I guess spring is the time of year that people like to organize and clean everything up, and I'm not escaping these urges. Before I left to go home for break on Friday, I spent some time organizing my dorm room since a couple of my roommates were having friends come over during break. This is a task I'd been neglecting; all of my school work was taking precedence over having an organized room. At home, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had cleaned my room before I left last summer, so it was already organized. Regardless, I re-organized it a bit before I came back to school. Now I'm back, and spent some time today organizing my calendar. I realized that there's this amazing feature on Google Calendar that lets you put tasks in certain days, so I put in all my due dates for the rest of the semester (minus my readings for global resource dilemmas, because I didn't have my syllabus with me). I have to share how organized I feel right now, so look at my calendar!
Green is my calendar, and is mostly my classes and meetings. Blue is Symposium, which is a shared calendar with all the co-chairs. It has our meetings and due-dates. Red is my assignments that are due on that day. On the right, there's a task list of everything I have left to do this semester, which some people may find overwhelming, but it helps me feel less stressed. Before now, I've kept my tasks organized via sticky note on my computer, which I'll probably still do on top of this, but now I feel even more organized.
Of course, I'm getting really organized when we only have about a month left of classes. I can't believe it! Most of my classes just have one more test/paper before the final. Summer feels like it's really soon, so I'm eagerly planning how I'm going to spend it. I'm getting excited! I'm going to have the same job I had last summer, working for my hometown's community education summer classes for kids. The job doesn't start until June, so I'm planning on going to Vancouver and Seattle for a few days each with my friend Gaby right after school gets out. Because she's an RA she's sticking around for a few days once the semester ends, so I may hang out with my brother or something during those days. Once I come home, I'm going to go on a canoe trip with a couple of friends from home. I'm currently working on planning the logistics of that trip, which is easier this year because I also did it last year, so now I have experience (you can see some of my canoe-related tabs in the above screenshots!). After that I'll be at my job, but I'm hoping to visit some Minnesota state parks on the weekends and go camping. One of my roommates is from St. Paul, so we're planning what all we're going to do with each other this summer. All in all, a lot of planning!
On the academic side of things, I'm working on organizing my schedule for next semester. My current debate is whether I want to only take 13 credits next semester (environmental education, Spanish conversation, colonial Latin American history, and drawing), or whether I want to take another class (Latin American culture studies) for a total of 17 credits. I know I can do the 17 credits and it would still be a decrease from the 19 I'm currently in, but I was kind of looking forward to having a semester with a smaller workload. It's my first semester where I'm not only taking major-required classes. I think I'm going to go ahead and register for Latin American culture studies, because I can always drop it if I change my mind. Also, environmental education is only going to run if at least 7 or 8 people register, which apparently may be a lofty goal. If the class is cancelled, then I'd have less than 12 credits (the minimum needed to be considered a full-time student), so it'll be good to have another class ready as a back-up.
We're also continuing to move forward with Symposium! Today one of the other co-chairs and I Skyped with one of our keynotes, who lives in Australia. We learned a lot, and I'm even more excited for Symposium now, especially for our keynote event. We are currently in the process of applying for a budget, and the co-chairs who were focusing on budget planning are interviewing for our budget on Wednesday. Everything is coming together!
If you have any questions about planning, organizing, or cleaning (or anything else), email me at rekidder@lclark.edu!
-Rebecca
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| This week! |
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| April! |
Of course, I'm getting really organized when we only have about a month left of classes. I can't believe it! Most of my classes just have one more test/paper before the final. Summer feels like it's really soon, so I'm eagerly planning how I'm going to spend it. I'm getting excited! I'm going to have the same job I had last summer, working for my hometown's community education summer classes for kids. The job doesn't start until June, so I'm planning on going to Vancouver and Seattle for a few days each with my friend Gaby right after school gets out. Because she's an RA she's sticking around for a few days once the semester ends, so I may hang out with my brother or something during those days. Once I come home, I'm going to go on a canoe trip with a couple of friends from home. I'm currently working on planning the logistics of that trip, which is easier this year because I also did it last year, so now I have experience (you can see some of my canoe-related tabs in the above screenshots!). After that I'll be at my job, but I'm hoping to visit some Minnesota state parks on the weekends and go camping. One of my roommates is from St. Paul, so we're planning what all we're going to do with each other this summer. All in all, a lot of planning!
On the academic side of things, I'm working on organizing my schedule for next semester. My current debate is whether I want to only take 13 credits next semester (environmental education, Spanish conversation, colonial Latin American history, and drawing), or whether I want to take another class (Latin American culture studies) for a total of 17 credits. I know I can do the 17 credits and it would still be a decrease from the 19 I'm currently in, but I was kind of looking forward to having a semester with a smaller workload. It's my first semester where I'm not only taking major-required classes. I think I'm going to go ahead and register for Latin American culture studies, because I can always drop it if I change my mind. Also, environmental education is only going to run if at least 7 or 8 people register, which apparently may be a lofty goal. If the class is cancelled, then I'd have less than 12 credits (the minimum needed to be considered a full-time student), so it'll be good to have another class ready as a back-up.
We're also continuing to move forward with Symposium! Today one of the other co-chairs and I Skyped with one of our keynotes, who lives in Australia. We learned a lot, and I'm even more excited for Symposium now, especially for our keynote event. We are currently in the process of applying for a budget, and the co-chairs who were focusing on budget planning are interviewing for our budget on Wednesday. Everything is coming together!
If you have any questions about planning, organizing, or cleaning (or anything else), email me at rekidder@lclark.edu!
-Rebecca