January 2000 --Online Journal

Monday January 17, 2000:
Sarcastic contents not suitable for everyone; read at your own risk!

As you have probably guessed, the world made it through all the Y2K hype (and my family has 6 gallons of water to prove it). Tomorrow I start next semester again and I am not looking forward to it. Why is it just as you get accustomed to not going to bed until 3:00 in the morning and getting to sleep in until 1:00 in the afternoon that you have to go back to school again? :P~ Oh well, I shouldn't complain. I'll be happy to see my friends again, and classes will be nice for a whole week or so.

Is it just me, or is the first week of classes just the biggest waste of time? I remember back when I was in junior high and high school, my teachers would hand out 10 page syllabuses and then explain what was on them and they expected from you. These explanations would go on for days and by the end of it you were as clueless as when you walked in. (What? Greek Mythology, you mean this isn't Room 205?) And these syllabuses, a very appropriate word for these stapled agendas. I wonder what language the word "syllabus" originated from. Whichever language, I'm yet to learn it. But the worse thing about syllabuses, aside from the fact that the teacher is speaking an entirely different language (one that none of us students will ever decipher), is that most of the time the syllabus is completely tentative. So what exactly is the point of a syllabus then, if it is subject to change? Then these teachers who have in B I G letters "Tentative Schedule" written atop the paper and leave blanks in every other line, expect you to keep this 5 lb. document and expect you to refer back to it so that you know exactly when those blank non-existent assignments are due.

But no, college is different. Not only do we receive larger, heavier syllabuses, but we get assignments on the first day of class too (reading two chapters in this book, writing a 3 page paper on that subject, etc.) School's tomorrow. I'm so excited, and I am sure you can read the anticipation growing within me.

Awaitingly,
Shannon :)