Apparently I’m taking Phonology 2, Historical Ling, and Spanish Syntax next quarter.

If I don’t die, I’ll be REALLY happy. I don’t know which will be harder–historical ling or phonology. =/

+Make goals that are just within reach-you don’t want to be making goals that are too hard to accomplish. For example, if you’ve never stepped foot inside a gym, it’s not going to do you any good to make a resolution to go to the gym 7 days a week for an hour a day. You’ll go to the gym one day and give up! A better goal in this case would be-Go to the gym once a week for 15 minutes a day.
+Name specific goals-Just like in my example above…you don’t want to be making vague goals (take more pictures, read more, lose some weight, etc) How many more pictures do you want to take? Do you want to take a picture a day (up from a picture a week?) How many more books do you want to read? A book a month? A book a week? A book every two months? If you have specific goals, they’ll be much more concrete and easier to reach.
+Have a partner!-If you have an accountability partner (someone who will keep tabs on your exercise, not going online)…whatever it is, your goals will be so much easier to attain, because you have that constant voice reminding you of your resolution to do XYZ task.
-BUT don’t have a partner who shares the same weaknesses as you. If you make it your new years resolution to lose weight, and your partner is someone who never goes to the gym and always munches on snacks all day, it’s probably a wiser option to find a friend who is a gym rat who will drag you to the gym when you’re most unmotivated to do so.
+Make varied goals! You want to have FUN this year, too! I get this idea from my mom and her “balanced lifestyle” goals..it’s no fun if your only New Years Resolution is to lose 200 pounds. Why not vary it and have goals to talk to one more friend each week, or help out a neighbor with cutting their grass (Could be possible, right? )?

With that, leave comments & suggestions. What other New Years Resolutions have you guys come up with so far?

Happy end-of-2011! Hopefully by this time next year, I’ll be chillaxing in Taiwan….working on some Spanish translation projects, and not see SoCal for another 4 years. Now THAT’S a worthy goal!

Yeah.
I wish I could go to office hours and come out feeling smart & accomplished. Don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon…. :/

On a more serious note… I really think once I can start going to office hours more often that it’ll help. I get so worked up and so nervous about the whole experience that I’m unable to think or speak correctly because I’m so nervous.
Why am I so nervous about all this?
It’s crazy, because my TAs are what… 4~5 years older than I am? At the same time, I’m.so.intimidated.by.all.of.them because they KNOW so much! HAR. OOOOHH I wish I could be smart like that one day!

But I think being on campus today also brought about many different regrets about my high school career. I was telling mom earlier tonight that in some weird, awkward way, I miss my high school life. High school, in a nutshell, was horrible for me. Missing homework galore, being wayyy too shy to talk to teachers when I had questions/couldn’t turn in homework on time, and way too much undeserved grace from teachers that I really haven’t deserved. But I think what I miss about high school are those teachers who really care enough about their students. Whether it’s getting a C in an honors class, and the teacher saying that you’re on probation for a semester–but monitoring this child, having an “action plan” to make sure that the next semester another C doesn’t appear on the transcript. Or, whether it’s a teacher who emails you to remind you that–”HEY! You haven’t turned in X bajillion assignments. Do you still want a chance to make up this assignment?” I’m not saying that professors in college don’t care for their students or anything. I’ve had excellent professors, many of whom I really admire and respect, and still wish to maintain contact with in the future. However, in college, I feel that if you fail a class, ultimately it’s your fault (not to say that it’s not your fault in HS, but…) and they really won’t monitor your performance in the class, even if you’re failing. In that way, I miss high school.

Talking to Mrs. Grosse & Mrs. Oberle, I really had a lot of regrets come back to me. I wish I could go back to September 2005, when Honors Chem first started and redo my high school career from there. I wish I had worked harder to understand the material, studied harder for those tests, done all of my homework, asked questions when I was lost, and so on. But ultimately, I wish I had done that project. If I could turn back the clock, or even go back in time and tell 15-year-old Amanda, I would’ve told me that even if I didn’t know how to begin the research experiment, I should’ve asked Mrs. Grosse for pointers on how to begin. . . to, in essence, lead me by the hand if I was that lost.
Looking back, I’m so thankful that she allowed me a chance to have my chem grade pulled up to a C-. To have made up that project, even though I essentially never did it in the first place. I guess there are not enough words to describe what I would’ve changed, and how surprised now, how … shocked I am that she let me do a make up project. There was also a test that I took where she allowed me to do extra problems for more credit for a test that I completely bombed! I don’t know… in many ways, I would’ve milked out that time in Mrs. Grosse’s class, had I known better. I might’ve been a science major now!

Mrs. Oberle’s class was another class in which I had a lot of regrets with. I wish I had told her when I first started getting overwhelmed with my schedule. She’s super nice in that way, where I think if I had asked for an extension on an assignment, I’m sure she would’ve let me have that extension. I wish I had not waited until the last minute to do homework, wished that I had spent less time on Facebook (or even NO time on there…) I wish I had completed all the assignments we had from during winter break. Maybe I would’ve gotten a D- or something and been allowed to stay in AP Bio.

I think that these past few years, I’ve been led down this crazy, convoluted road, but I’m equally thankful for the experience that I had. I’ve sure made many mistakes in the span of 7/8 years since high school started. At the same time, I know that when bad things happen, God always creates something beautiful out of those ashes. I’m much more appreciative of the dedication that my former teachers have made in my life, and their unconditional love for their students. I wish I could send an email message or something just explaining all of this to them, and honestly, just writing to describe how thankful I am for my amazing teachers.

…at the same time, I wish I could’ve gone back and just fixed all those mistakes…I think it would’ve been easier. (:

4 years later, how have things changed?
Wow. Lots.
I’m now a 4th year at UCLA.
My GPA is probably no better than it was in high school, but I haven’t lost the fight yet. If, by the end of the year, I can get my GPA up to a 3.5 or something, I’ll consider that a success.
This quarter, I’m taking
Ling 120 A
Spanish 100A
Ling 105
12 units. Everyday.
Maybe being in class daily will help me with my study habits as well. As I think about the idea that I’m going to be going graduating at the end of this year, I’m excited, yet anxious about everything that’s going to be happening.
Let the changes begin!