The Week In Review

I know I haven't posted in a while, but I've been super busy lately. What with "real" work from my classes setting in, trying to balance my homework with my job, and my hour-long commute (each way), I feel like I never stop long enough to catch my breath. So here's the important things that went down this week:

• Last Friday was Alex's birthday. Jimmy and I went to dinner and a few movies (hooray for movie-hopping!) and then headed up to the Upper East Side for her party. It was really fun, and it was so good to see everyone all in one place! I feel like we've all been so crazy with our busy lives that we've never really been able to all spend time together yet, so it was really good to see everybody. It was a late night for me, but definitely worth it.
• On Saturday, Richie, Gerard, and Jimmy came over for dinner. I love it when people come over (since it rarely happens, it's even nicer for me when they do). Richie and I had found a recipe for Turkey Swedish Meatballs that I had made for Rosh Hashanah, and he wanted to have it again. So we had Swedish meatballs, macaroni pie, and chocolate chip cookies. I think we'll probably all keel over soon from the cholesterol, but it sure was a good dinner.
• Sunday was football day, of course, so I headed over to Brittany Hall to do homework (which I barely did) and watch the games (which I did a lot of) with the boys. Plus, Chinese food!
• Monday through Thursday were pretty normal days. I've been really short on money this week (getting sick the same month you have to buy textbooks is a very bad thing) but other than that I was doing okay until...
• Friday. Friday was supposed to be payday for me. Unfortunately, I didn't receive a paycheck. Why, you ask? Well, apparently there was paperwork that I was supposed to fill out before the semester started so that I could continue to be paid through the work-study program. But no one, not my boss, not any of the three people who deal with paychecks, told me this. So I had no idea. Needless to say, I noticed on Friday when I didn't receive an email saying my check had been deposited. As of right now, I'm not really sure what I'm going to do. I don't want to have to call my mom and ask her to front me the money for rent, but I don't know what else I can do. I've considered calling my landlord and explaining the situation, but that feels so immature. I'll get the check I'm owed by next pay period (on October 8), but I don't want to have to call him and say he can't cash my check until then. I'm really just frustrated because this isn't my fault at all, and now I'm the one having to stress about not having enough money to cover rent.
• Saturday was a pretty easy day. I considered doing homework, but instead watched Intervention (Have you seen it? You really should. It's excellent) and hung out with Richie. We went up to midtown to try to win lottery tickets to Next to Normal, since his friend Jess and a friend of hers were coming down, but unfortunately we weren't successful. We ended up just getting dim sum at Ruby Foo's. I then ended up just going home; there's been a lot of drama going on with some people here, and it all just kind of came to a head last night. I'm very frustrated and hurt by the whole situation, but there's nothing I can do about it, so I'm trying to just be adult about it and take the high road. Sigh. Some things never change.
• Anyway. Things here are good, for the most part. Classes are going well, and I'm feeling more confident about them. I'm making friends in my classes, too, which is really nice; I'm starting to feel connected to the people and the program, which isn't something I'm used to, but which I certainly like!
• In other news, I'm going to Maine over the Columbus Day weekend! Mom and Danny decided they wanted to go hike up a mountain (sometimes I don't know how I'm related to them...) so we've rented a cabin and found a park to explore. I was lured along with the promise of shopping, beautiful views, and lots of seafood. My mom knows just how to get to me.
• Well, that's about it for now. I'll try to post more regularly, but there's just so many other things going on!

Classes!

Okay, after this, I promise I'll calm down with the torrent of posts. It's just that I have a lot to write about and a little bit of free time right now.

Now. Classes!

My schedule this semester is unlike any I've had before: finally, I have classes that consist purely of my major requirements. This is also the first semester I've been part of a "real" school, not just LSP (which, while they try to make seem like a school, is really just a sorry excuse for a program). And so far, it's...pretty much exactly the same.

In all fairness, I'm not exactly taking the most riveting courses this semester. Research Methods I isn't going to be a big bundle of fun (although the professor actually seems to manage to do a good job of keeping us all awake). And Developmental Psychology, while important, is not my kind of class. We're concentrating solely on development ending in adolescence, and as someone who wants to work only with adults, it's really frustrating (yes, I know that it's important to know the background of what makes people into the fully-formed adults that they are, but I'd still rather concentrate on the cool stuff). Personality Theories has so much potential to be interesting, but the professor is just so boring. It doesn't help that the class is at 9:30 AM, either. Fieldwork I was actually a class that I wasn't looking forward to, but it seems like it's going to be my most useful class. We spent the entirety of last class discussing how to format title pages and use in-text citations in APA style. This sounds duller than the most dull of all possible topics, but it actually is extremely useful: APA style is the iron rule of this major, and no one has ever taken the time to teach it to us before (in all other classes, MLA has been the law of the land, and there are lots of very important differences). The other exciting thing about Fieldwork is that it sets us up for the next two semesters of Fieldwork, where I'll actually get to go out into the real work and work with professionals in the field. I'm really excited and nervous for that!

My other class is the required New Student Seminar, necessary for any first-semester Steinhardt student. It's a class tailored more to freshmen or people that have just transferred to NYU from other colleges, but luckily I'm with all transfers, so they're mostly people that are in my other classes.

That's the other strange thing: I have so many of the same people in all my classes. I've never experienced going to classes with the same people all day, and while it's weird, I know that come midterm and final times, it's going to be awesome. It's also really nice to be able to make friends with people in my own major (I love my Tisch friends, but it's nice to have some people I can talk to that aren't obsessed with themselves).

All in all, I'm really happy with my schedule this semester. It's also allowing me to continue working 20 hours/week, which is super important (if only rent would go away when school started again)!