Late Nighter's.

[Brinniel]

All you people remind me why I'm not a science student. I haven't touched the subject for three years, and the thought of it makes me shudder.

I go to a liberal arts and communications school (theatre, film, audio, writing, marketing, journalism, political comm. , and comm. disorders are the basic majors available), but that doesn't mean it's any easier. As a freshman, I just completed my first 17 credits, which is about 18 hours of classes a week, plus 8 hours of work study (I work at a scene shop which involves lots of manual labor- it can be exhausting from time to time). Actually, that's not too terrible. Of course, I always have at least four hours of homework each night, usually more. All that involves is reading and writing. Through most of the semester, I mostly struggled to adjust to the college life- high school was a breeze for me- but now I have to actually really work, something extremely difficult for a procrastinator. And of course, all my work was done on the computer, which is terribly distracting (the Barrow Downs is just a click away!). Though, what's even more distracting is what goes on in the dorm. I live with five other girls and there's constantly other people around, and lately I feel like a hermit crab locked away in my room attempting to complete my schoolwork. Not to mention, the weeks after Thanksgiving are absolute chaos. In one week, I had six papers/projects due, the longest being eight pages. For one who typically wrote two page papers throughout high school, a task like that is just overwhelming. And I promise, during that one week, eight hours of sleep per night was impossible. I'm just glad it's over...

As a film major, my schedule will only get worse in the future as I become involved with shoots and other stuff. I've seen the upperclassmen and how crazy their lives are, and I realize I'm going to need to start managing my time better. I didn't join a club this semester- instead I chose to take some time to adjust- a very smart thing, I think. But next semester, I plan to join a film club, which means I'll get to spend much of my free time working as a crew member in film shoots. Plus, I plan to work more hours during the week.

Folwren, I wish you the best in college and hope your plan works out. Some people can handle stress better than others. From the beginning, I knew I'd be pulling all-nighters. After all, in high school I was already living off five hours of sleep (of course with the time I had to wake up in the morning, if I got eight hours of sleep, I'd be going to bed at 8:30pm ). Meanwhile, I have a friend from high school who always got her work done ahead of time and went to bed plenty early- I'll have to ask her how she's handling her workload now that she's in college. Just a word of advice: if possible, don't ever schedule an early class. All year, I have to be up for 8:30 classes almost every day....and well....it's absolutely miserable. Oh, and when you're in college, napping is no longer for little children...