Thursday, January 13, 2011

Boots.

So, as I'm studying for my Spanish midterm exam, I can't help but notice how much I rely on little mnemonic devices (which I learned about in Psychology, yay!) to learn and remember. And I also cannot help but notice how much these little tricks really get me off task.

Take, for example... Boots.

In conjugating Spanish verbs in certain tenses, there is a pattern among the yo, tu, el/ella/Ud, and ellos/ellas/Uds forms. Apparently it looks like a boot? But not really. I think it looks more like Louisiana, which I don't think looks like a boot at all... But whether I think it looks like a boot or not doesn't really matter, because Senora Ortiz says so. And whatever Senora Ortiz says, goes!

I personally think it looks more like a 'L'.

There are also sandal verbs, for el/ella/Ud, and ellos/ellas/Uds. Why are all these tenses named after shoes?! Anyway... I forgot what I was going to even say.

I guess mnemonic devices are useful on tests, but they can be kind of distracting if you think about them in depth.

Monday, January 3, 2011

I hope this doesn't go away...

I just have this burning desire to try my best at everything right now. It is kind of draining, but for some reason, this determination is just blasting through the boundaries that sleep usually sets up for me. I suppose it could be a sort of warped adrenaline rush as my midterm exams approach, in addition to the fact that it is a new year... But I hope it doesn't go away.

Lately, school's been difficult, and it's been even more difficult to motivate myself to keep on trying, to keep on working, to wake up when it's dark, do the things I enjoy doing outside of school, to come home to do homework, go to sleep for however many hours I can get, and wake up and do it all over again.

Though I somewhat enjoy this feeling of potential success (the best way I can describe it), I bet I'll feel some sort of relief after school's over and done again for the summer.

Phew.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

And I am resolute.

I've decided that 2011 will be a great year for me.

Not just a great year, but a better year. I've made my resolutions, and I plan to stick to them... I probably said that last year too. But the fact that we have a new year, and a relatively clean, new slate (taking into account that I am 6 minutes away from 1/2/11 typing this post) gives me hope to try and make myself a better person.

But I guess that a New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other... (Pun completely and totally intended.)

But in the words of Edith Lovejoy Pierce: "We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day."

I'm looking forward to a new year.