Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Campus Visit

As I mentioned in my last post, I actually motorcycled down to campus to not only speak with the "IT specialist" but also my class instructor.
Now, seeing as I work full-time, it is exceedingly difficult to find the time to "just zip on down" to campus, so yesterday was a rare treat.

But don't think that this post is about complaints. Yesterday's visit was actually wonderful, and very invigorating! I actually always feel chipper and excited after speaking with my instructors. They're so kind and willing to explain everything in great detail.

My first order of business was to speak with the IT specialist about getting some forms of punctuation properly entered into my Total Eclipse dictionary so that it would display properly. I find it very useful to have all my keystrokes enter correctly through the Total Eclipse's realtime program, so that I can easily glance up and see if something wasn't stroked the right way.
Even though I got to clean up a few things, Aaron (the IT guy) eventually informed me that it's actually not worth my time to groom my dictionary too meticulously this early in my studies. This was quite eyeopening for me, and I felt a little thwarted that I'd come all the way down for this, only to be told that my efforts were in vain. And by "vain," I mean there was little real substance to justify wanting to clean up my dictionary too much.
The worse bit was when he bluntly stated, "If you obsess about your dictionary at this point, you'll soon become frustrated and drop out."
That really stung, and I bristled at the words "drop out."
Hearing that just makes me want to prove them wrong so badly.

The visit wasn't a total loss, however. I did get to have my quizzes graded in front of me, while I chatted with a fellow student. This student's name is Lauren and she shared some useful tips for studying and motivation! It was a pleasure to talk with her, as it reminded me that there are others clambering through the same lessons as myself, with similar frustrations and exaltations.

Turns out that I have received 99%-100% on all of my quizzes thus far (although lesson 5 seems to have gone missing for some reason...)!
And the instructor noted that she appreciated my thoroughly written-up quizzes where I note my own mistakes and methods for fixing them. She said she liked being able to see my "thought processes," and also noted that I ask insightful questions. (squeal!)
In fact, being able to have an instructor right there in front of me made it that much easier to ask questions and get answers nearly instantaneously! I'll be spoiled!

The visit also sparked the topic of my commuting down to class at the start of April.
I'll get more into this later on...

As for my lesson progress... Just this morning, I watched through the lesson 16 video, and am pumped and primed to tackle the exercises and quiz later tonight!

Current Lesson - Lesson 16

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