The light, the light!

HAPPY MAY!!!

I turned in my last lit review today. I took my last grad class quiz today. I had my 2nd to last physics quiz today.

I see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I can't believe I'm going to graduate with a bachelors in science in about 2 weeks. I can't believe it.

The thing I have to do this weekend is write my marine conservation biology paper and create my 10 minute powerpoint presentation. They're both due on Tuesday.

My final two weeks:
Monday, May 5 - Last physics lab
Tuesday - Physics lecture, marine cons paper is due, marine cons presentations
Wednesday - ASAP for last physics HW, capstone is returned
Thursday - Last physics lecture, last physics quiz, marine cons presentations (I present on this day), grad class final review

Monday, May 12 - Physics final, grad class final, capstone presentation practice to Judy?!
Tuesday - Physics demo at elementary school, marine cons bio final
Wednesday - capstone presentation practice
Thursday - capstone presentation practice
Friday - Capstone presentation, physics final paper (based on demo) is due

Saturday, May 17th - GRADUATION!

Light at the end of the tunnel...I tell ya! I'm FINALLY feeling like I CAN get excited about graduating and being finished. I just couldn't till I got past capstone. 2 weeks seems perfectly fine for me now.

On a random note (and exciting one for me)...The KENTUCKY DERBY is THIS Saturday! I'm excited. Should be a really interesting race as this year's crop of 3-year-olds have been racing pretty interesting. My heart's favorite is Big Brown, but he's breaking from gate 20 AND is the favorite...pessimism in me says "bad". My other favorite is Colonel John, because he's a CA prep runner. I'd like any of the CA prep runners to win, to be honest. Of course...Michael Matz has a runner (he trained Barbaro) and Barclay Tagg has a runner (2? can't remember...He trained Funny Cide). I have no "logical" favorite, though. I think they're all about equal.

Anyway, I'm excited. I've spent about half the year reading about the Kentucky Derby hopefuls. Not to mention 1.5 months of Triple Crown talk (Preakness is two weeks after KD, Belmont is 3 weeks after Preakness). So...I'm excited. I like the Breeders' Cup (at end of Oct), but nothing beats the TC and, particularly, the KD.

It's finished!

I turned in my FINAL capstone assessment tonight - 5 minutes early! I couldn't believe it. I think I sat there for like 5 minutes just staring at the "send" button and staring at the short 3 sentence message I sent with it. I sat at my computer paranoid for about 10 minutes too. I kept thinking "did I remember to do this?" "add that?" "did I make this sound better?" etc. But, you know, it's gone. It's all up to Judy now on how good it actually is. I feel sort of at a loss...I've got a week to make my presentation and then on finals' week I will be practicing it like mad (2 required ones for the class and probably at least once for Judy/Bonnie). Friday at 1:15pm is my time slot for the presentation. 15 minutes (including Q&A session). Wow...gotta learn how to consolidate well!

Anyway, I am feeling perpetually behind schedule right now. Getting sick this past weekend was NOT in my plan and it has knocked me for a loop. It's 12:40am right now and I'm blogging instead of writing my marine cons lit review (last one!!). Tomorrow during my 4 hours in between class, I have to study for my last grad class quiz. That thing is 50 points and is worth 10% of my grade! I'm pulling a 91% in the class right now. I don't even want to think about what my grade will end up being if I don't do well on this quiz. Quiz is only two questions too.

Anyway, with that...I just wanted to say my capstone is FINISHED. Judy e-mailed me saying "relax and enjoy the rest of the term." Relax?! Hahaha...right...

Anyway...off to do my lit review and hit the sack. I'm running on 4.5 hours of sleep right now.

Well, there went that idea...

Okay. I'm NOT reorganizing my capstone. It'd be better (easier for the reader to follow along), but would simply take too much work to reorganize it at this late of a date. I interwove some sections too tightly to be able to just cut-paste sections to where they need to go. I'd have to restructure entire paragraphs, rewrite some other paragraphs completely, etc.

So I e-mailed Judy to let her know. We'll see what she says. She did say in the last e-mail if it wasn't too much trouble. It is. Thus, it's not happening. LoL

Is it over yet?

It's a quarter till 2am right now as I right this. My final capstone assessment is DUE in...*counts*...about 18 hours. I'm feeling pretty good about my capstone and actually not feeling rushed to the last possible minute.

I've gone through all the prelim edits from everyone whose read my capstone. Those took a few hours. I'm moving around the order of my capstone now. Once I do that...I've got a list of things I need to do.

• Fix last paragraph in abstract
• Add "systems approach" to intro (worded and then appendix actual diagram)
• Make clearer my accomplishments and limitations through my paper so others know where to make this paper have statistically significant results (Judy sort of did that for me in my conclusion, but the rest of the paper needs a bit of work)
  
• Move methods part from intro to beginning of methods (debating that move)
• Start with research questions/hypotheses at the beginning of methods (debating that)
• Write an intro to my results and discussion section
• Check tense of results
• Eliminate first-person writing (wherever I have it left)
• Read over results/discussion sections to make sure they flow and don't repeat too much

Yup, that's my list. I also realized (I almost forgot about this) that the LAST Academic Planning Committee meeting is tomorrow from 12-2pm. Ugh. There goes 2 hours of potential writing!

Once my capstone is in...I have to write my marine cons lit review (last one!), study for my grad class quiz on Thurs, start writing my marine cons paper (due on Tues), and create my marine cons pres (for Tues). That's what I have to do in a week. After that...I need to create my capstone pres (need it in 1.5 weeks), do my physics demo/paper, study for finals, and get through my last two physics hws and quizzes.

Is that seriously all I have left? Wow...I also need to sleep, eat, get better, and address my grad announcements.

Okay...Time to finish this capstone junk for tonight and SLEEP!

Capstone First Assessment

OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!! I got a 28/36 on my first assessment of my capstone. That's an A-! (I know, technically that's a C+, but the grading scale for capstones is different.) I almost passed the first time around, except I missed an entire section (oops) so I got a zero and that automatically disqualifies you from passing your assessment. This is an amazing relief that I'm so close now. LoL I seriously thought I wouldn't pass a few sections all together. So I'm so excited I ended up with an A- my first go-around. I thought it'd be a B or less.

I just need 3 more points to get an A (31-34 points) and be eligible for distinction in my major!!!!!!!

Sections - points:
Cover letter - 3/3
Abstract/summary - 2.5/3
Systems approach to environmental decision making - 0/5 (oops!)
area of depth in policy competency - 4/5
Natural science competency - 5/5
Clarity of writing - 3.5/5
Project originality, complexity, and student initiative - 5/5 (I better have gotten a 5 on this section!)
Real-world application - 5/5

*rant*

People are idiots.

[Disclaimer: I apologize to anyone who does this and reads this, but I have to say it somewhere and there is NO way I'm responding to this listserv like others have.]

I got onto this listserv from Penn State because of the GRE. They sent this e-mail about a new degree to probably hundreds of people and the e-mail address is a listserv from Penn State. These STUPID people keep responding saying "please remove me from your list." Of course it sends the e-mail to EVERYONE on the listserv. So I've been getting like 20 e-mails a day from people asking to be removed. If they just didn't RESPOND no one would keep getting these e-mails! A few people have responded saying "don't respond to this e-mail because it fills up everyone's boxes," but of course no one is listening. How stupid are people? Really! It annoys the heck out of me that I keep getting all these emails with "please remove me." I simply delete them so it's not that big of an issue, but people just don't get if they don't respond, they won't get e-mails. It makes me want to bash my head into my keyboard or something. Stupidity I tell you! Stupidity!

[/rant]

This Saturday is the Award Convocation. I will be getting my cord!

I found out tonight my grad class final is on Monday the week of finals instead of Thursday (when our class is) because our professor is leaving early for the summer. Lovely. That means I go from 2-5pm for my physics final and from 6-9pm for my grad class final. Woohoo! Of course, both profs don't think either final will take 3 hours, but they give us the entire class time. Tuesday, the week of finals, is my physics demo and my marine conservation bio final. Wednesday and Thursday will be capstone presentation practices (not too bad). Friday is capstone presentation. Saturday is graduation. AHHHHHHHHHH

3 weeks from this Sat....Oh.my.gosh. I am SO not ready for the semester to be over with. I need another week or two! Capstone assessment two (and the final assessment) is due next Wednesday. I still haven't received my first assessment back, yet. *raises eyebrows*

Okay, with that. Time to sleep

Why are tests so expensive?!

So I was looking at application deadlines for grad schools and was trying to figure out Edinburgh's deadline. I never found it, but I did find out (I think this is the case) that I have to take an English test to indicate I know English. I have to take the IELTS (closest test center is in San Fran and the test costs $160) or the TOEFL ibt (MIGHT be able to take it in Monterey at $150 anywhere). Yay...Though, I'm hoping I only have to take one or the other and not both. I figured this out AFTER I e-mailed the department I'm interested in at Edinburgh. Oops. Oh well. I'm still not 100% sure I HAVE to take the test or whether I have to take both (that'd be kind of dumb if I have to take both...) so that e-mail response will still be useful. I'll have to go back and check deadlines again.

I found out University of Washington (Seattle) is on a quarter system. I've never been on the quarter system and I've always heard it's not as good as the semester system...so that's a bit of a bummer. UofWA has its advantages, though. It's got a nice program (many graduates from the GSP were from UofWA); Judy knows at least one person there; they've got a few HAB experts up there; and it's "cheap." It's a competitive program, though. It says on the the Marine Affairs page that it's competitive and high GRE scores help. Uh...that's not me! So I guess I'm definitely taking them over again. Shucks. There goes another $150 and a drive up to San Jose. Why is trying to get into grad school so expensive? I guess it makes up for my lack of effort and expense for my Bachelors!

I still need to look at some other schools too. I've only been looking at Edinburgh, Washington, and Columbia (my top 3 in no particular order).

Okay, off to bed I go.