30 September 2011

cambodia blog

read it

www.khmerjessica.wordpress.com

my new place

A lot of my friends moved in to new houses and apartments this semester, and I was no different. This is where I live:


my bed//knyom lee

my a/c // knyom air con

my sink area

my a/c controller and outlets that don't require an adapter

my western toilet with complimentary toilet paper

my shower

my ride

my address

the rest of the house

my street
home sweet home

23 September 2011

grad school make me mad skool

So, I don't have much to do here for the next 10 days because the kids are on holiday. This hasn't been a problem for me because I've been taking it easy, maybe too easy. I take a lot of time getting ready for the day and getting ready for bed. I take nice walks around the neighborhood taking pictures of people and trying out new foods, cautiously of course. I'm also at the internet cafe for a good chunk of time but doing productive things like . . . blogging . . . and researching grad schools and filling in applications and writing essays. Well, I knew all this alone time would catch up to me and I'm actually starting to feel the tiniest bit lonely. I'm also starting to wonder how I possibly graduated from BYU so much earlier than a lot of my friends. I guess I've just been pondering what I did at BYU and what I'm supposed to do for grad school.
For some reason, I feel guilty about not doing some things in my undergrad:
  • I never took a political science class because I don't like politics and I don't particularly like defending my opinion
  • I wish I had taken more Italian classes since, after all, I'm technically a "linguist."
  • I should have tried out more elective courses like a film class. Astronomy? Wilderness survival?
  • Why didn't I do more internships?
Ok, so I'm feeling down. The rainy day doesn't help, either.

Last night, I had this discussion with myself asking if I had taken the easy way out. I switched from Communication Disorders to Linguistics my sophomore year. Basically, I didn't like my classes nor my classmates very much in CommD, so I attended a linguistics course and decided it was more dynamic and a better learning environment for me. It really was, but I wanted to be a speech pathologist every since high school. Did I quit speech path just because it was getting hard and a little bit unbearable? I really did enjoy every linguistics class though, and I made good friends and had good study partners. Also, my teachers were crazy. In one class, our final was to present a poster on the term paper we had written, but I really didn't feel like making a poster so I made a cake instead and still got an A because my teachers valued "interpretation of language." The point is, despite the fun I've had in linguistics, I can't do anything with a bachelor's in it, not even a master's.

Luckily, I did an editing minor, which I can do a lot with. My current plan is to go to grad school for journalism in the magazine editing and designing field. I suppose grad school is to make up for our guilt (there's probably a better word for it than guilt) of undergrad. A lot of courses in the grad program are designed around ethics and politics, so political science--check. I'll just use my mum's Rosetta Stone for Italian, Italian--check. And I'll interview astronomers and wilderness survival kids for beats and stories, electives--check. And I'll have to do an internship before I can get accepted, most likely, internship--check.

I still might change my mind, though.