Final Numerical Calc Average: 90.585
Final Letter Grade Calc Average: A
Verdict: I'm at Tech next year.

So I made it to Memphis alive.  Slightly sunburned from hanging my arm out my window for a few hours, but alive nonetheless.  I finished all of my required posting for calculus and worked out a deal with Kathy McGill that, if my teacher emails my grade to her, I get my scholarship back before the deadline.  Yay!  Now I've just got to call the Financial Aid office (I'd rather choke myself to death on steaming dog poop) to see if I can get the lottery scholarship back with an email.  That'd be most dandy.  Delectably delightful, even.

On the bright side, I had a local judge's 12-year-old daughter hit on me.  It was a very interesting, unique experience.  When she realized she was getting nowhere, she immediately became offensive and rude.  Now, she obviously has come nowhere near the art of pursual at which we may find such celebrities as Don Juan, Cassanova, or myself.  For those of you who are pursuing unsuccessfully (aka not Josh and Liz...Daniel, read for future reference), follow this simple advice: never give up.  Even if you divert your attention during the pursual, continue on your quest for that ultimate love.  Case in point: I have been actively and openly pursuing a particular girl for about 2 years now.  During that time, I have dated 8 different girls.  Even though I became emotionally involved in most of these relationships (note that I did not say "all"), I reserved myself to a large extent for this girl.  While that may be dooming every other relationship since I will not give all of myself to them, I like to look forward to the day that she will cave in.  Moral of the story: persistence and stubborness pay off.  Just wait and see.

Now, it's time for bed.
Ahora, es el tiempo para dormir.  Voy a ir hasta manana.  En la noche de la manana, voy a escribir en mi Phusebox otra vez.  Hasta luego.

Calculus is dead.  Long live calculus!

...actually, let us leave it dead.  I finished up fairly well; I won't get my grade on the final until August 11, but as long as I make a 70 or above, I will have an A in the class.  So I'm thinking I'll have an A in the class.

As for everything else...I'm living and breathing, and, unfortunately, going home to Memphis at the end of this week.  Ah, well...I'll have to try to enjoy myself for the rest of the week.  It shouldn't be hard.  We've only got 1 SOAR.  Woo-hoo...

Well, I took a few more quizzes today, then decided to take the next test, which turned out to be the hardest test I've ever taken.  ACT?  Nothing.  MCAT?  No sweat.  Test 3?  Wow.  2 and a half hours of wow.  Thank God for the Rice Krispy treats in Connie's office.  Otherwise I would have collapsed an hour ago.  Anyway, back to work.

Well, I've been working/hanging out at the Honors program office for about a month now, and I'm beginning to comprehend the fact that I will be leaving here in a week and a half.  It's really sad.  What's going to end up happening is I'll wake up at 6 am in my bed in Memphis, and, after figuring out where I am, try to figure out what I'm going to do now that I'm up.  I'll probably end up waking everyone else as I get groomed and dressed, then head out the door to search the local job market.  I'll most likely end up working at Kroger's or the donut shop.

The time I went home before last, my dad, brother, and I smoked some Cuban cigars.  During that same trip, I had a CAO MX2 (my personal favorite) as well.  The last time I went home, my dad and I had some Bolivar cigars (pretty good, but not as nice as the MX2 or the Montecristo).  So, sitting around up here in Cookeville, I decided I'd like to have a cigar.  Unfortunately, gas stations here carry Swisher Sweets, Phillie Blunts, and an assortment of little rinky-dink things.  The tobacco shops I've found carry the same, plus a few CAO and Baccarats.  That wouldn't be so bad, except for the fact that these places have no idea how to keep cigars, so they're all drier than hell.  Or perhaps "dryer" is the right word.  Anyway, Hell has more moisture than these cigars, which means that they don't smoke very well at all.  So I've resorted back to my old-time cigar: the Chocolate Aroma Phillie Blunt (or Chocolate Phillie).  I mean, it's not as bad as it could be - after all, Black&Milds are sold in the gas stations (see "little rinky-dink things"), but my Cigar Walks with Jesus just aren't as nifty as they were when I took an MX2 with me.  Ah, well...as I said, it could be worse.

I've been taking this calculus course online; when I finish it, I will be able to substitute my grade for this course for my previous calculus grade.  I've determined that, if I get an A in this course, my cumulative GPA will be 3.56, which will not only let me keep all of my scholarships, but will also make me a full member of the Honors program again.  Yippee!  Of course, in the highly unlikely event that I make a D in the class, I'll have a 3.1 or so, which will still keep my scholarships, but that's beside the point.  My grades thus far:

Quiz_00          100.00
HW 1              100.00
Quiz_1_1         90.00
Quiz_1_2        100.00
Quiz_1_3        100.00
Test 1              100.00
Quiz_2_3        100.00
Quiz_2_3_2     100.00
Quiz_2_5        100.00
Quiz_2_6         100.00
Test 2              102.00
HW 2              100.00
Quiz_3_1         100.00
Quiz_3_2         78.00

Aside from Quiz 3.2, I'm doing very well, I should think.  And I'll get that one back.  Anyway, time to get going.

 

Took this quiz and was frightened by the results...but I suppose it should have been expected:

Percent
Rank
Item




(100%) 1: Congregational/United Church of Christ




(94%) 2: Baptist (Reformed/Particular/Calvinistic)




(93%) 3: Presbyterian/Reformed




(78%) 4: Anglican/Episcopal/Church of England




(70%) 5: Methodist/Wesleyan/Nazarene




(66%) 6: Baptist (non-Calvinistic)/Plymouth Brethren/Fundamentalist




(66%) 7: Lutheran




(66%) 8: Pentecostal/Charismatic/Assemblies of God




(63%) 9: Eastern Orthodox




(63%) 10: Seventh-Day Adventist




(45%) 11: Anabaptist (Mennonite/Quaker etc.)




(41%) 12: Church of Christ/Campbellite




(40%) 13: Roman Catholic

Well, I've gone and done it now.  What it is I've done I don't know, but I do know that I have done it.  Anyway, things are going good.  Singing at church went just about perfectly (it was perfect until the end when I screwed up pretty bad).  But looking on the bright side, I've been screwing around with some different programs which I have on my computer and have managed to be able to record musical accompaniment directly off of my computer so that I don't even have to use a real piano.  Problem is, it doesn't sound natural...I mean, the audio does, in fact, sound like a piano, but it is too rigid/mechanical.  It sounds like someone has got the sheet music right in front of them and is making sure to play every note exactly right without giving thought to the idea of making it sound as if there is some feeling behind the notes.  Now, don't get me wrong...I'm not too elitist, and I'm not black, but music has got to have a little soul.  Anyway, time to start getting everything cleaned up here.

Taking a break for the moment to update a Phusebox forsaken for nearly a week.  What's happened in the past week?  I've come back to Cookeville, worked, worked, watched some American Idol, watched some Stargate, hung out with some friends, hung out with a Destroyer of Worlds, broken up with a girl, gotten my packages in the mail, begun recording, rewrote a song for the umpteenth time, gotten scheduled to sing said song at church, and eaten a lot of different kinds of food.  Eventually, I shall cook my own food and eat it and enjoy it, no matter how terrible it tastes.

I sigh a lot...

Sometimes, I get very frustrated with stupid people.  I like to classify stupid people into three different categories - Religious, Anti-religious, and Everyone Else.  Let me give an example.  The Da Vinci Code movie is coming out soon.  The Religious Stupid People (RSP) are bitching because it's "heretical" or "Satan-worship" or something else to that effect.  The Anti-religious Stupid People (ASP) make claims such as "this disproves Christianity."  The Everyone Else Stupid People (EESP) say things like "That's why we don't even need to bother about religion."  Meanwhile, the others who are not stupid (OWNS) say "That movie looks interesting" or "That movie does not look interesting" or something else like that.  Basically, what I'm bitching about here, is that every single piece of popular media that comes out, be it book, movie, music, or something else, is always viewed as an attack on something.  I could write a book called "Love is a good thing" containing one page saying "Love is a good thing." and I guarantee that someone would bitch about it.  It's just moronic that everything has to be used in argument.  Bleh.

On a side note, I'm having one of those three-party internal conflicts.  I just love trying to resolve my destiny, don't you?

I found out why there were volume and buzz problems with my song - I just had a little crappy copy that didn't have any of the changes which I had made.  So, basically, it's just a straight copy of what I had sung.  Poo.  Hopefully, my stuff will be waiting at the TTU PO for me...I don't know how many times I've said that, but I'm going to keep saying it.

Chris lost.  My life is over...just kidding...but still, that was moronic.  Idiotic.  Ignoramical.  Enfuriatingly pathetic!  I mean, look at the facial expressions of Katharine, Chris, Taylor, Elliot, Simon, Randy, Paula, and Ryan.  Even Ryan himself seemed to hate himself for having to say it.  I can only hope to God that someone signs Chris to a recording contract.  In my own, always very humble opinion, he deserved to win American Idol by a long shot.  But, as usual, Americans prove their idiocy and inability to differentiate art from feces by projecting the unbelievably sub-par Elliot and Taylor into the next round, while leaving Chris, the true star, out to dry.

On a brighter note, I finished a song today.  Things didn't turn out on it as well as I had hoped...I'm a little pitchy, I get out of time every now and then, and there's about 20% of the buzz still in the final version.  But, when compared to what I had before (a.k.a. nothing, nada, nil, zilch), it's something.  And it was fun to do, at the very least.

You know those really bone-headed mistakes you make?  You know, the ones that you really should not have made, but you did anyway through carelessness or something similar?  Yeah, I just realized I have made one.  Somehow, with my indiscriminate spending, I forgot about paying $25 for gas last week, which normally wouldn't be a big deal, except that I had thought I would be spending the same $25 on gas to get back to Cookeville.  As it is, I have only $10 in my checking account now, but I've got about $100 waiting for me in Cookeville when I get back.  Most likely, I can get some money from Mom for gas, but I hate asking for money.  Ah, well...it'll make her happy that I'm opening up about my needs (or something like that...)

On the other hand, I've been screwing around with this sound-editing software and my old mic, as my new one is probably sitting in the TTU post office.  Anyway, by messing with different compression settings in the program, I have been able to amplify my voice without getting any of that nasty background buzz (you may know the sound...if you turn up a speaker too loud without any noise, or with a small noise, there's that buzz), thereby eradicating two flying vertebrates with one object of considerable density.  Only problem is I've been playing with it at, oh, 2 a.m., so I've been unable to give any volume to my singing.  As a result, I've had to hold the mic close to my mouth, thus giving my recordings those nice little bursts of breath whenever I pronounce a hard consonant.  Now, tomorrow, when I've got some free time, I'm going to sing into the mic from a greater distance with more volume.  The volume should be better than before, eradicating even more obnoxious buzz (I've gotten about 90% out already - this should kick it up to 95+%) and the irritating puh's and cuh's and stuh's and fuh's.  Result?  A semi-decent recording of me singing.  Then I can bitch about my tone and let people hear it and give me advice.  Anyway, I'm heading to bed.  Later.

Yeah, I haven't had a dream in a few weeks now, but I just did.  This dream could have sucked really bad, but everything turned out alright.  I was on American Idol and had already sung a song, kicking butt on it, I might add.  Later on, they had another song for me, a song which I did not know in the least.  I cast about, looking for someone who knew the song and could help me, and the only one (God only knows what he was doing behind the curtain just off the stage) was Josh Morgan, who looked scared as piss.  But he came out and sang the first verse and chorus, then I did the second and chorus, and the crowd was ecstatic.  I would have liked to have known what Simon would have said about that little incident, but I woke up too soon.

It's been a tumultous visit thus far, resulting in three members of my family in tears.  We're going to go pick Jason up at the airport in a bit, so that will probably kick the grand total of tear-shedders to four or five.  Things are good, though.  Dad still wants to have nice long, loud talks with me, but, on the bright side, he bought three of the Sopranos cigars (for him, Jason, and me).  I'm looking forward to them; the company that makes them (CAO) also makes my most absolutest favoritest cigar in the world: the MX2.  Anyway, I've gotta get dressed and join the family...maybe we can get some shouting out of the way before Jason gets here.  I'm really looking forward to seeing him again.

Jonathan Andrew Wood

Spring 2006



Section

Course Title

Midterm
Grade

Final
Grade

Attempted
Hours

Earned
Hours

Quality
Hours

Quality
Points

GPA

SPCH-2410-800 
Intro to Speech Communication 
S 
A  
3.00 
3.00 
3.00 
12.00 
 

HON -2012-001 
Self Esteem 
 
A  
2.00 
2.00 
2.00 
8.00 
 

HON -4013-001 
Colloquium 
 
A  
3.00 
3.00 
3.00 
12.00 
 

HON -4013-002 
Colloquium 
 
A  
3.00 
3.00 
3.00 
12.00 
 

PSY -2010-002 
General Psychology 
S 
B  
3.00 
3.00 
3.00 
9.00 
 

HON -2071-001 
Special Topics 
 
A  
1.00 
1.00 
1.00 
4.00 
 


Current Term
15.00 
15.00 
57.00 
3.800


HE Cum Stats THRU Fall 2006
32.00 
27.00 
80.00 
2.963


Dean's List

That seems to be a large improvement over last years...I kind of doubled the semester GPA.  And with Calc I this summer, I'll have the UAS back, no problem.  Now, time to pack up.

I took 6 classes this semester for a total of 15 hours.  So far, I have the grades for 4 of these classes, which is 9 hours worth.  All A's.  Boo-yah.  Of course, these are not the classes which I was worried about, but it still feels nice to have those A's.  The way everything is averaging out now, even if I failed Latin and General Psych (both of which are impossibilities), I'd still have a higher GPA than last semester.  Yay!

Well, Allison and I were able to talk again before she headed to bed, and we're cool now, which makes me happy.

I was sleeping.  I got to sleep and I was happy to be going to bed early.  But the phone rang and woke me up - my parents had gotten me an exam week care package that I had to pick up.  So after 25 minutes of scouring the campus and asking random Reslife workers, I got my box.  Naturally, being the doofus I am, I called my parents to thank them.  Dad picked up and I thanked him.  But then the conversation went sour and stayed that way.  After we got off the phone, I called home again and got Mom; same deal.  Meanwhile, I'm wondering why this is happening.  It's exam week, so to help me stay focused and prepared, my parents give me the most depressing half hour of my life, talking about how I should have done this or that, how Jason would have done better, how I would never do anything if they didn't bring it up first.  Allison was there, thank God, and I actually cried into her shoulder.  I do not do that.

Bright side - I've got seven songs done.  I should hopefully be getting my mic and software this week, so I can start learning the way things work and, hopefully, be recording in a few weeks.  It will be abysmally low quality at best, but it'll give me something to play with.  I mean, honestly, who am I kidding?  The best I'll ever make with anything musical is to just play around and sing in small churches.  God gave me a gift there, but it's not a very big one.

I'm just in an all-around pissy mood.  I hurt Allison's feelings (yay, me!), I'm losing what little drive/motivation I had accumulated over the past few weeks...it's as if, once again, my world is crashing down around me.  So I turn to God and say "WTF?"  God turns to me and says, "FU!"  And I drink some water and go to bed.

It's fun to be stupid, so I decided to be so.  I got onto EBay today and bought a microphone for $.01, then started bidding on a piece of recording/editing/mixing software at $.99.  Unless someone else decides to bid against me, I should be expecting the prize sometime next week.  Otherwise, I can just buy the software for about $10.  Still not too expensive.  After buying all of this, it will rot in my closet for the next few years before I sell it all at a yard sale for a few bucks.

What have I been up to?  Everything.  My GPA last semester was 1.9, so
I needed a 4.0 this semester in order to maintain my scholarships.  Let
me tell you, 4.0 with 15 hours is not easy.  Anyway, it got down to the
wire when I found out that, due to my test grades in my Psych class, I
would have a B.  Normally, not a downer, but the fact that a $5k/yr
scholarship was resting on it kind of pooped everything else up.  So I
started going down the list of options.  I tried bargaining for extra
credit - no dice.  Apparently 58 hours of psychological research is not
sufficient for ec.  Anyway, after that, I went for a special extra
probationary semester next semester to get my GPA up by retaking the
class I failed.


You know, it kind of sucks that one class that is unrelated to my major put me in this situation, but whatever.


The mystical "Committee" turned down my request for a probationary
semester.  So then what would I do?  I begged the professor for extra
credit.  No dice, once again.  I looked into various ways to gain the
grade through special examination (which my advisor bungled up by
feeding me info for the CLEP stuff...and mom and dad wonder why I don't
like asking her for help - she also told me to give up and get a job). 
So, yeah, I was down to the line - seek gainful employment with the
University for free hours, or start paying a crapload of money. 
Naturally, I opted for the third option - find another way to retain my
scholarship.  I went to the Honors director, Connie, and asked her if
it would be possible to take a summer course as a retake and have it
count for the 2005-2006 academic year.  She said I could and suggested
I talk to Kathy, the Scholarship coordinator about it.  The next day,
mom and dad suggested I find out if this thing would be possible. 
Luckily, I was already on it.  So I talked to Kathy on Monday and she
told me to get a letter from Connie.  Unluckily, the two busiest days
of the semester were this past Sunday and Monday because of the Honors
SOAR (Student Orientation, Advisement, and Registration), so everyone
of status in Honors were working our butts off on that stuff.  In a
brief reprieve, I threw a letter together and passed it by Connie, much
to everyone else's chagrin - they thought I should wait, but I've been
testy lately, so waiting was not an option.  She checked it out and
said to have it sent as a memo, but not to turn it in until Tuesday. 
Naturally, I turned it in on Monday and had it sent then.


So now it's Tuesday.  Kathy emailed me this:



Jonathan,

Your initial request on your University Exception was to extend your probationary period to include Fall 2007. This request was denied.  However, we will allow you to retake your Calculus I class that you failed
Fall 2005 during the summer 2006.  If by the time Fall 2006 semester begins and you have brought your cumulative grade point average to a 3.0, we will reinstate your University Academic Scholarship for Fall 2006-2007.

Please stop by my office sometime this week so that we may discuss this in person.

If you have additional questions, please let me know!

So there you have it!  I'm taking Calc this summer,
hopefully online, but otherwise I'll be up here all summer.  We'll see
what happens.  Either way, I'm getting that fucking average up and keeping that scholarship.  As a friend of mine said, "They should just give
it to you for bugging them about it for this long."