The War of Diminishing Expectations
Back in 12th grade when we were studying the French Revolution, they called it "the war of rising expectations" since the position of the peasants improved with each phase and as a result, they continually wanted more. Like giving a mouse a cookie.
This semester has been the exact opposite of that.
I vaguely remember a time when I did the math and I figured that if I got A's for everything this semester and the next, I could have a 3.90. Now, I'm thinking that if I manage to avoid failing propulsion outright, my future employment won't be affected. And that's what really matters. We've had two midterms. I could have cranked through them pretty well if I'd had twice as much time as they gave us. As it stands, we got a bunch of pity points and I'm sitting just over 70% on both of them. So, not failing. The homework has been hit and miss, mostly miss. And there may or may not be a final.
Music history is going quite well. A midterm and three glorified book reports, no problems. The reading gets a bit dull, and a bunch of the grad students take it way more seriously than I do, but that's not a problem. Same with lab and senior design. Both of those are held up because the group I'm with works well and doesn't put things off until the last minute.
So pretty much business as usual there once the dust settles. Except....
The composition situation continues to deteriorate. I couldn't get lessons put together in time and wound up dropping the class. Work on the piece continued, and as of a few weeks ago, I'm done with the notes, although it still needs dynamics and whatever revision there winds up being. Recruiting people to play it seems insurmountable at this point. And there's a new problem now... I got sidetracked during registration for next semester as a result of senior design, and one of my required classes is full and I'm way the heck far back on the wait list. So the music major is most definitely on the brink of collapse.
So what if that happens? In order to finish out the aero degree (and maintain status as a full time student), I wind up taking a whopping 14 hours next semester (as opposed to 23 with two degrees). Organ and orchestra can continue, since both are worthwhile. And I finally would be able to get past all that atonal gobbledegook. It would also mean I wasted a bunch of my time over the past four years, and that's why I'm still trying to hold this thing together. I should have a good idea of what's going to happen by week's end. But then again, I said that a month ago.
This semester has been the exact opposite of that.
I vaguely remember a time when I did the math and I figured that if I got A's for everything this semester and the next, I could have a 3.90. Now, I'm thinking that if I manage to avoid failing propulsion outright, my future employment won't be affected. And that's what really matters. We've had two midterms. I could have cranked through them pretty well if I'd had twice as much time as they gave us. As it stands, we got a bunch of pity points and I'm sitting just over 70% on both of them. So, not failing. The homework has been hit and miss, mostly miss. And there may or may not be a final.
Music history is going quite well. A midterm and three glorified book reports, no problems. The reading gets a bit dull, and a bunch of the grad students take it way more seriously than I do, but that's not a problem. Same with lab and senior design. Both of those are held up because the group I'm with works well and doesn't put things off until the last minute.
So pretty much business as usual there once the dust settles. Except....
The composition situation continues to deteriorate. I couldn't get lessons put together in time and wound up dropping the class. Work on the piece continued, and as of a few weeks ago, I'm done with the notes, although it still needs dynamics and whatever revision there winds up being. Recruiting people to play it seems insurmountable at this point. And there's a new problem now... I got sidetracked during registration for next semester as a result of senior design, and one of my required classes is full and I'm way the heck far back on the wait list. So the music major is most definitely on the brink of collapse.
So what if that happens? In order to finish out the aero degree (and maintain status as a full time student), I wind up taking a whopping 14 hours next semester (as opposed to 23 with two degrees). Organ and orchestra can continue, since both are worthwhile. And I finally would be able to get past all that atonal gobbledegook. It would also mean I wasted a bunch of my time over the past four years, and that's why I'm still trying to hold this thing together. I should have a good idea of what's going to happen by week's end. But then again, I said that a month ago.
posted by Kevin H | 8:08 PM
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