What a week. All I can say is that out of my original schedule of 5 classes, I’ve only kept 1 of them. What happened? (this is gonna be confusing and long) Well I was looking through the course catalogue to look at the different times and such, because I didn’t like what I saw with my shcedule. One thing bad about Vista is that they offer mostly night classes for the breadth requirements, especially Astro 10 and Econ1 and 2, which are offered only during the night. So, with that in mind, I was just trying to figure out a way to have more morning classes. And while looking through old schedules to see if the next semester’s classes would have more appealing times, I found out that Biology 1A, which is a prereq for Psychology majors, has a prereq which is Chemistry 1A. Why didn’t I know? Because I wasn’t trying to take Biology 1A last semester, and it is only offered during the Fall. So then I panicked. I blasted winamp all the way up since no one was in the apartment besides me, and started eating a couple choco-pies (I usually just eat one to relieve my stress). So I had to drop English 5 and Biology 10, because Biology 1A is only offered during the Fall, which meant I needed to take Chemistry 1A this Spring. Or I would not make it to Psycho major at Berkeley in the next 18 months. So, I dropepd those couple classes, especially English 5, since I didn’t like that teacher anyway, and dropped Economics 2 because the teacher was a nice guy and all, but the syllabus was not appealing. Out of class of 50, he says, 12 of them last semester got an A. And half the class, when we were going around introducing ourselves, were Berkeley alumni or attendee. So I backed out just to take Econ 1, Macro Econ. Well, I foudn this out on Tuesday night. I had already attended English 5 and Biology 10 on Monday (even though I was a few minutes late cuz I thought classes started on Tuesday, but I was wrong. Thanks to David Joe for reminding me), and attended Economics 2 on Tuesday night, and Chemistry 1A on Wendsday. I ended up dropping all of them, so that was extra 12 hours (including Biology Lab) that I didn’t need to go to. I dropped Chemistry 1A because I said to myself this is so not worth it. I was gonna find another way to get into Psychology major. 9 extra units just to learn Biology that I didn’t want to learn? Just wasn’t appealing to me. I was either going to get into L&S as a junior, undeclared, take the one more necessary Biology class as a Junior in the fall, and declare on Spring, while still taking as many Psychology classes I can during the Fall. I calld the Psychology department to verify if this is possible, and they said yeah, but the L&S office just won’t like it a lot. Well, I said to myself, that’s the only opiton. So I ended up adding Political Scienceon Monday and Wednsday afternoons at 12:30 till 2, stayed with Economics 1, added Astronomy 10 again (it was in my original schedule but I had dropped it in the confusion of things), added Sociology 1 for Wendsday night, and now I’m patiently waiting for English on Tuesday night, to see if I like the syllabus. If not, I need to take Statistics on Friday for 4 hours straight, and I don’t want to do that. Even if I don’t like the syllabus for English on Tuesday night, I’ll probably take it if I can, since 4 hours of Statistics is just not gonna cut it.
So that was a huge hassle. I bought a couple books that I shouldn’t have, and now I’m looking for ways to sell them back again. I changed direct deposit for my Army drills, and also changed direct deposit for Gi Bill. Currently, I’m just trying to get things arranged right with school, and also trying to take out some loans, filing tax returns, burning movie CDs like I do everyday, and currently trying to get myself organized. I have a bad feeling about this upcoming semester, though. Political Science and Sociology seem to be the easier classes, but I haven’t attended either Economics 1 or English 5, and Astronomy seems to require a bit of work still. But I’m still optimistic I’ll keep up a good GPA. As long as the prereq courses like Political Science and Sociology fare well, I should be fine getting into Psychology major.
There is this program in the Vista community college called concurrent enrollment, where we are allowed to take 1 class per semester for max of 2 semesters at Berkeley, free of charge. So I’m currently trying to take advantage of that and take as many Psychology uppder division courses that are not impacted. But after Biology 10A, I still need another Biology class. And one class that is offered at Berkeley that is not offered at Vista is MCB 61, Brain, Mind and Behavior. I’ve heard from at least 4 different people that that particular class is very interactive and the professor is awesome. The only problem is it’s offered in the Spring. So I have to wait until next Spring to see if I can get in. If there are too many people signed up from Berkeley, I can’t join. But I emailed the professor a really professional looking email explaining my situation and if he accepts concurrent enrollment (professors can reject JC people accordingly). He just emailed me back the other day, saying that yes, I can join, come on by, sounding pretty enthusiastic. So things are looking good at the end of the tunnel after a rough week of nothing but attending classes, trying to buy cheap books, and trying to keep myself sane.
Trying to keep sane while having to walk 1.5 miles to class and back twice everyday is gruelling. So I use my bike, which is great getting there, but coming back up, it’s a huge hassle. The thing about that is the back wheel was crooked. On top of that, something wasn’t right about it. It shook left and right violently and interfered with the bike frame. So on Friday, the back wheel stopped turning because it was already gone. I had tried to fix it, and it worked alright for about a week, but it finally gave up. After 3 years, I suppose it was time to replace it. So I went to the bike store in Shattuck and University to fix it, 40 bucks for a new aluminum wheel and labor. Not too bad.