And so begins winter quarter...

I'm pretty sure everyone at my school hates Winter Quarter. It's always hard, there is always way more going on then anyone wants, and the weather is shit. So basically its an eleven week shit storm of endless work. No wonder we all love it.

I've got two real classes and two fake classes this quarter. I'm taking Intro to Constitutional Law which I think will be quite good. Normally I only take political science classes that focus on international relations, but since I sort of need some American politics to graduate I signed up for this class. The first lecture was short and the professor is quite funny. We didn't talk about anything substantial so I can't pass a judgment on the class quite yet but I think I'll at least sort of like it.

I'm also taking Macroeconomics. My school is a bit of an econ powerhouse so I feel like an ass that I haven't taken advantage of it yet. The prof for this class reminds me of a teacher I had in high school who asked us if we rode the short bus. He sort of name drops a lot which is a bit obnoxious but he does it in a sort of ironic way. I've heard people either love him or hate him. I love him already. Only because I think he knows he is being ridiculous (like my HS teacher did) and just sort of messes with us. I could care less about Macro to be honest, but it might help me find a job if I have it... we'll see I guess.

My other two fake-ish classes are my BA seminars. I'm writing my thesis this quarter (on security council membership expansion and why it isn't happening) so I'm supposed to spend several hours a week having my hand held by grad students as I try to formulate an argument. I call these classes (plural because of my useless double major) fake because the grad students don't really know a lot about what I'm writing on. So mostly I just roll into class and try to be helpful but in my head curse the fact that I'm there. And I say some pretty snarky shit too. Oh well.

I'm also continuing my student job this quarter. It's really thrilling. Well, actually I quite like it but most people think it sounds terrible. I work in the library and I make sure all the books have barcodes. Sometimes I stand in the stacks and physically put barcodes on books but mostly I sit at a computer and enter barcodes into the system and make sure the book info is right. Wow that does sound thrilling. My department is generally really chill and my supervisor is super nice, so it makes up for a bit of monotony. And I can tell everyone I'm working with Google Books (that's why we're barcoding stuff, to send away later this year). So its pretty chill.

I've also got extra-curricular overload. I'm pretty involved in Model United Nations here and with an NGO that promotes the UN. Between the two I'm helping run four MUN conferences between now and mid-May. It's a lot of prep work, especially because I'm quite important at two of the conferences and have to like recruit and train staffers, but I like it so its ok. At one point I claimed that I wanted to be a teacher so I could run a MUN team at a high school and do MUN forever. Well ok, I still sort of want to do that.

But yeah, this quarter is going to be a lot of work. My thesis is going to make me want to cry probably, and the MUN overload is going to get a bit taxing (writing a guide for a conference at present, woo for extra-curricular research papers).

Hope you have a nice winter quarter/spring semester!

xoxox Nora