One Down, One to Go

I'm finally done with the most nerve wracking part of my semester - my speech. I thought it was going to be pretty easy at first - five minutes seems like a really long time to stand up and talk in front of an audience about a topic you don't like. However, we got to pick our topics, and I swear, I had a much harder time trimming my speech down to 5 minutes. I ended up clocking in right around the 5.5 minute mark. I know it probably sounds weird, but I honestly wouldn't have minded doing a 15-20 minute speech on my topic. My topic was on why/how to help your older relatives use blogging as a social outlet. I have to thank my grandma C. and Ann of Roc Rebel Granny for the inspiration for my topic.

I ended up deciding to do an extemporaneous speech, and just talking to the class about my topic, so I didn't spend 5 minutes with my eyes glued to note cards. This ended up being fortunate, since I hit the one minute warning when I had about 2 minutes of stuff I wanted to talk about. I was able to to hit the high points on my last slide and transition into my conclusion before the 30 second warning. I made a high A on my speech, which was a little surprising to me. About two words into my introduction, I felt like I was the patient of the week on House and for some reason, he'd decided to replace my blood with adrenaline. I guess it didn't show as much as I thought it did.

Tomorrow I need to go in and actually take my final for the study skills class and post my speech/end of the semester evaluations and I'm on summer vacation. (Well, for a week or so until the summer semester starts up again.)

Still Around

Leia and Paul...

Originally uploaded by cmoneill.

This last week has been kind of rough, since it just seems like there isn't nearly enough time for everything to get done. Between finals and migrating the geocoin site from zencart to ubercart, I've been very busy. I should be completely done on May 9th. My semester break is about 3 weeks long, so I may plan a little weekend getaway to go camping/caching in the DelMarVa area.

Last week, I managed to free up some time to go to the Reston Zoo with Tamara and Leia. In spite of several bus loads of elementary school kids being there, we had fun. They had the cutest day old baby goats in the barn, and the lambs had grown quite a bit since we went back in March. After we finished up at the zoo, we drove around Lake Fairfax Park. Both of the kids were quite tired, but managed to stay awake. They even held hands for a little bit, before Paul learned the hard way that you do not take a pacifier from a sleepy baby.

Study Skills: You’re Doing it Wrong…

For some reason, the book for my required University 100 class (aka study skills) has a section on preventing pregnancy and STDs. Of course, if you fail to prevent pregnancy, the book recommends using TV as a babysitter to get some study time in.

The Home Stretch

I'm nearing the end of the semester, so things have been kind of busy lately. I just need to finish a few chapters of the written work for my University 100 class and take the final to finish. In my other class, I'm down to the small group speech planning assignments. Since it's online, I don't have to worry about group meetings where only one other person shows up. It's only a 5 minute speech, so I'm more worried that I'll go over than run out of things to say. I think we have a week or so after the spring semester is officially over before the summer semester starts.

I finally went in to take my math placement test on April 1. Turns out that the testing software NVCC uses does not handle apostrophes in names, so I ended up having to use my maiden name to log in to the test.  The test went pretty smoothly after that, until I hit the tail end of the trig section and blanked on the law of the cosines. I knew I had passed the pre algebra through precalculus sections, but I was worried I didn't do well enough on my trig to get into Calc I. Without Calc I, I would not be able to take any computer science classes until the fall semester.

After I finished the test, I went to pick up my scores.  I had forgotten what day it was (April 1), so I got a little nervous when the guy looked at my print out and asked me what class I thought I had placed into.  Since he was asking, I thought I was stuck taking precalc. Then he followed that up with "Well... I hate to tell you... <insert longish pause> that you placed into Honors Calculus I, because I hate math!". I hate April Fools' Day, but I'm really glad to be done with all my placement tests.

The Mid February Delurk

Paul and chopsticks

I haven't been up to too much lately. Between getting a cold and working on classwork, it's pretty quiet so long as Paul is down for a nap. I'm trying to finish up my university 100 class before I head off to Louisiana next week. I just have to finish watching the videos (complete with early 90s guy who can't seem to decide if he's into glam metal or grunge) and the last couple of chapters of written work.

I don't celebrate Valentine's day, but I've been craving fried rice all week long, so we went to Pei Wei after Clayton got back from work. I actually enjoy going out to eat with Paul now. We're mostly past the point where he "needs" to crawl under the table, randomly season his food, or refuse to be entertained. He snacked on an orange while we were waiting for our food, and decided to try chopsticks while he was waiting for his food to cool. He still has to cheat, but at least it seems that he's figured out that the chopsticks aren't broken.

Yesterday, we went to the open house at the preschool we've been eying for him. I kept hearing that preschool signups here are nuts, so I was going to leave obscenely early so I could get one of the first spots in line. I was about halfway there, when they announced our county's schools were on a two hour delay. I went back home, catnapped, and then went back out a couple hours later. Fortunately for me, the icy weather kept several people at home, so I ended up first in line. Paul really enjoyed the open house, especially the huge laundry buckets of Lego and the preschooler sized "house" area. His teachers seemed very nice, although Paul wasn't sure if "a man can be a teacher". He was a little disappointed that we couldn't go to school today.