Tag Archive for 'spanish'

Happy Birthday to the GROUND!

Published by Alexzandria Siprian on March 1, 2011 in Alexzandria. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Hola todos! (Hello, everybody!)

Not too long ago, I received an email from my Spanish adviser in the form of PowerPoint that said something along the lines of: “Class registration is right around the corner!! Schedule an appointment with me so you won’t end up like this guy!!” (There was a picture of a man that was jumping around yelling…I think it’s really a picture of a film director that was yelling “ACTION!” or something, but we’ll pretend like it’s a student shouting in anguish due to procrastination.) And I thought to myself, “Yeeessss….I love this part.” Call me a weirdo, but I really get a kick out of scheduling my classes. Anyway, I figure since it’s about that time, I ought to make a blog about it. Here are some pointers when it comes to scheduling classes in college.

1. Don’t assume that your eligible day to register is the same as the official registration date.

Like I said, I enjoy scheduling my classes, so last semester I had my schedule planned out and set up in my “enrollment shopping cart” (get it?) even before the official registration date. However…I am but a puny sophomore, therefore I don’t get to register for my classes until a week or two after the upper classmen. (Did I mention we have about 33,788 students at UTA?) The day I got on my MyMav (kind of like UTA’s Facebook for scheduling/financial aid/school announcements) to register, I found that I wasn’t going to be taking astronomy this semester. :| There’s no pointer for this one; there’s nothing you can really do about that, just…just….yeah.

2. If you depend on financial aid, sign up for at least 15 hours.

Chances are, you’ll be taking College Algebra with some old coot who teaches you approximately NOTHING the entire semester, and you don’t want to ruin your GPA, so let’s go ahead and just drop this class – OHH, wait. You only have 12 hours. Drop down to less than full-time, lose financial aid. If you start off with one more class worth 3 credits, you’ll have room for error.

3. Look at the dates!

When you’re getting ready to schedule your classes for the next semester: WATCH OUT FOR THE DATES! Maymesters, Wintermesters, and Summer Sessions are all mixed in with the next big semester’s classes on the catalog. Keep an eye out! Otherwise, you’ll find out 5 days after Christmas that the entire winter break, you’ve been enrolled in College Algebra and your final exam is the next day. It happens.

4. Avoid Overscheduling.

Just because you’ll only be taking classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays doesn’t mean you’ll be studying all day on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Especially if you have a job. No, you won’t have any spare time, and YES. You WILL become the most lazy person in the world. You’ll have 5 classes in one day. You’ll have class from 8am to 7pm. You’ll overlook the day of your birthday and have classes all day that day and won’t be able to do anything for your birthday besides convince your Spanish class to sing “Feliz cumpleaños” to you as a practice in pronunciation. Nope, not even free pancakes at IHop. Because that ends at 10pm and you bombed your last exam in Statistics, so you’ve got to do corrections so you can get those 5 extra points to get your grade up to an F+. *sigh*…

5. Schedule with friends.

Don’t try and fly solo, man! Get some of your friends to take a class with you. That way, when your birthday comes around, you can have someone to copy notes from. Trust me, it’s genius.

Is today my birthday? Yes. Did I have class all day? Yes, and still one more to go. Did all of the other things talked about in this entry happen to me? ….We won’t go there.

Razzle dazzle, man. Razzle dazzle.

-Alexz

“Remember my name. Fame!”

Published by Alexzandria Siprian on May 3, 2010 in Alexzandria. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! BOYS AND GIRLS! FACULTY AND STAFF! REAL STUDENTS AND FAKE STUDENTS!!!

Guess what!

I’M FAMOUS!! :D I was tooootally in the Shorthorn today! My picture was pretty decently sized, if I do say so myself! It was for the talent show that I was in last night. Trinity House put on a talent show just for fun. There were cool door prizes and stuff. And prizes for the winners. I performed a monologue that I recently wrote about a family issue that I was recently informed about. And just in case you were wondering, noooo I didn’t win. Haha. But that’s okay because my voice was heard! :D Anywho, I was in the Shorthorn! [voice of the little chihuahua on Oliver and Comany] Check it ooouuut:

And they even spelled my name right! WOOHOO!

On another note…one that is not quite as exciting as making the UTA paper…one that is on the other end of the emotional spectrum…depressing…My life has been overtaken by HISTORY. Ugghh….I was stressed when my life was overtaken by the musical, but at least I had fun doing that! Now, my life is consumed by HISTORY!! I was THIS! CLOSE! To giving up the other day…THIS CLOSE!! |- -| I had already decided that I was just going to accept failure and do grade exclusion next semester. But I have great friends! And they all pushed me to keep trying. Even the general advisor here in Davis Hall told me I should do what I can and if I fail, then at least I’ll know that I didn’t give up. Caitlyn told me that too. ::sigh:: I am so blessed! :)

So, Sophia [an Admissions Counselor here in our office - the New Student Welcome Center] apparently got a new camera or something. Haha. She’s been going all paparazzi on us today. She took a picture of us while we were putting together the GAJILLION packets that we’ve been putting together for kids in the area. 12,000 packets. If I could caps lock numbers, I would repeat myself in caps. Or I could do this: TWELVE THOUSAND packets! I think we’ve just about rounded up to 5,000. It’s quite painstaking. But, it will definitely be worth it. These packets have specific Spanish translations on one side of them. Things like this are so important to me. I know that there are people here who are trying to make a better life for their kids and struggle with English. It’s not that they’re dumb, because they’re not. They’re intelligent people. Imagine yourself going over to Israel only knowing how to speak/read English. You would suddenly become illiterate. It’s a struggle, and I personally know people who face it. That’s why I’m so passionate about it. ANYWHO! Off of the soap box with me…Haha. Here’s a pic that Sophia took of me and Harrison [a new hire who I've been friends with since last semester.] blogpic-1.jpg picture by sippysiip See those boxes in the back? Yeah, those are the packets that we’ve done so far….aaahhh!!

Well, that’s all for today! :)

As my soccer prof/coach says: “Keep the Samba in life and soccer!”

:) Alexz

[Title quote source: Fame (the musical) "I'm gonna live forever!"]

“That was actually pretty cool, what you just did…”

Published by Alexzandria Siprian on April 26, 2010 in Alexzandria. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

WOOHHOOO!!!

I had a super-long weekend….guess what I was doing….

STUDYING!!!

“Whaaaaat?? Alexz studies??”

Yeah, that’s right! I studied aaallll weekend. I even skipped a super-awesome concert with super-awesome artists including David Crowder and Francesca Battistelli! I did go to Maverick Mania on Saturday, though, and I got to show one of my bestest friends in the whole wide world [Grace Minor] how awesome UTA is. She’s coming here next year, and she and I and Caitlyn are getting an apartment together! Woohoo! Anyway, back to studying. I studied every day this weekend. I was a little more lenient on Friday so I could kind of have a break from the week. Anywho, here’s what I got accomplished:

I wrote a rough draft for my book review in History.

I started and finished my Spanish lab work which most people do a little bit every day to not take forever.

I read two chapters for a History quiz [big deal for me, because it takes me forever to read! Not because I can't read, but because I'm easily distracted. Ha.]

I wrote a character analysis for my Acting class.

And I studied for a test in Spanish! [Which I'm pretty sure I beasted on.]

Quite a productive weekend, no? :) I feel great about it.

ANYWAY…If there were a moral to this story, it would be this: College is nothing like high school, as far as studying goes. Reading is required. You have to study to do well.  It is time consuming. It is your purpose as a student.

That’s all for now. :)

-Alexz

[By the way...I got the title for this blog from Night At The Museum 2. Watch iiiit. :) ]

The Z Files.

Published by Alexzandria Siprian on March 26, 2010 in Alexzandria. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

(Titled by anonymous. [Mr. Kenne Evans])

Hello people of America! …and the rest of the world! Spain, Australia….Iceland.

So, last week was spring break. Woohoo! My spring break was, in a word, LEGIT. I was waaay homesick before spring break, because I hadn’t been home since winter break. So, while others were going to Padre Island and Galveston, I went to my simple small town of Temple/Holland/Bartlett, TX. It was great! I won’t go into too much detail about the events of the week, because that would take forever (especially since I tend to go off on tangents and I, for some reason, feel like I need to tell every detail of every story – like the set-up and everything). However, I will mention that due to my awesome spring break, I have been hoarse for almost 2 weeks now. It was that epic.

Anyway! So, the Friday before spring break, I took a midterm in my History class. Let’s just say I was pretty much depending on it for my grade in the class. I got the test back yesterday and found out that I made a B-!!! Heck. Yes. Ooh! Also, I took a midterm in my Spanish class the week before spring break. I got my test back yesterday. Wanna guess what I made on it? I’ll give you a moment…

……………….. . . . . .  .  .  .  .   .   .   .   .    .    .    .    .     .     .     .     .      .      .       .       .        .          .        .

I made….a 100!!!! Can you believe that?! WOOHOO!!!! I’m telling you, the only thing that helped me maintain my composure when I saw my grade was the fact that it was 8:13ish in the morning and…well, need I say more? Anywho, it pretty much made my LIFE. The sad thing is that I’m making a B in that class. After class yesterday, my professor was sure to give me a pep-talk about my potential in the class and that he knows it’s early, but I need to wake up earlier so that….wom wom wom wom wom wom wom….haha jk. I really took everything he said to heart. I’m too good with Spanish to make anything less than an A. So, I’m going to step up my game!

Next topic on the Alexz’s Super-Awesome Blog-Show…

I HAVE DECLARED MY MAJOR!! I am officially a Spanish major! I can’t tell you how cool I felt yesterday when I got interviewed after watching politician Jeffrey Toobin (who, by the way, should run for president. I’d vote for him, and I don’t even like politics!). When asked, “What’s your major?” I almost said, “Undeclared” because I was so used to it! However, I did, in fact, although it was at the last minute, remember to say “Spanish”. I felt like a brand new woman. NOT. But I did feel cool. Haha.

I think I’ll end this blog with a quote that was spoken about 30 seconds ago.

“I’ll look good in anything!” – Admissions Counselor Kenne Evans

Complete.