Sooooooooo....

I've been gone awhile despite being on summer vacation, and I come back less than two weeks before I go back to school. I don't really have an explanation for the disappearance or the reappearance so close to the beginning of my senior year of college. That's just the way it worked out....

SO, here are a few updates:

• I got a second job at the end of May. I'm currently employed at Lane Bryant and Bath and Body Works. Yay??
• I moved. I no longer live 45 minutes (on a REALLY good day) away from school and work. I am a 15 minute walk from work and 30 minutes from school (on an average day). So YAY!
• I will not be visiting Louisiana until at least Christmas, if not New Year's. I thought I might make it there at some point this summer, but the new job and the old one and life happened, and visiting is just not possible. Not yay...
• I am not planning on law school anymore (for now, at least). Instead, I am focusing on getting a Master's in school counseling or school psychology. This means no LSAT, for now, and instead I am studying for the GRE...soooo yeah...lol
• I am not taking a year off like I wanted, which means, after next summer, I may no longer live in Chicago. It all depends on the programs I get accepted to and can afford. I am planning on applying to 3 programs in Chicago, but none of them are in the top 5 of my 8 schools (which, if you just did the math, means that they are actually my bottom 3...).
• In regards to grad school, I have 8 schools in 4 states picked out. 2 in California, 1 in Washington, 2 in New York, and 3 in Chicago.
• And finally, since I am a giant nerd, I CANNOT WAIT TO BE BACK IN SCHOOL! The 23rd cannot come fast enough. I am kind of really excited about my classes for this semester...but check back with me in September because that might change pretty fast...lol

Anyway, as far as classes this semester go, I did not go quite as crazy as last semester. I'm only taking 5 (15 hours), so that's nice. Since I am a senior and I, apparently, did a great job picking the classes I wanted to take, I had a bit of freedom in my choices for classes this semester, and it looks like I can pretty much take whatever I want next semester, literally. This fall I'm taking: Intro to Criminal Justice, Intro to International Relations, Psychological Study of Racism, Imperial Russia, and Learning. The only classes I had to take were racism and learning, and that's because they were the only classes that interested me that fulfilled their respective requirements. 

So, yeah. I'm a senior and this is my life right now...lol

Until next time,

Amber Marie <3

I'm baaaaaccccckkkkkk!

Hey! It's me again! Plain, to see you again! Annnnnd...that's enough of Cheap Trick...(thank you to How I Met Your Mother for getting that song stuck in my head...)

I survived the hardest semester of my undergraduate career! I had 6 solid As going into finals week, which is a big deal since grades on are the +/- system here, so a 93 is an A- and therefore is not an 4.0. Then the Sunday night before finals starts, I get sick. And I'm not talking head cold sick or nerves sick...I'm talking a sickness that was not pretty. I was sick for a solid 36 hours, and missed 3 finals, which my professor (same one for all three classes, which was convenient) was kind enough to let me make up. And even with the amazing kindness of my professor, I knew that my 4.0 for the semester was gone. Being sick for 36 hours really screws stuff up. I ended up with 3 As and 3 A-s, which I know is spectacular, even when you don't take into account that I was sick for the first day and a half of finals week, and that I had to make up 3 finals, back-to-back, on the same day, in my professor's office, with her sitting right there, an entire week after I would have taken them had I not gotten sick. Anyways, I'm not "complaining" about my 3.835 gpa for the semester, which combined with last semester's 3.868, gives me a 3.85ish gpa at Roosevelt (and brings my cumulative gpa for my first 3 years of college to a 3.69), it's just frustrating that I had the 4.0 within reach and lost it because I got sick. Don't get me wrong, I am eternally grateful to my forensic psychology professor, who taught three of my classes, for letting me make those finals up with no penalty. And I am lucky that my cross-cultural communications professor allowed me to turn in my final paper 4 days late and only took 10% off of my grade. I know that I made out like a bandit in this situation, but the perfectionist in me misses that 4.0.

But hey, I kicked some serious butt this semester considering the workload that this 18-hour semester threw at me, especially the month of April. Goodness. The month of April, alone, had a group project with a PowerPoint presentation, a big project that involved interviewing people about their stress levels, 2 huge homework assignments, 1 test, an individual presentation on an article from a scholarly psychology journal, an 8-10 page case report where I had to pretend that I was a repressed memory expert who was going to testify in court, an oral examination where I had to pretend I was a repressed memory expert who was testifying in court, 2 basic papers, and 1 of my 6 finals (would have been 4, but I had to make up 3 of them). That's not including trying to keep up with the readings in some of those classes. So yeah, I survived, and I did well. I'm so glad I never have to take 18 hours again.

OH, and I'M A SENIOR IN COLLEGE NOW! How did that happend?? It really makes me feel old and like an adult, and I just don't like it...lol. But seriously, I'm a senior. I have to start making big life decisions about graduate school or law school or working or what the heck I actually want to do with my life after I graduate...that's intense.

For now though, I'm going to take the summer to work, study for the LSAT, and take advantage of the fact that I live 5 blocks from Lake Michigan and do some reading on the beach. LET'S GO SUMMER 2013!

Until next time,
Amber Marie <3

Oh noes!!!

I missed the month of March! :( Sorry, guys. College life is keeping me really busy. On the plus side, I suppose, I only have 28 days until summer vacation. So that's nice. Too bad the next two weeks are going to be beyond crazy. Projects, presentations and papers galore. :/ Back into my hole I go......

<3 Amber Marie