Greetings all. :)
Hope everyone had good Turkey Days. Mine was filled with homework, homework, and then, for a change of pace, some homework. :) Finals time is upon us. This upcoming week is the last of regular classes, then it's finals week, then a nice winter break until classes start again on the 5th of January. The workload is crazy and I'm pretty much just focusing on Spanish. I feel very confident in my Microcomputer Applications class so....that's kind of a gimme grade. :) It's always nice to have one of those every semester. Comp II is going well, I think, but I have not as yet received my research paper grade. I do know that my group got the highest score on our poetry unit test so...that's all going well. I'm not worried about passing that class. I'm currently putting the finishing touches on my Humanities paper on Hannah Senesh. Then it's just a matter of studying for that final. Luckily, some of it will come from the mid-term so that helps. I feel fairly confident about that test and class. Spanish is my trouble spot. Our recent three-unit test really kicked my ass. I'm having so much trouble with the uses of ser and estar and the preterite tenses....woe is me. I did have an A in the class before that test, which I got a 74 on. Happily, she graded on a curve and I noticed much, much worse grades than mine so....hope springs eternal. We have one last vocab test on Tuesday that can help bolster a grade, and I'm getting 100's on all of my homework so....keep your fingers crossed on that for me.
My classes for next semester are already scheduled and then sometime mid-January I will fill out the paperwork to graduate and will then have an Associates Degree in Liberal Arts in May. :) My diploma I got in Business Computer Applications back in '90 does not seem like a real college degree of any kind (and isn't counted as one either), so this will be my first real college degree and I'm very excited. This experience at CF has been really good. I'm looking forward to next semester and the classes. Liberal Arts Math....maybe not so much. Nor their "Personal Wellness" class. But I always enjoyed science classes in lower school years, so I'm looking forward to Biology and the lab. I'm also curious to see how my Acting class goes. I'm hoping that class will be fun.
As for the future, there have been more developments in that department. Truth be told, I have never had any desire, whatsoever, to live in Orlando. I don't even like driving down there. But for the purpose of the future, I resigned myself to Orlando and UCF because I am determined to complete my education and get into animated film. However, like Rasmussen (grrr!), UCF's programming is not animation specific. It is a digital media program that employs aspects like web design (which I hate), and regular design classes which do not interest me. So....I've been not exactly excited about the future of my education, but more accepting that UCF would be a better fit than UF or any of the other schools here. I had checked out programming back in Seattle (home! I miss you!!) and other parts of the country, and UCF seemed to be the better deal. UNTIL....I had a discussion with my mother. I don't know what prompted it, but we were discussing education and the subject of SMSU came up. That is the university she went to in Springfield, Missouri and she enjoyed going there. It has recently come to my attention that the education I received in the Springfield public school system was exemplary and head and shoulders above anything offered here in Florida by far. Anyhow, when she mentioned SMS (now MSU) I decided to check them out online. WHAT A STROKE OF LUCK!!!! For a small-town school, they have an AMAZING program for Computer Animation that is just about computer animation. Capstone projects that are computer animation. AND they offer a Screenwriting minor! The course descriptions and coursework are so exciting and so much better than UCF! Plus, honestly, I hate Florida, I always have. It's simply where I've ended up at this point in life, but it's certainly not somewhere I have any desire to remain. But I am an Ozark Mountain girl at heart and would like to live somewhere with four real seasons again.
So....instead of heading to UCF next fall, I will be moving back to mighty MO and starting classes at MSU. They, like UCF, give priority admission to those transfer students with a completed Associates degree so I feel fairly confident about admission. I'm excited to head to a school with better educational opportunity and a program more tailored to exactly the type of work I want to be doing upon graduation. So....we'll see if it's true that you can't go home again. :) I have not been back to Springfield in well over 20 years so it will be interesting so see how things have changed. But the eye is still on the prize - - completing my degree and then hopefully interning somewhere like Pixar, then eventually moving on to completing my own animated films and living back in my beloved Seattle. So...changes are afoot as always.
Wish me luck with these finals y'all - I need it! Cheers!