Respect Your Teachers!

By Amy Faulkner 

Today I actually have something to write about. And I actually have a legitimate confession that has nothing to do with me writing my blogs in class.

I must confess that not only did I not study for my first psychology exam, I also did not read any of the material that it was on. I didn’t even glance at the chapters we were supposed to read in the book. In fact, I didn't even know we were supposed to have a test. And you know what? I guessed on every question and got a B.

I have psychology every Tuesday and Thursday with a guy who teaches at another college half an hour away and is also a full time family counselor. I took his Psych 102 (core classes! They’re the worst!) because my roommate took him last year and I knew that he was the easiest psych professor. The only thing is, his classes are unbelievably boring. I knew what I was getting into. I thought I could handle the boredom of class if it was going to be so easy but much to my surprise, when I arrived I found that I was actually supposed to read the chapters and be quizzed on each one every lesson. All his tests and quizzes are multiple choice but still, you can only guess right every now and then. Huge pain, but it’s still my easiest class besides acting. And you know what makes it even better? On the second exam I did read the information and study the stuff he told us to study and I got a lower B. Oh the irony!

Some classes are like that, though. You can’t expect to like every single one you have to take. You might not even like certain classes that your major requires, but you have to discern whether it’s the subject that you don’t like or the teacher. As for me, I think that psychology is fascinating, and like Harry Potter in History of Magic I think to myself ‘this subject could be really great if someone else was teaching it,’ every day before I fall asleep in that class. There’s also the question of my major. I had a minor breakdown when I realized that I really hated the head of the English department and the woman I would be taking classes with for the next four years to get a degree in English. That wouldn’t be so bad, but I’m double majoring and it turns out that I’m also not very fond of my French professor. I wondered if I could stand to do what I wanted to do with my life if I would have to face four years of working with them. But you know what, in the end it’s only four years and it’s worth it in the end.

I’m taking an acting class as well which I added to beef up my schedule, because I really love to act, because the teacher is a professional actor, and because I knew the class would be easy. Well, it’s easy, but once Mr. Kappa starts talking he literally does not stop for two hours, which is just over the time limit of the class. We do some fun things, but he usually ends up interrupting them to tell us something completely unimportant.

I really love my Old Testament and New Testament Literature and Interpretation classes. They’re core subjects at my college. I took Old Testament last year with the hardest bible professor at the college and I had an A average by the time finals rolled around so I got to opt out of it. New Testament is going really well, too, and it’s not like it was even a subject that remotely interests me. My dad’s a pastor, yeah, my siblings are all really Christian, but not me. I took the class because I have to and I took it with Dr. Beta instead of Dr. Gamma because I hadn’t heard that Dr. Gamma is generally thought of as the ‘easier professor.’ Last week one of my upper classmen friends told me that if I was getting A’s in Dr. Beta’s class then I could easily minor in Bible. Like I said, I was never particularly interested in studying the Old and New Testament but Dr. Beta makes it fun and interesting and genuinely enjoyable.

My last class this semester besides French, which I really should be writing my essay for, is World Civilizations (also a core subject), which I will probably withdraw from because I slept through the first midterm which is worth 15% of my grade and I can’t make it up without a proper excuse. The highest grade I can get in there is an 85 if I participate in every discussion every single day, never miss another class, and get an A on every exam including the final. I love history. My dad was going to get his doctorate in history and he used to take me to classes at the University when I was little. And I still love history, despite how tough a grader and how vastly smart Dr. Theta is. That’s why I want to get an A in his class. I might even be the only student  who ever has. He’s only been here for one full semester and he’s already gotten a rep as a more harsh grader than the head of the English department, Dr. Vader. He makes that class interesting by his sheer enthusiasm for it. And it’s all lectures!

Another thing – expect lectures in college. High Schools tend to be interactive. College is bigger than that – you will get lots of lectures. If you don’t already know how, learn how to take notes because you do not want to be sitting there, writing faster than a humming bird flies, copying everything the professor says in paragraphs in a class that you’re not allowed to have a computer in. Dr. Theta won’t let us have computers in World Civ and if I hadn’t just taken a class with the evil Dr. Vader of the English department (filled up 2-3 blue books in one hour), my hand might have broken from the strain.

(I’ve changed the English Department head’s name to Dr. Vader in this blog instead of using a Greek letter as with the other professors for a reason. One of my upper classmen friends told me that on the last day of class as she walked in the room, he played the Imperial March. It suits her. Sometimes it really feels like she’s choking you.)

And finally, and this is what really, really gets to me, respect your teachers. Last night we had a teacher panel in the dorm and I was essentially forced to go by the dorm mom because I wasn’t doing anything important at the time and couldn’t think of an excuse. Well, my World Civ professor was there and the day before he had told me that I couldn’t make up the exam that I missed because I didn’t have a valid excuse. Some people might get really mad about that, but I will take credit for my own mistake. I stayed up all night, I slept all day, I paid the penalty. So when a dean opened up the floor for students to make comments about their teachers I let them all know that I respect a teacher who sticks to their guns. If you say that you won’t tolerate cheating or sleeping in class, then you don’t tolerate sleeping or cheating in class. If you say you can’t make up a test because you slept through class, then you don’t let a student make up that test.

You have to respect your teachers. You have no idea what they do for you or how much more they know. If you take a test and get a D, then take it to your professor and show them that they graded one thing wrong, and complain that they don’t know what they’re talking about, you still got a D, and one grading mistake rarely changes that. The whole “I know more than any adult” thing is cute when you’re ten, but not when you’re expected to behave like an adult in adult matters.

I may not like my Dr. Vader, but I respect her authority in the classroom and I respect her decisions when she grades my papers and I respect how much she asks of us, because she wouldn’t ask so much if she didn’t have very high opinions of us as students.

I remember the first Old Testament test I took. Everyone in the class has to copy down and sign a pledge in their blue book giving their honor that they did not receive or give any help on the test to another student. Professor Beta is very serious about it, which I respect. The day we got our first tests back he held back two students who forgot to sign their pledges. All he asked was that they take thirty seconds to copy the pledge and sign it before they could get the blue book and their grade, their grade was not affected. They made a huge deal about it, like he was asking them to hand over their firstborns or sign their souls away. They complained and argued with him about signing the pledge that they were repetitively reminded to sign on the day of the test. I was amazed! Upper classmen, disrespecting a professor like that!

All I can say is, don’t do it. They are smarter than you no matter what you think and they are well equipped at dealing with immature teenagers. They care about your education more than you know.

And that is all.

Spring break in just one more week and I’m outta here! I’m gonna see my niece and my puppy and not worry about anything for a whole ten days!!!

Just have to get through midterms!

(This article was written in April, copyright 10:31 Life Ministries) 

Also Available from Amy Faulkner 

Hi My Name is Amy

That One A.M. Feeling

On Buying Groceries and Other Things

Also Available from 10:31 Life Ministries

A Chosen Generation (1 Peter 2:9): Mediocre Christianity By Angel Edwards

The Truth: The Word that Speaks By Jonathan Faulkner

College Commitment: Those Puzzled Athenians-and Us by David Faulkner 

To contact or support 10:31 Life Ministries email us at: hi1031.ministries@yahoo.com

On Buying your Own Groceries and other Things

By Amy Faulkner 

Today’s confession – I don’t have time to write confessions. I mean geez, college is hard! You have to force yourself to get up in the morning, make your own coffee, make yourself go to class every day, and even though you have a little bit more freedom, you still have to do things. I mean you have to do them. In my case and the case of my siblings, you don’t have a choice.

Let me explain: my siblings and I are all going to very expensive, private colleges hundreds of miles away from home. Our parents are spending thousands of dollars to educate us and even more money sending us to and from college. The distance gives you lots of independence. You have to make your own decisions; when to go to bed, when to wake up, when to do your homework and when to hang out with your friends. But I don’t feel like I have the freedom to choose whether or not I go to class or do my homework because my parents are the ones paying for my education. I owe them too much to get bad grades. That is where I don’t have a choice. It’s kind of paradoxical. I have independence but have to depend on someone – myself, and my independence is bought by my parents so I am still really dependent on them.

I have to buy my own groceries.

I’ve done lots of things to prepare me for college. My mother taught me how to do my laundry so I wouldn’t look like an idiot in college. She taught me how to battle my natural introverted intuition when I need to ask for something. My parents helped me prepare for many things I would have to face on my own. They did not prepare me for buying my own groceries.

It’s scary how much it costs to feed a person. It’s amazing how much it costs to make a really good cup of coffee every day. I eat at the Dining Hall at least two meals a day but my friends and I like to bake, so we buy a lot of flour and eggs and chocolate chips. I also love nutella and cheese sandwiches. Not together, of course. It costs a lot to keep my mouth happy. There’s also the slight problem I have with shaking. I shake when I need food, so I have to keep snacks around. It gets pretty expensive in the end.

Now I’m sure you’ve heard the joke that you can only have two of the following three in college: good grades, enough sleep, or a social life. I can both confirm and deny that. I can confirm that I got a good amount of sleep most nights my first semester, kept a fun social life with my friends, and made decent grades. The only thing I can really complain of is that I know my grades could have been better if I had had a little bit less of a social life. However, I can also confirm that keeping up these three aspects of college life took a serious toll on me.

They always say that the first semester and first year of college is the hardest. I can definitely confirm that. I’ve had problems in the past with depression and I decided not to listen to the urgings of my loved ones to talk to someone about the difficulties I was facing. It ended up exploding in my face, driving me crazy. I didn’t get to finish my first semester. I thought I could have it all with none of the consequences. I must confess, that didn’t work.

My suggestion for you is maintain only two of the three points of college life your first semester or first year. Some people can deal with all three all the time, but if you are like me, if you are an INTJ or an INFJ, you should probably take my advice. Try maintaining just a social life and good grades or just sleep and good grades. I suggest that you always keep up good grades, no matter what you plan on. And if you are having trouble adjusting to college life or finding alone time or making friends, I suggest you talk to a dean or peer at the college; someone you trust. Many colleges have counseling services and can even help you pay for them. I speak from experience.

Okay, that’s enough for the hard stuff. I just have one more confession: I am writing this in class. Yeah, you caught me. The good news is, my teacher never will. This woman is crazy and I don’t know why I took her again. She is, in fact, the same teacher I described in my last blog as looking and acting almost as nice as a dragon. I had her last semester for Honors English 103. We called it Death 103. I don’t know what tempted me to take “Jane Austen and Her Life” for J-term after Death 103, but here I am, learning about Emma and family relationships during the 18^th and 19^th century. Did you know that birth control spread through Europe from France? The first good form, that is. Yeah, every now and then I tune in.

Well, I have nightly study questions, another oral report, a report on every movie we’ve watched, an epistolary essay, a weekly quiz, and a final exam to do and prepare for. J-term is so easy.

Also available from Amy Faulkner

That One A.M Feeling

Hi My Name is Amy

Also available from 10:31 Life Ministries 

A Chosen Generation (1 Peter 2:9): Called Beyond Societies Standards by Angel Edwards

College Commitment: The Toughest Test By David Faulkner

The Truth: Why Love the Word?  by Jonathan Faulkner

To Contact 10:31 Life Ministries like us on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/1031ministries

Or email us at: hi1031.ministries@yahoo.com

That One A.M Feeling

By Amy Joy Faulkner

It’s almost one a.m. I am sitting in the kitchen. I want to make brownies, but my friend is being a jerk and won’t let me borrow her stuff because she wants to sleep. Whatever. I should be working on my English paper, which is due tomorrow (actually, today), but instead I’m writing this. Who knows, maybe it will get my creative juices flowing… My fingers are crossed.

College is no easy feat. I guess I was under the impression that it wasn’t as hard as it had always looked because somehow my sister and brother don’t or didn’t complain about it too much, but I was wrong. I was also told, when my oldest sister Tierzah started looking for a college (6 years ago now), that just because I was going to a Christian college didn’t mean that everyone here would be a Christian or even a good person. Obviously not, since I’m here, but I had still convinced myself that this place would be different. It’s amazing how small I can make my mind sometimes.

Let me start at the beginning, a very good place to start. Orientation was like a summer camp and although the activities were lots of fun and I met a lot of my (then) future friends, I still just wanted to chill and sleep a lot of the time. Now I wish I could go back to that weekend and actually pay attention to all of the people I met and the behavior I saw so that I can look less like an idiot and make a better impression on the people who are now my friends. Oh well, they must love me anyway.

When my brother asked me to write this blog, completely out of the blue, I was baffled. I’d never done anything like it before or even know how to blog, but I never foresaw the biggest issue that I’m having with it: time. Doesn’t the fact that I’m writing this with three minutes left of midnight pretty much sum that up? And I’m not even taking any really hard classes, unlike my roommate.

About my roommate, she is incredible. We emailed a lot over the summer, but obviously since I’m from Ohio and she’s from North Carolina, we didn’t get a chance to meet until move in day. However, it didn’t take us long to figure out that we are perfect for each other. We like quiet, we don’t party, we do our work before the night before it’s due (until now), we’re both neat freaks who clean on the weekend and never leave our clothes lying around, and we both like to sleep. A lot of the other girls have had problems with their roommates, but I couldn’t be happier with mine. I only hope she feels the same way.

I’m trying to get my core subjects out of the way as fast as I possibly can. Obviously, that’s what every college freshman wants to do, especially when they know what they want to major in, because core subjects suck. I’m taking statistics, which is pretty easy, only two days a week, but still stressful before a test. Old Testament which is mostly taking notes, memorizing them all, then spewing it out in one of those accursed little blue books with a few deep thoughts added now and then. Honors English which is taught by a charming lady who looks a little prettier than a dragon and is almost as kind if you get on her bad side, which I have not, and finally seminar. Every freshman has to take a semester of seminar of which there are eight choices. I ended up getting my first choice, The Chronicles of Narnia. The class is a breeze, but it still sucks. It’s busy work that doesn’t challenge any part of the mind. It’s enough to make any self-respecting French-English major want to stick their head in the oven. Yeah, life is rough.

We hardly have any homework though, except in English. Most nights we just have to read a work of literature that she gives us and either answer the questions given to us or make up three of our own and answer them. This is much harder than it sounds, though, and usually only takes up to two hours. Unfortunately for us, she also expected us to read Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd in a couple of days and now we have to write a paper about it, one that I am having immense difficulty with, probably because I’m so used to the journaling style. Like this. We also have a research assignment due in that class on a novel that we have to read, mine being My Antonia, which I have never read and an oral report. Mine is on The Secret Garden which I have also never read all the way through.

Despite all this (which really isn’t that much) I spend a remarkable amount of time developing a social life. My first weekend was insane and I ended up staying up until three am and missing my nine am Old Testament class. My first Monday of class, and I missed it. However, that weekend I met some amazing people who are now my very close friends. I’ve developed a liking for pool as well, often being challenged by some of my new friends from a different group, and discovered that video games are not all bad, as long as it’s MarioKart. Among other crazy, stupid things I’ve done here, I’ve fallen over a couch onto thinly carpeted concrete floor and gave myself a minor concussion, stayed out until 11, drunk with sleep deprivation, playing truth or dare and proposing to a guy, I’ve gotten so sick that I couldn’t leave the room, and tonight I went to a concert near Clempson. I have an English paper due in about 10 hours, a class in 8 hours, I had a math test today, and I went to a concert tonight. But, you see, I had to, because Superchick was playing. Don’t judge me.

Now, if you’ll please excuse me for imparting no new information, my horrible grammatical issues that any decent English major would cry over, and my abrupt ending, I have a paper to write.

Related Posts from 10:31 Life Ministries

The Best of Education by Jonathan Faulkner
Devoured, Withered, Chocked and...Alive?  by Angel Edwards
Hawthorne VS. Christianity by Rev. David Faulkner

Also Available from Amy Faulkner
Hi My Name is Amy
The Smile the Face: Poverty in America
The Smile, The Face: Human Trafficking

Contact 10:31 Life Ministries at hi1031.ministries@yahoo.com