Feeling the Pressure

I have barely left my room all weekend because of all the loads of school work I have to do. I am pleased to say that my portfolio which is due Tuesday was finished last Thursday, so I'm actually ahead of the game on that. Tomorrow, I have to turn in a take home final for my Educational Psychology Class. It's not that difficult, really. I just don't want to go through all the trouble of writing the damn thing. But, it is something that I must do.

I originally had an assignment due this Wednesday, the 14th, for my Methods of Teaching Social Sciences class (that's the class I ranted about earlier this semester) but my professor cancelled that assignment, so I don't have to worry about it.

What I am worried about, however, is my portfolio for my stupid SED 514 class, Computers in Instruction. I hate this class. I think that, in my entire academic career, there has never been a class that I have hated this much. Not because it's difficult. Quite the opposite, actually. It's just this stupid class that teaches people who have never been on a computer in their life how to use it. Unfortunately, there is no way to test out of the class, and everybody has to take it. Anyway, the reason the class bothers me so much is that it's so arduous. There are ten assignments in the class, and each one can take up to four hours to do. Again, they are not difficult at all...just a real pain in the ass. I hate this class more than I hate Corey Haim. Anyway, being the procrastinator that I am, I've still got about four of these assignments left to do before May 21. Granted, that's plenty of time. I just don't fucking want to do them.

Oh well...complaining about it won't change the fact that I have to do them. To make matters worse, next Saturday I have to take the CSET so that I can start student teaching in the fall. It's this really long pain in the ass exam. They used to require people to take the PRAXIS, but the state created their own exam and replaced the PRAXIS with that. It takes like six hours...from everything I've heard, it leaves you completely exhausted at the end of it.

Last Friday I went to do a classroom observation for a tenth grade World History class at John Burroughs High School in Burbank. Essentially, it was a little peek into my future. It's a new classroom, and I was amazed at the amount of technology available to the students. The students were giving Power Point presentations...I'm not even sure there was such a thing as Power Point when I was in high school. Anyway, as I was watching their presentation, it occurred to me how irritating all these classes I have to take at CSUN are. I mean...why not just let me do it? Do I really have to take Computers for Morons in order to be able to teach in the classroom? Seems like a better way to train teachers would be a supervised practicuum that actually takes place in the classroom rather than sitting around in a class discussing all this bullshit theory about how people learn. There's something to be said for trial by fire.

At any rate, as I'm sure you know, today is Mother's Day. I've got to call my mother at some point. Last year, on my blog, I think I bemoaned the whole idea of Mother's Day. As I said then, it's not that I mind calling my mom. In fact, I rather like calling my mom at times. I just hate HAVING to call my mom because Hallmark tells me that this is the day that everybody must call their mom and if I don't call my mom on this exact day then I am a horrible son because they are Hallmark and they say that this is the most important day on which to call your mom.

I'm just waiting for the part where I get an e-mail from my dad admonishing me for not calling her yet, even though it's only 11 am in Hawaii.