Grades

Classes officially ended on Thursday of last week and Friday we had course evaluations, and review of the final exams. On my cultural studies final exam I got a 99! I had to read eight chapters...a total of 255 pages. This book is not an easy read that is for sure. But our exam covered the last eight chapters for the book, Literature, Drama, Music, Dance, Film, Photography, The Interrelationships of the Arts, and Is It Art or Something Like It?. I had put off reading most of it because of the papers that were due and just getting overloaded with work for both classes, but thank God I did read it because all the questions come from the book, and I would of been dead. As much as I didn't want to take this course because of the papers, I really enjoyed it. Ron is a great teacher and I'm planning on taking the second cultural studies class with him. My final grade for the course is an "A"

As for my photography course, I thought that class was going to kill me. That course I thought would be so much easier than the general ed, but I was wrong. It was all technical, like memorizing the shutter speeds, apertures and ISO's. At one point I really thought I would have to take this over just, most people in the class were having a hard time with it. But I studied and I'm not joking a good two days solid for this exam, and it paid off let me tell you. I got an "A-" on my final exam! As I was taking it I'm thinking to myself, man this is so much easier than I thought it would be. The exam covered everything for the beginning of the class until the end, so there was a lot of information. My final grade for the class is a "B-". I guess busting your butt really does pay off!

I'm off of school for two weeks, but really its only one because for every session we have what's called a prep-week assignment due the first day of class. This goes for both our photography courses and our gen-ed's but this session coming up I only have my photography course to worry about. For the photography courses for the most part it is a photo assignment but for our next class its 50 questions. For the gen-ed classes its usually a paper that is due. So I will have to start working on that soon. I have to buy some more equipment this week (so much money), I have to buy a light meter and a flash for this next class. I also have to start buying some books in the bibliography and get some reading done. Next week I am going to head up and visit Sara and Jason for a couple of days then head back here and get some more stuff for school done.

This weekend I rearranged my room a bit, did laundry at the laundromat for the first time since I have been here (usually I do it at a friends house to save money). Saturday evening, Daryl, Barry and I had a cook out on the beach up in Santa Barbara...awesome time. We had steak, grilled corn on the cob, mushrooms, hot Italian sausages and a tomato, mozzarella, prosciutto salad with kalamata olives...yum yum. Walked the beach for a bit and just hung out. I got to hang out with Mandy this weekend for a bit. We went out for her mom's birthday on Sunday night. We went to a really nice restaurant in Santa Barbara (actually right near where I was on Friday night), for some really good seafood. I had salmon, and it was the best salmon I have ever had in my life. Last night Mandy and I made dinner for our friend Ben who leaves for Hawaii on Wednesday. He is doing a YWAM program down there , so we had a little going away party for him.

I guess that is it for now. I'm going to head to school in a bit and try to sell my cultural studies books to some new students.