The mid-semester grind.

Usually I love school. When I'm taking classes that are engaging, interesting, and keep my attention, I'm more than willing to put in the effort it takes to excel. In Spain, I worked my hindparts off - and consequently got some of the best grades in my classes and (I was informed by Profesora Giralt upon my return) I also did better than any other exchange student ever in the Weeb's history with URV.

So, obviously, I enjoy school as a general rule. However, that is not true at all of my performance this semester. I'd like to think that it's not burnout; I assume that if I was attending classes I actually gave a care about I'd try to pay attention, try to succeed and focus on my work. However, I couldn't care less about any of the classes I'm taking this semester. To give you a taste of why I'm so bored, here's my class list this semester:

Telecommunications - a 'required' class I'm only taking for the credit hours, rather than just CLEPing out of it. It involves 'learning how to navigate Microsoft Office programs and use Windows'. Now, I can see how this class might be useful for some people - but DOOD I'm bored out of my gourd here. I know how to do all this stuff already. And it doesn't help that this class starts at 7 am - doesn't make it really easy to want to get up and trundle off to class.

Earthquakes and Volcanoes - now this class sounded interesting in the course catalog. And I needed one more science class to fulfill the requirements for my BA. So I thought, How can I lose with the chaos of volcanoes and earthquakes? Fail. The teacher (the hilariously named Adolf Yonkee) is the most humorless, boring cad on the planet. I didn't think you could make volcanoes boring, but he's succeeded flawlessly. I loathe attending this class.

Latin American Authors - normally this would be my cup of tea. I love to read good Spanish literature. Only two problems with this - 1)the class is in English; and 2)I've already read all of the books we're studying this semester in Spanish. It's difficult for me to want to attend a course where I've already read all these novels in the original language. Occasionally our class discussions will be of worth; however, usually I just sit there and doodle in my graph paper.

Rock Music Styles - yet another class that (on paper) seemed like it would be a winner. It's an online course and I have a hecks of a time having the initiative to do my assignments. I thought I would care more, and I think if the rest of my classes were fostering more of an ambiance of learning that I would try harder. The problem lies in the general apathy that the rest of my classes give me; it's almost impossible to care about this one class when I'm so nonplussed by the rest of them.

So that's this semester. Boring doesn't even begin to describe it. I feel like such a failure. I used to love school; now I'm completely apathetic towards it. I can only hope that this general apathy will dissipate when I'm taking classes I like again, or I'm really up a creek without a paddle, because I'm going to be in a University setting for the rest of my life.

Oh noes.