Finishing strong

There's just no feeling like it! I struggled with some of the concepts midway through Cost Accounting class and faltered on two of the three mid-term exams... pretty badly. Three moderately complex homework assignments and two case studies mostly involved spreadsheets and memos - my forte. On those you generally get a grade that matches the effort you put in, so I made sure to do a good job - which helped balance the bad exam grades. However, going into the final exam, I knew I needed 94 points out of 100 to pull out an A in the class. My average on exams to that point was just 85! And the final covered 5 chapters, not the usual 3 or 4.

I got 96! Whew! More importantly, though, while studying for the final, some things began to click into place in my brain and suddenly I saw things a lot more clearly - it started making real sense and the logic was clearer than it had been all summer. Sort of like learning a foreign language - there comes a point where, instead of your brain blowing a fuse trying to manually translate every word into English, you suddenly begin comprehending the foreign words. It's a floating sensation - or at least it was for me when I learned French in my early twenties. For months you feel like you're drowning but you wake up one day and it's almost like they're all talking English. Like you've made a connection to a new part of your brain that speaks French.

It's probably too early to tell if that happened for me with accounting this week, but it sure gives me greater confidence as I move into my first upper division semester in August. I feel so much better about all the stuff that seemed like a foreign language just a week ago. I think I'll be okay!

Change is good, I guess!

Some things are "over" now, I can tell. My Cost Accounting class is evidence that my brain had better be fully engaged for the rest of my academic career. So the first thing that is over is easy classes! While I was in them, none of my classes seemed easy but, I admit, on Finals day when I knew I had done enough work to make the final exam irrelevant (or nearly so) for those 100-level and 200-level classes, I knew they'd been relatively easy for me. I'm looking forward to the challenge of 300- and 400-level classes, but I'm more than a little nervous I can't keep up.

Another thing that's over is the struggle to get the classes I want at registration time. Fortunately Eller pre-registers their students according to the cohort (mornings or afternoons) so the huge headache of spending hours of planning a workable schedule is done! I had learned to have a plan, a backup plan, and a list of fill-in classes in case neither panned out. I also learned to have two computers logged into WebReg at once to help with the inevitable logjam at the server side. Thank goodness that's over!

For the most part I expect my leisure time to be majorly cut back. Taking FOUR hard classes in one semester will dictate that. I've gotten pretty good at budgeting my time and hammering away at whatever is required - homework, reading, writing, memorizing... Could have done better, of course. My hubby has been fantastically understanding when the house is a little wrecked and/or the dishes not done cuz I'm up against a deadline. Fortunately he preceded me in this 'ejucayshon' stuff and knows how much hammering it takes! (And he's an excellent cook! :-)

Internet surfing just for the heck of it is mainly a thing of the past, too. Most of my "computer time" is strictly homework related. A little Lexulous now and then, and checking to see what everyone is up to on Facebook once a day or so... that's about it! (Oh, and the blog, when I can manage it!) Grocery shopping hasn't changed all that much, but I tend to buy more now (fruit especially) to try and cut down those time-eating errands to just once or twice a week. Morning yoga and some evening exercise has to stay, though. Gotta find a way to keep that consistent.

I hope I can keep up! August 24th will be here before I know it.