Journal 12/12/08

YES! Today is finally Friday. It has been a long week. It has been a stressful week with finishing up homework and preparing for finals. I am ready for this semester to be done with but I know that I have to put in some last needed effort in order to pass these finals. Last night was our secret Santa Christmas party but I was unable to attend due to having to dog/house sit for my aunt and uncle. Instead of decorating cookies and opening presents with everyone I had to sit alone in a big empty house. This morning I had to get up early after a horrible night of sleep in order to drive back to Madison to make it to classes on time. It wasn't as far as a drive as i thought but still I don't think that I would want to do it every day. I have to stay at my aunt and uncles all weekend so I need to find some things to do. Well I should keep studying for finals but I really don't want to. On Saturday it is my niece's third birthday party. She is a little chatter box and she is so smart. I can't believe that she is three already. It should be a fun time.

Journal 12/10/08

In the last twenty four hours not much has happened. Well besides being completely broke and in debt. My friend and I have run out of meal plan money and am not trying to make it to the end of the semester on a box of rice, a box of cereal, and those cheese cracker things. Every meal we seem to find someone who has some extra money on their meal plan that we can use. Its been going okay so far but it's kind of ridiculous. It is the weirdest feeling to walk by the food servery and know that you can't afford anything in there. Finals are coming up so quick and studying for them is killing me. I find myself wasting time because I don't want to study. I know that I really need to in order to pass these tests though. I can not wait for the next week to go by. Then it is break and I can have time to myself unlike when living in the dorms. During finals week we have a 24 hour quiet hours all week long and it is going to kill me. We like to mess around a lot and so to be quiet all the time is ridiculous I think but I understand that it is a stressful time and people need to study. I just cant believe that this semester is already over. Thank god!

Journal 12/5/08

Today is finally Friday and it has been one of the longest weeks of school so far. It is the week before the last full week of this semester. Therefore homework is piling up like crazy. Yesterday I sat and worked on homework for five hours straight. Today I will also have a late night because of psychology. I had forgotten about the tests that are due today and they need to be done by midnight. I will be staying here tonight instead of going home because my Internet connection at home isn't very good. Also I have had a virus on my computer for about a week now and it is really bothering me. My Internet gets messed up and goes really slow sometimes. It will also just pop up random websites or not let me onto ones that i need. This weekend should be fun and boring though too. I am going home but I don't think that there is anything special going on this weekend. I do need to work on some more homework this weekend also. This next week is going to be very busy because it is the last week of regular classes. I am also excited that it is the last week!

Journal 12/3/08

Today is Wednesday and this week is going so slow. Today is a recovery day. Yesterday there was a lot of drama around me and today I am just trying get back to being good. I feel a little numb to life right now. I'm not really enjoying school or life right now. My friends are feeling distant. Old friends are making waves and I have been rocking those waves harder and I shouldn't be. My relationship with my bf sucks right now. I don't know what I'm going to do or what I even want to do. I can't wait for the semester to be over so that I can have a vacation. I need to get away from this place!!!

Journal 11/26/08

What I am thankful for:
family
friends
opportunities
my education
msn
Internet
food
shelter
steady relationships
my time management skills
sports
entertainment
movies
support from family/Friends
people that make me laugh
most of the time being in a good mood
for my parents
siblings
nieces
where i live
life in general

Journal 11/19/08

Pre-20s: When I'm in my 20s I will...
-No longer be a teenager.
-Be in my second semester of my sophomore year of college.
-Will have had more experience.
-I will be able to legally drink.
-I will be looking towards a future with a guy.
-I want to start a family in my late 20s
-I want to have a successful carer started.
-Graduated college and started a teaching job soon after.
-Have my best friends there for me and I will be there for them.
-Marriage hopefully

Journal 11/17/08

In the last twenty four hours I have been pretty uneventful. Last night I got back to the dorms in the evening and had to clean up my room. It was incredibly messy and had a lot of clothes laying about. I made my bed with clean sheets and put away all of my clean clothes. I then got on the computer to check in with my homework and things like that. I worked on some computer homework but then realized that I had done it the wrong way. I was frustrated so I just quit and started chatting with people online. That was a good way to relax. My roommate and I watched the Jeff Dunham on comedy central and had a good laugh. I went right to sleep and had a good night. My alarm rang and for some reason i jumped right out of bed which is unusual for a Monday morning. I think that today will be an alright day.

Journal 11/14/08

TODAY IS FRIDAY! I am so excited that today is finally Friday. It is going to be a great weekend. I am excited that I get to go home again and sleep in my own bed. That is one of my favorite things to do is to lay in my own big bed at home. Tonight I get to see my bff Megan and her new boyfriend Aaron. I'm so excited to see them. Tonight will be a fun night.

So in the last twenty four hours I have gotten done about half of the homework that I should have gotten done. I still have Psychology Tests to get done that are due tonight. I have been putting things of for a bit after the midterm. I think that I need to get my going on things again.

Journal 11/12/08

In the last twenty four hours I haven't done much of anything like always. I woke up on Tuesday morning to icy snowy weather. It was so yucky outside that my mom and I baked cookies all morning. We went to the store and picked out a movie to rent. Then I realized that I had not done my math homework and quiz yet. So instead of having a lazy afternoon I drove back up to Madison and did my homework. I got it done and got a good grade on it but I wish that I would have done them the Friday before so that I could have stayed home longer. After getting all of my homework done and getting all unpacked. I cleaned up the dorm room because it was a big mess. I chatted online for a few hours and then went to bed. I had a good night sleep and got up this morning in a good mood.

Journal 11/7/08

In the last twenty four hours not much exciting has happened. Yesterday was Thursday and I don't have any classes on Thursdays so that is always good. I got to sleep in for a while and then just lay around for a bit. I ended up chatting online with people all day yesterday for the most part. I met up with a friend for lunch but then got back online after that. All of a sudden it was after five o'clock and I realized that I had yet to start working on my algebra. I had gotten my notebook out at like one in the afternoon and was ready when people started talking to me. I finally got off chatting with people and started with my homework. After finishing my algebra assignment and quiz I watched a little TV and chatted on the computer some more. After having some good conversations my boyfriend called and we had a major fight but also worked out a lot of things that have been bugging us both for the last month. We are very good now. I think that we both just needed to say what we needed to say and move on. I was so tired for some reason but I don't know why because I really didn't do much throughout the day anyways. I went to bed and had a great night sleep. I woke up on my own with out my alarm so that is always better and it gets me in a good mood right away. I have a feeling that today is going to be a GREAT day!

Journal 11/5/08

In the last twenty four hours many strange/ ironic things have happened. At least one really ironic thing has happened. Yesterday I started chatting online with this guy who is in Afghanistan right now and we hit it off. We chatted for a few hours about a lot of stuff. so last night I was eating dinner with my neighbor/friend Brittany and we had our computers with us and so I started talking on msn with some people. She was looking at some of the new people that I had added and she recognized one name. It turn s out that the guy that I had started chatting with that day was friends with Brittany and they had been talking for a couple of years already. It was so weird that they are friends, then Brittany and I became friends, then he and I started talking. This all happened without each other knowing it and that's why it is funny and ironic and weird. Also in the last twenty four hours I have fallen behind on my school work. I think that I have been spending too much time socializing online instead of spending time on school work.

Journal 11/03/08

Our team worked together:
When I worked well in a team was when I was in my high school English class and we had to do a 45 minute presentation over the book 1984. There were six people in my group and we all worked well together. We had all read the book and understood it thoroughly. There were two others and I who did most of the work and we did a lot of good work together. We had to do interviews and make posters. We also came up with a game and made our points about the book very clear. It took a lot of team work because this presentation was very long and in depth. The presentation was a success and we all received very good grades for the work we did. We kept every ones attention and so we knew that our presentation worked well together with everyone key points that they had to come up with. We had some that were opposing each other but That was good because it showed that we could still work together even if we had different points of view.

Journal 10/29/08

In the last twenty four hours I have written my problem solving paper, submitted it to Smartthinking, proofread it, and made the brochure. I am really confident with this paper. I feel like I did a good job on it and on the brochure. My problem is sleeping too much or liking to sleep a lot. I feel that I have a good solution and support for that solution. Also in the last twenty four hours I have gone from working hard on my English paper to being bored out of my mind. Yesterday I was so bored that my neighbors and I walked all the way to Pamida. It took a while but that was good because we had nothing else to do. It was a very nice day out and it was good for me to get out of the dorm. Sometimes it gets irritating to just sit in the dorm all day and watch TV or just to sit on my computer and do homework. Over all it was a pretty good day.

Journal 10/27/08

This past weekend has been such a great one. I got to spend time with my friend Jane who has been in Reno, Nevada for the last three months for school. She came home for a visit on Thursday. She had told me that she was coming home but we didn't tell our other friend Megan. We surprised her on Friday night at the rodeo. We had a great night and went back to Sioux Falls to stay at Jane's house. On Saturday Jane had a photo shoot to do for Harley-Davidson and so Megan and I went shoping witch I havn't done for a long time. That night we met up with some people and had a "good time". After getting up on Sunday and having lunch with Megan's mother and grandmother we headed back North to Madison and Brookings. When back at DSU I spent four hours studying for the psychology midterm. I had put it off all week and now I had to cram. After taking that test today I realized how I should study for the next one. I think that I did alright for it being my first big college midterm. Over all it was a good weekend and I enjoyed myself!

Journal 10/24/08

In the last twenty four hours I really enjoyed myself and college living. Yesterday at about this time I was just getting up from sleeping in because I only have one class every other Thursday. this was nice to be able to sleep in because on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I have 8:00 biology. The only class that I had yesterday was GS100 and we talked about mid-terms and it helped to get some advice. The rest of the afternoon I spent working on homework and studying. Things were going alright through the day but then it was after dinner that things got fun. I spent the evening with my neighbor watching a movie and messing around. We decided to put on some of our Halloween costume and take funny pictures. After laughing historically for about an hour we facebooked it for awhile. We got together with more people down the hall and had a good talk with one and hung up Halloween decorations with the other. We were being so goofy and random the whole time that it made it a really good time. After that I had a really good conversation with my boyfriend. It was about time because I hadn't talked with him since Monday. We were have some problems but they all got worked out last night. After talking for about and hour and a half I went to bed. I fell asleep right away and slept all night until my friend texted me at 5:30 this morning. She had some exciting news that she had to tell me but I was not wanting to talk. So I went back to sleep and slept in until 9:30. Thursdays and Fridays are always good because I get a chance to get more sleep. Today is the start of the weekend so I am glad that it is Friday.

Journal 10/22/08

How Not To Solve A Problem:

When there is a problem to be solved it becomes important. If you are trying to solve this problem do not make it important and then it will never get solved. Don't ever just think of possible solutions. Just sit there and think and think and think of just the problem. Dwell on how bad the problem is and what all is wrong. Don't start thinking about solutions or ways to lessen the problem. Don't even think of asking others to help you with your problem because they won't have any good ideas or any ways to help you. Start thinking of ways that the problem can't be solved. Don't think of all aspects of the problem and how solving some aspects of it could help the problem in whole. Don't just except the problem as it is and don't solve it at all.

Journal 10/20/08

Problem Solving:

All of my friends and relationships know me as the listener of the group. I am a good listener and I try to give advise back and help people with their problems. Most of the time I won't tell the person what to do but instead I will help them look at all aspects of the problem and all sides of the solution or help them find other solutions. To have someone to tell your problem to sometimes helps solve it just by talking about it. To get it out in the open helps your mind look at the problem a different way than before. The person you share your problem with has probably gone through what you are going through or knows someone who has had the same problem. Their input can really help if you consider all parts of the suggestions. For the last three weeks I have been having some problems with my boyfriend and I have been talking about it with everyone and everyone has been giving their opinions and suggestions about what to do. This was alright for a while but now it is just annoying and I think that I need to just consider what everyone has said and now make up my own mind instead of doing what everyone is telling me to do. In the end off finding a solution for your problem, you just need to do what is best for you, not what everyone wants you to do. It is nice to have different minds thinking for you but it's your decision in the end and that is why when I try to help people with their problems I only help them make up their minds instead of making up their minds for them.

Journal 10/17/08

(Serious) problem,
(Creative) solution

What is considered a serious problem? A family tragedy, loosing your paper when it's due in ten minutes, or not getting your hair to look right in the morning? What is a creative solution? To many different people, a serious problem can be a range of things. How to deal with them can also be different to many people. There are always problems in life. Everyone deals with problems and solutions everyday sometimes multiple times a day. How serious a problem is depends on who/what the problem is. How creative the solution also depends on who/what is being dealt with. Maybe the best way to deal with a serious problem is to have a creative solution for it or maybe the best way is to just use the obvious solution. To have a creative solution to everything may make it more serious or complicated. And to make a problem more complicated it isn't helping it at all. Sometimes a creative solution is ideal because the problem is very serious.

Journal 10/15/08

The last twenty four hours have been very uneventful. I got back to school after having a four day weekend. The weekend was very good for me because I got to see my family and spend time with my friends and nieces. For at least four hours everyday I just layed and watched TV. I really don't do this in the dorm so it was nice to have time to catch up on my TV shows. I know that it was quite lazy of me but I really enjoyed it. I think that I really enjoyed it this much because it isn't the same when you have a roommate who is always in the room and watching TV. I usually just let her have the remote because most of the time I'm doing other homework or chatting online besides just watching TV. This doesn't bother me but it is nice to have alone time.

Journal 10/10/08

In the last twenty four hours not much has happened except for school. Yesterday I spent most of my afternoon working on my English concept paper and it didn't go very well. I has looking at my computer screen for a half hour with only one sentence on the paper. I eventually got into a better mood to work on it. It turned out that I spent about 5 hours working on it and I'm still not quite done. I think that it was just one of those days that I didn't feel like sitting down and getting things accomplished. I think that I felt this way because I knew that I had to get it done because I am going out of town this weekend and I knew that I wouldn't have time to work on it. I was also excited to have a four day weekend and I couldn't wait for it to start.

Journal 10/08/08

In the last 24 hours my emotions have been everywhere. There had been troubles with my relationship with my boyfriend. Yesterday I woke up and sat on the edge o f my bed and started tearing up because the night before I had had a fight with him. Things are really complicated right now and it seemed that he didn’t even care. Instead of letting myself turn over and cry again I got up and showered so that I could get on with my day. After my only class I broke down and took a two and a half hour nap. I didn’t feel like doing anything but staying in bed. My friend finally made me get up and go for a walk. We ended up finding really awesome things for our Halloween costumes. That cheered me up and the rest of the day was good. I talked to my boyfriend again last night and we worked out a lot of things that had been bothering me. We talked about what had been happening and what we wanted to happen in the future. I went to bed last night feeling alright about where we are in this relationship. I know that in order to move on and work this out I need to not worry about it and just focus on school and other friends. I think that it can work out…I hope.

Journal 10/06/08

Today is Monday and it was one of those typical early Monday mornings. Meaning after a long fun weekend it sucked to get out of bed this morning. It might have been because I am actually tired from the weekend events or maybe it is just the way we perceive Mondays to be. In America Monday mornings are probably the most disliked morning of them all. I think that I am more affected by the dislike for Mondays than the actual events from this weekend. This weekend I spent my time in Brookings for Hobo Days. It was so much fun to spend time with people from there, to go to the parade and to go to the football game. Even though they lost the game the school spirit is so inspiring there. After many long days and nights it was nice to get back to DSU. I had to work on my English outline so I headed back to the dorm at about noon on Sunday. I knew that if I waited until later in the day I wouldn't have gotten much done at all. I think that I am the type of person who would rather just get my school work done right away during the day so that I can have free time later on. I am not a night owl so when I have to do homework at night it doesn't go very well and usually doesn't get done. This is probably a good quality to have when going to school otherwise nothing would ever get done.

Journal 9/26/08

In the last twenty four hours I went from tired to excited to happy to sad to upset. These last couple of weeks have been strange for me and my emotions. A lot has been going on with things at home, school, with friends and with my boyfriend. Last night I was having an alright day. I only had one class and then spent four hours on homework and got a lot done. I had a really good supper with a couple friends then had some good quality TV time. It made my night even better when my boyfriend called me. I think that I was having such a good day because I knew that this weekend was going to be fun. What ruined my night was that my boyfriend said that he would call me back later but he never did. That is one thing that really gets me upset. When people say that they are going to do something I expect them to do it and if they can’t or isn’t going to do it I expect them to tell me. This happened just before I went to bed so I sent him a text saying never mind about calling me back, I’m going to bed. This pisses me off too, when people do something just because you’re upset. He called me but I did not want to talk to him so I hung up and went to sleep angry, which mean I woke up in a bad mood too…great way to start the day! ...Not!

Journal 9/24/08

Last night my friends and I went to the one dollar movie night at the theater. For some reason that I do not know, they did not start the movie until after 9:30 pm. I thought that this was sort of late because most students have classes the next morning. After seeing The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 for the second time I got back to the dorm, brushed my teeth, put on my pjs and went straight to bed. I know that if I didn't go right to bed I would be regreting it this morning. Even though I went to bed as soon as we got back I was still tiered in the morning. My alarm woke me at 6:40am and I made myself jump out of bed otherwise I knew that I would go back to sleap. My neighbors and I made sure that eachother were up because we all have 8:00 bio lecture that we had to get to. I could have easily skipped it and sleapt in but if I did skip it I would get behind in the lecture and not do well in that class. I think that I know better than to be skipping classes because of money and grades. I don't think that I will be skipping many at all in the future.

Journal 9/22/08

This monday morning I hit the snooze for 45 minutes. I have been incredibly tiered in the mornings lately and did not want to get up this morning. I think that it being the fourth week of school I am sort of over the excitement of the being of college and am now just counting down until a holiday. I can't wait until halloween because then it is only another month until Thanksgiving and then only one more month after that until Christmas break. I like being at school but a lot of the time I am just dragging myself out of bed and trying my best to pay attention in class.
This weekend I stayed here on Friday night because my family was going to come up for family day on Saturday but it turned out that my mom was the only on able to come. Instead of sitting around listening to boring information sessions we went shopping and ate out together and had our own little family day. I was really dreading the information sessions because I'm sure that we have been told all of that information before. I was planning on staying in the dorms all weekend but decided to ride home with my mom on Saturday and then get a ride form a friend back to school on Sunday. I was feeling a little homesick on Saturday after spending Friday night alone. When back at school I had to complete an Exit Test for psychology that was due the next day. I had left it until the last day because I really do not like that class. The tests were easy though and I got through them quickly so it wasn't that bad. That night my neighbors and I messed around and had a good time.

Journal 9/19/08

Today is the beging of my oh-so-very boring weekend. I was able to sleap in today because both of my moring classes were canceled. It was nice to sleap in especially since I didn't sleap well the night before. I am starting to get a cold and it kept me up at about 2 am. I think that I am getting a cold because of all of the temperature changes. Hopefully I can get over it quickly and get on with school work because I don't have time to be sick. After having a little breakfast I showered and got ready for classes. I had some lunch with my friends and then looked around at the bookstore. I had found out that they got in new clothes so we had to check it out. I need to get more DSU wear because I don't have that much. Now it was time to sit in pych and try to listen but like always I started spacing off. This is my hardest class because it is hard for me to pay attention. My next class is just the same. I have a hard time with computers and when the class is boring it makes it even harder for me. But now its the weekend and I would be excited but I know that all I'm doing this weekend is homework and DSU Family Day.

Journal 9/15/08

This weekend I went home to Brandon. I first stopped in Brandon to pick up my sister and then headed into Sioux Falls. We were on our way to the hospitol to visit my new niece. My brother had sent me a txt on Thursday morning at about 12:00 to tell me that I have a new baby girl niece. I was expecting this txt sometime that day because I knew that they were having a c-section done. Adaline Ann Olson was born at 10:58am on 9/11/08. She weighs 8lbs 8oz. and is 20 in long and is one of the cutes newborns I have ever seen. I got to hold her for a long time on Friday and then again on Saturday, which was good because now I wont get to see her for another month. I miss her already and her big sister Chloe (my favorite person in the world). I didnt get to see Chloe this weekend but she will be three in December and goes a mile a minute. Also on Saturday I had to make a stop at Wal-Mart because i needed new sweatpants for basketball. Saturday night I went to my second cousin's seventh birthday party. It was good to see all of my mom's side of the family because I hadn't seen them for two months. It was good for me to spend time with all of them. So pretty much this was a good weekend filled with family.

Journal 9/12/08

1. What are your strengths?
-As far as school work goes, my strengths are researching, organizing and putting it all together. I am not good with starting an idea but finishing it and having it make sense is what I can do. I also am not good with presenting the end product but everything inbetween is good for me.
2. How do you perform well?
- I perform well when I can figure things out on my own but if I can't do that then with a little input or help I can perform well. I also perform well when working with others and everyone is equally contributing.
3. What are three of your top values?
-I value our freedom to learn and to move up in the work world by working hard. I also value my resources. By resources I mean people, earth things, and tech. resources. Most of all I value my family and friends because nobody could work as hard as they do and succeed without having a little support.
4. What do you want to contribute to this class?
-I want to contribute effort because if I do not my grade will pay for it. I also want to contribute in a way to help others.

journal 9/10/08

Why do I get up at 6:45 in the morning just to go sit in uncomfortable chairs and listen to someone talk for a hour? Well that is what I did this morning. I guess that I have to do this in order to pass the class and get on with my life. All of these early mornings add up to a degree later on, so I have to do it. This morning I cheated and hit the snooze a couple of times, but still made it to class on time and prepared. During class I tried my best to pay attention but caught my mind wondering to other things. I really didn't want to be there but I made the best of it and actually learned something. I made myself pay attention because I knew that I would need that information later on. After my 8:00 Bio class I went back to my dorm for some breakfast. At this time it is my only time alone in my dorm. It seems that my roommate and I are always there at the same time. This is sort of annoying because I am not use to sharing my time and space with people. The whole roommate and college thing will take some getting use to.

Hi my name is Jessica Doty. I am from Brandon, SD. My major is elementary education and that is all i have ever wanted to do. I was a student manager for the Brandon Valley basketball team for all four years of high school and am planning on being one for our Lady T's. I am also intersted in music and sewing on my spare time. I am looking forward to getting the next four years over with and getting on with that part of my life. The next four years should be fun and I'm looking forward to them.