Halfway Point

It's about halfway through the term. And I have a general feeling about how well I've done this term:

Aging: ~B
Cognitive: ~B
Conservation: ~A
Social Influence: ~B

This is roughly a B+  or 3.3. That's generally how well I've done in my previous terms. But at the moment there's only one word that rings in my mind.

As I've mentioned before, I'm trying to get into Speech and Langauge Pathology. However, it appears the program has gotten a lot more competitive over the years. If you want to stand a chance, you should have a GPA of 3.7 or an A-.

So as you can see, a 3.3 isn't going to be good enough to get me in. I don't expect myself to get A's in all my courses, but at least an A- so I have a fighting chance.

I have to kick things up a notch.

Bam!

All hope is not lost yet. I still need to write the GRE at the end of the month and I really should start studying for it soon. I also should start looking to work or volunteer with something SLP related. Not only will it give me vital experience, but I could use a second job. Especially next term when my schedule will be even more light.

My only saving grace for my GPA at the moment is apparently they only care about your grades for the last 2 years that you were in school. In other words, with a bit more work my disastrous 3 year grades will suddenly become invalid, like they never existed at all.

Seriously though, if that year even touches the rest of my GPA I'll drop to a B-.

Replace Homer with some bad grades and you get the idea.

My last hope is that a lot of my remaining marks for my courses are in the form of papers and projects. Wish me luck on them, I need all I can get.

Midterms Round #2

You'd think that having all your courses crammed on two days would also mean a lot of overlapping exams and assignments. So imagine my surprise when everything is nicely spread out for me to do. It's pretty great, I really wasn't expecting this.

It means that this term is a lot of relaxing than the last one. And for all my regular readers who remember, it was kind of a nightmare near the end.

This term should hopefully be a piece of cake in comparison.

My assignments for Conservation and Social Influences psychology have been done in advance so no need to worry about those. There are papers for both of them however and I really should start working on them as soon as possible. They don't seem hard at all which is great, I'll just need to take a weekend off and power through them.

Social Influences is even nicer in that that paper is basically the final. And I am more than happy with writing one less final in December. The midterm for this class is this Thursday though, and I haven't touched my notes yet.

I'll read them later.

In the meantime, another Aging Psychology midterm is next week as well as a Cognitive Psychology one. I still haven't got the hang of the Cognitive Psych quizzes yet, but I think I'm finally noticing a trend. Hopefully I can start doing well on these things.

I also opted to do volunteer service for my Aging psych course instead of writing a paper. Investing 20 hours in community service seemed a lot better than writing. I ended up getting placed with a caregiver's society and what they want to do is expand their online influence. So I'll basically be helping them with blog posts.

Blogging as school work, who would have expected that?

I'm working, I promise.

Lastly, I've finally registered for the GRE. I'll be taking it at the end of November and it's a 4.5 hour long exam broken into multiple segments. It's just the general one which is good, I really don't want to relearn Physics, Chemistry, Biology, or Calculus. I'll begin hunting for study guides and what not after this last wave of midterms are done.

Oh, and some people were interested in where I got the My Little Pony figurines for Theresa. I originally wasn't going to share it (because I don't want her knowing how much they cost) but then I remembered she's too busy to read my blog anymore.

The person is called Krowzivitch and she does some very nice work. She has exploded in popularity however and if you don't grab a commission slot within the minute it opens you won't get in. Here's a sample of her work:

Alright, back to work. See you guys on Wednesday.

Finally Volunteering Again

For those who don't remember, I've been trying to get back into volunteering since my other option got disbanded to do bureaucratic reasons. As luck would have it our local Humane Society was having another set of orientation and mentoring sessions so the entire Wei family (as well as our cousins and their Mother, the Liu's) decided to sign up.

A little backstory on this before we start. This isn't our first time we've volunteered with the Humane Society. Several years ago we started, did the old orientation session, did our time and so on.

Back then, things weren't as good. Back then, our city's Humane Society was still using the building that was established over half a century ago.

Ok, it wasn't this bad but it wasn't too far off.

It was cramped, crumbling, smelly and not the greatest environment for people let alone animals. The cats were pretty much confined to metal crates almost all the time, stacked on top of each other. There was only one room for the cats to run around in and only 1 cat was allowed at a time.

The dogs weren't much better. Stuck into kennels maybe 1 by 2 meters at most they at least were let out more frequently because they could be walked. You can't really walk a cat. At least, not as well. But the area outside was kind of grungy, there was a highway nearby and I think an oil refinery too? Some kind of industrial complex.

This street is actually way too clean but it's the best example I could find.

Finally, the Humane Society got around to building a brand new facility just for them. The cats now live together in large rooms filled with toys, cat trees and hiding places. The dogs haven't benefited much in terms of living quarters, well, the ground isn't concrete anymore at least but where the facility really shines is the grounds.

A massive fenced field is available for them to run around in as well as a large designated walking path. Gone are the crumbling buildings and streets, they've been replaced by grass, trees and a pond.

Except we live in Canada so in the winter it's replaced by ice and snow.

Unfortunately due to scheduling problems neither the Wei or Liu family were able help out for a number of years but we're finally back. Things have changed though. For example, after the basic orientation you still need to take the individual dog and cat orientations. And after volunteering for a set amount of hours you can be promoted, and for example have access to more of the dogs or spend time with the kittens.

This is a picture I took of one of the calmer dogs. He was pretty nice and I hope he gets adopted soon. Actually, around the time this picture was taken the facility was having fewer than normal animals. We had to leave early simply because all the dogs had been walked already. Also, we still haven't taken the cat orientation yet.

Say hello!

I know Mom wants a dog but unless Dad likes one we'll probably won't be getting any more pets in the future. But we'll see.

Volunteering Woes

I don't know about the rest of you but volunteering has been ingrained in my mind as something that is vital. That's what they taught me in school and all the "amazing" students were doing it. Well, it's vital if you want to contribute to your community and look like a good person.

Or buffer your resume with....

This term I was asked by a friend to join an administrative part of student group that helped with giving English lessons on Saturdays. Generally foreigners and international students sign up for classes of various levels so they can learn to better read, speak and write English.

Yeah, I had to up early on a Saturday morning but I usually didn't mind. It means I get another opportunity to see old classmates who are in completely different programs from myself. And I do try to keep in touch with people.

They tell me that things are usually hectic, especially for the admins. But due to some problems with Student Services we weren't able to operate at full capacity in the Fall. Things were kind of dead a lot of the times. I'll be honest, most days I'd only have 1 or 2 things to do then I'd derp around.

Actually next term, we won't be allowed to operate at all.

 

Wat.

Yeah, Student Services doesn't consider us a student group anymore despite the group being over 30 years old. I think some obscure line in the Terms of Service applies to us and now they have to put us on hiatus until further notice.

Until things are fixed I'll most likely be volunteering with the local Humane Society next term. Not that I mind, most of the animals seem to really appreciate being let out of their kennels for some fresh air and be able to run around for a bit.

When your home is this big at best, I'm not surprised.

And of course, Theresa has wanted a dog for a while. If any Yorkies or Corgis are found, maybe I can work something out.