College: Level 3

Photo by Brad Stallcup

I'm exhausted. I knew my schedule was going to be pretty busy this semester, but I didn't expect it to be tiring this early on in the year. But at the same time, I prefer this over doing nothing all day.

Classes:
ENGL 5885 - Adolescent Literature
It's a fun class, but a lot of hard work because you're divided into groups and assigned a book, and then your group has to teach the class said book. My group got The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, and we are in the middle of teaching it right now. It's not bad this time around because it's mainly discussion based. And surprisingly, not surprising, it's a lot easier teaching college students than seventh and eighth graders, which is what I had to do last semester. Plus, it helps that the teacher is hilarious, and always has a creative excuse as to why he's late to class.

ECON 2010 - Principle Of Microeconomics
As with all of my business classes that I've taken so far, it's been pretty intuitive. The teacher is interesting, occasionally funny, but he needs to speak louder. It's also pretty nice because he also lets us out early a lot, giving me more free time than I expected. Plus, the TA who holds review sessions on Fridays is also pretty funny. I like how she admits that she's a screw-up sometimes and then proceeds with a funny, awkward story, making Fridays easier to bear.

ENGL 5930 - Theory Race/Ethnicity/Nationality: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
It's a gut-wrenching class as I learn more about the horrors of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and how that plays into the racism that still exists today in America. The teacher is sweet and amazing, and I thoroughly enjoy all the discussions we have in that class. It requires a lot of work though because of the multimedia project and a Wikipedia page that I either have to come up with or modify.
Plus, it's unlike anything I've taken before because this time one of my required texts includes Beyonce's latest album Lemonade. It's a good album to listen to as I'm doing all of my readings for this class.

GNDR 3380 - Social Inequality
It's a useful class that is also helping me in my Theory of Race class a bit. I like how it talks about social class because that is one of the top inequalities that isn't talked about as often. It's also interesting to learn a bit more about racism, sexism, and other isms, even though I already know quite a bit about it. Honestly, the best part about this class is mainly the videos that I get to watch because they give you a lot of insight that is sometimes hard to capture in words.

Extracurricular activities:
I'm the treasurer for the Asian American Student Association (AASA) and the secretary for the Vietnamese American Student Association (VASA) this year. It's a lot of work but a lot of fun. And I admit it is frustrating at times, but that's always going to happen in any situation that I end up in.
One of my professors once said that I have a quiet kind of leadership that isn't loud and steeped in masculinity, and I never really thought about it till I got into these positions. I'm endlessly grateful too that I get to further develop my skills and take up a lot of opportunities that I wouldn't have imagined otherwise.
I'm also involved with the Canticle, my college's undergrad literary magazine, again. And it's going great so far, still just trying to get it a little bit bigger than last year. My other extracurricular activities include napping, but even I'm having trouble napping nowadays.

Work:
It sucks, but I'm tolerating it.

And now the weather:
I Dreamed A Dream Les Misérables cover by Darren Criss

~ Stacy N.