July 19, 2004
I Say It's All Like Cellophane
I am now at livejournal most of the time, contact me if you want the info, but if I have never heard of you before or seen you post, I have trust issues that turned out to be more well-foudned than I care for. This is a copy of what is printed there for today.
Two big exciting things of the day:
1. I found out my STRIDE research project is going to be with Professor DiBartolo, who will also be my pre-major advisor at Smith. The project looks at perfectionism in children, a quality often found in gifted children. I am an advocate for gifted education and I am fascinated with how being gifted affects one life because I was a gifted brat once upon a time. I am not sure when I was supposed to find out, but my being an administrative derelict finally paid off, because while sorting out getting things sent to me, the guy told me what I would be doing. It never hurts to ask, I learned this during the Syracuse scholarship competition; at the end, when I wanted to know who else won the scholarship, I asked and was told. Life can be so wonderfully simple sometimes. Gah, I cannot believe I got my number one choice.
The only kind of awkward thing was getting the guy off of the phone. I kept on thinking that we were finished and said "Well, thanks," at least five times. We were not finished.
Now for the lovely description of my project:
"Perfectionism, or the tendency to engage in overly critical self-evaluation while setting very high standards for performance, is linked with an increased risk for a variety of psychological problems, including depression, anxiety disorder, and eating disorders. My recent research focuses ont eh development of perfectionism in elementary school children (does it exist? how does it affect children? how does it relate to parenting practices?)...Once they have learned the basic research skills involve din this field, teh STRIDE student would help to conduct her own project, growing out of hte programmatic work that we are doing on perfectionism."
2. My AP scores finally arrived and several of them were quite surprising.
AP CALCULUS AB - 5 ~~~~I could not believe this score because I did not even know how to do one of the free response questions. Maybe I guessed some stuff correctly, or maybe no one else knew anything either. I am not questioning it, I am just relieved and happy. It does not matter much at Smith, but it will make me feel more confident about going up to a slightly higher beginning Calculus class to actually learn things. I actually like Calculus most of the time, so it should all be for the best.
AP EUROPEAN HISTORY - 4 ~~~~A tiny bit disappointed in this score, but at the same time not because I did not study for this test like I should have. I was so focused on Biology that this often fell to the wayside; I did some practice multiple choice questions outside of class, but mostly my prep work was assigned and that seems to hurt me with these tests. This one matters even less because I do not think there is any beginning class to get out of. I also have a 4 in US History to sit on from sophomore year.
AP BIOLOGY - 5 ~~~~This is HUGE. This class was my extra-challenge for the whole year because I am not a science person. I worked my ass of, though, as much as I could, though I still insist that some of my grades were overly generous. And fictional. But no looking gift horses in mouths and all of that. I followed the advice of someone who took the test last year. She had a B- in the class for most of the time, but she read Cliff Notes cover to cover twice and pulled out a 5. Maybe it sounds like a lot of work to read it two times through, but I did it and I owe that company a bouquet of flowers. Some of the other kids in my classes must have received 6s...
Then work at the club was not bad, the most adorable little girl had a great time playing with my sunglasses and meanwhile looking much better in them than I do.
Now I can only bitch about the mail man not bringing me my new forms to fill out and my housing assignment, which I was told was sent out Friday (not on the 15th like we were told it would happen!!!). I think the guy on the phone might have even been saying/hinting at it so I would ask him about that too, but I figured finding out about STRIDE was enough and honestly, more important. I can adjust to almost any living situation, but this is so much more exciting.
I will continue to bitch about not receiving this stuff anyway, however.