 people who got A’s, around 8-15 of those got an A+. 6 people got B’s, and quite a few people got C’s and D’s…and a SHOCKING amount (at least for me) got F’s…By F, I mean, 50-0. More people got in the 30-0′s range than in the 50-40′s range, which is kind of scary to see…

Anyway, so I just checked my grade, and I had a 200/200!!! Hallelujah, I don’t have to retake it!!

haha

Thank you lis for letting me borrow that globe from your house!!

Thank you so much to those who were praying for me!! ^^

Okay, now time for a “random” story pertaining to the quiz. Like I said, I was studying during the 30 min that I had before class. After about 15 min, they opened up the lecture hall, so several other students that had arrived early (and were also studying) and I all went inside. This guy sitting two seats away from me asked me how much i had memorized, so i told him that i had all of them done. He was like “wow…that’s impressive. I still have 25 or so to memorize.” Now, just from this guy’s facial expression, you can kind of tell that he thinks the whole memorizing different countries thing is pointless. Funniest of all, the next thing he said to me was “I don’t see why we have to memorize a bunch of pointless countries that aren’t even worth mentioning. I mean like, Singapore? Where in the world is THAT supposed to be? It’s probably some poor country that doesn’t even compare to the US.”

For those of you who know me, that remark didn’t sit too well…

Anyway, so i just stared at him and said “Uh…I’m from there, and for your information, we’re in the top of the world for Math and Science.” He kept his mouth shut for the rest of the time until class starts. haha XD

- Rin

So that Pre-Calculus test that was today…

Let’s just say that studying for it this weekend was ghastly. XP

I finished ALL of my math homework for this unit on Friday afternoon, and the due date was Friday night, so I was making good time. So I started studying for the test on Friday night, and it was cool because I knew everything that was going to be on the test, so it was all good.

And then last night, I decided to do in-depth studying for the test, and I was stuck in my room studying from around 9-1230. I got to this one problem pertaining to domains of functions around 1145, and my mind went completely blank. I worked on it all the way until 1210, but I couldn’t figure out the solution. I was getting a headache from all this, and then as time wore on, I tried to “move on” to other problems, but unfortunately, the stress made me forget EVERYTHING!!!!! It was HORRID! T-T

So, since I was tired and stressed at the same time, I panicked. I even went to my dad to see if he could help me with it because my computer locks itself at 12… But unfortunately, he hasn’t had pre-calc in YEARS, and he can only remember up to Algebra II.

And well…I did something that doesn’t happen very often… *guilty laugh*

Anyone have any guesses at what happened next?

If you know me well enough, this should be a pretty easy question to answer…

We managed to solve it via my dad’s computer, so the problem was fixed in the end…at around 1 am.

hehe

Still don’t know what the results are yet, btw…

-Rin

Okay people, prayer is SORELY needed!!!

1) i have a test on Friday in which we have to show the locations of 163 different countries, on a total of 10 pages worth of maps, and the entire thing is worth 200 points!!

2) i have an exam in pre-calculus on monday!!!

3) i have a presentation/speech/narration thing that i have to do for my speech communications class on tuesday, and the teacher hasn’t even told us what we’re going to have to do yet!!!!!!!

4) I have a test in Economics (which btw is a THIRD YEAR level class) on tuesday.

About to die from headaches due to studying…

-Rin

Okay, so i OFFICIALLY got tired of the lectures on Theater, so I decided to change the class to something that MIGHT actually interest me: World Geography (aka GEOG 103-001).

As far as I can tell, this class is going to be MUCH more interesting than…ya

You get the point.

I’m not into theater to begin with, so that class was beginning to push my limits just a bit…

Day one is supposed to be the hardest, but I guess I heard wrong.

My feet were in absolutely PAIN when I got home, I could barely drive home because my legs were still hurting from running all over campus. Going from Pulliam to Lawson to Engineering is NOT my idea of fun T-T

Thank God I didn’t get any blisters on my feet although they were red and really sore when I came home. Not to mention the fact that I’m even more exhausted today than yesterday, and all I want to do is SLEEP, but I still have homework to finish (which to all of you who know me well, you know what THAT means…)

Here’s how the rest of my classes were today-

THEA 101- lots of people, 35-40 ish, teacher’s kind of vague at times…and the room is terrible, and the seats can seriously do a 180 on you while you’re sitting on them.

ECON 302I- pretty good. Turns out that Tamicka and Chai Lian are in my class, so that was cool ^_^ the professor is a good public speaker, so I’m more inclined to listen to what he’s saying instead of falling asleep.

SPCM 101- the teacher’s a nice guy, but he says a LOT of bad words, so…ya. I’m kind of half-listening out of the need to b/c he’s my professor, but I’m wishing I had a censoring machine or something so that I don’t have to listen to him swear…

Also, I just found out that I have to get ANOTHER book for theater which will cost 10.50, but i have to get it from the university bookstore. and it also seems that saluki bookstore is holding all the books that it has left for my pre-calc for those who reserved them, and that those with scholarships aren’t as important, so I’ll have to get the book for Pre-calc from another bookstore…*sighs*

I just got into college and I’m already not liking it…And it’s only the SECOND day! How in the world am I going to make it through FOUR YEARS of this thing?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

-Rin

Went out today to Saluki Bookstore to get the books, and with a $500 scholarship, one would think that you had a lot of money right?

WRONG. Do you have any idea how fast $500 can disappear in a bookstore when searching for textbooks?! It’s insane! I had to get 4 books for English 101, 1 for Economics 101, 2for Theater 101, 1 for Speech Communications 101, and 2 for Engineering 111B (even though I haven’t gotten one of the books yet because it was out of stock).

We left the house at 3, and didn’t get home till 4:30. To top it off, the total amount that we’ve paid for the textbooks thus far (I’m still missing one), is $484.28.

I was going to die. Seriously. It’s PAINFUL to see that number on the screen.

Thank God for Scholarships!!!!

SO, to all those who are still in high school or below, enjoy how much easier and cheaper it is to get your textbooks because once you get to college, everyone tries their hardest to extract money from you, and the worst part of it is, you don’t have a choice and you HAVE to pay at those absurd prices!!

To those who are entering college or are already in it, I now understand your misery.

Thank God I’m a Christian and that I trust God to provide because if I wasn’t/didn’t, I’d probably go insane!!

-Rin

TIME LEFT TILL SCHOOL BEGINS TOMORROW- 15 hours, 8 minutes.