Woo-hoo!

Trig is out for the semester! Has been since the 18th, but this is the first time I've had the chance to write about it.

With three excellerated classes this summer, I have been a very busy boy. I had been going to school 9 - 8 every Tuesday and Thursday, using my five hours down time to do school work. 2 of the three classes were cinches - freshman comp and sociology. Trig was the toughy and it's over!!!

I was really nervous about the final exam for trig. Worth 20% of the final grade, it could easily knock a person's grade down by an entire letter. Given that all the exams prior to this one were either take home or administered in the testing center with 80% grade back corrections (yeah, it was a joke), I didn't know what to expect from the in class final.

Let me background a little. In the two previous testing center tests, I had taken three hours and 2.5 hours. Our class time for taking the comprehensive final was 2.7 hours. Not only this, but there were naturally no corrections as there had been on the other two null (take home had no corrections, since you could look at your book). These tests were known to be notoriously brutal, some of the smarter kids in the class scored in the low fourties before corrections on the last one.

Anyhow, I study feverishly... going over all the bases. My school buddy (also the class genius) takes his test up when I'm half way through... the instructor gives him an estimate of 97%. Now, this guy had beaten me out in half the time on every test this semester and beaten my score. I thought to myself "It sure would be nice to beat his just this once." But I chuckled and just said "Lord, I just need an 84% to get an A. The rest is just ego.

Well, I finally took up my test... 103%! The Lord is so good. I told my prof that I was gonna go track down the other guy and brag - he laughed out loud (probly did the same thing when he was in college :)

Anyhow, the semester is winding up. I handed in my writing portfolio to my fresh comp prof this morning. The soc class only has one more formal response and a final take home exam (told you the class was a cinch). I;m out from the 9th through the 24th - then I go back to school. Next up: German I, Remedial Chemistry (didn't take it in high school), and Calculus. I bought Pimsleur's comprehensive German I to bone up on it before I start - haven't taken a foreign language since 5th grade and that was Spanish. I'm also watching a conceptual calculus video series and a high-school chemistry video series from the Teaching Company. I want to get with as many friends as I can over my break, but I'll also be working on releasing an issue of Youth Quake News over my break, so I don't know how likely it is that I'll be getting out of state.

Oh yeah, and my sister is engaged to some guy named Matt Cross.