Back For a Second Round

Well, I survived. I made it through my first semester as a full time college student, and now I'm back. I am definitely excited about the new opportunities of this semester. In fact, it's really really nice to be starting the semester with an identity. When I first showed up, I was either "Jacqueline's brother" or "the 16 year old." Now, I actually have a name and a few friends, which is quite beneficial. 

This semester is going to be different though. I have 18 hours of classes, which is the same as last semester except they are all on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Then since I don't have any Tuesday-Thursday classes, I should hopefully be getting a job soon. So, my class schedule for this semester is as follows:

MWF 8:00-8:55 AM - Basic English Composition

MWF 9:00-9:55 AM - U.S History (Second Semester....I didn't fail)

MWF 1o:00-10:45 AM- Chapel

MWF 11:00-11:55 AM - New Testament Survey: Gospels and Acts

MWF 12:00-12:55 PM - Evangelism and Discipleship

MW 1:30-3:00 PM - College Choir (The official choir of FWBBC that travels to different churches to perform and brainwash influence high school students to attend FWBBC)

M 7:00-8:30 PM - Choral Union (The group that sings at Christmas on Richland and performs the Spring Musical - Which happens to be "The Sound of Music" this year)

W 3:00 - 4:00 PM - Chapel Choir (The choir that focuses on the basics of choral singing and performs in chapel once a month)

F ????????????? - College Algebra (This class changed days and times so the time on my schedule isn't right and I really have no idea what time it is)

That's my schedule....add a 6-10 campus job and a Tues-Thurs part time job, and I'm gonna be pretty busy. I am excited, though. I have a really good feeling about this semester and I'm looking forward to the challenge. Sadly enough I still don't have a class that actually applies to my major. 

Failure Isn't Always A Bad Thing

So Luke has been trying lately to get 100 comments on a single blog post. Then on the last day of 2008, he accomplished that goal (Congrats, by the way) and even passed it, going all the way to 117. I have to say, though, it brought up some interesting questions for me. Probably the biggest one I have is, "Is it really a significant accomplishment if your readers know what you're doing?" I've started paying attention to the number of comments I get and trying to push the conversations on further and further. My problem though, is that most of my friends don't actually read my blog. Reading a blog post takes time. However, something that can be read quickly (or not at all) seems to be the perfect thing to coax comments on. In fact, over the course of a couple days, I got 64 comments on my facebook status that simply read "Caleb is trying to be optimistic about this year.....but I'm not entirely sure what that means." The only person that I told about the extreme numbers was Luke, and he added 3 of those comments. Even if you take out those and my replies to those comments, it was well over 50. I also have pushed the comments on a picture of the college choir to 80 comments. The difference there is that I mentioned shooting for 100 and some of the posts are obviously left only for the sake of the numbers. SO my conclusion to all of this is -- The number 100 is not a goal to strive for. The goal should be to communicate. Then if you want numbers, count them based on how many unsolicited comments you get. If you post a goal and the comments stop shortly after that goal, the comments were probably only added because of the goal. 

Let's face it; we like to meet our goals. I know I do, anyway. But if every goal we set can be met, then we're most likely not achieving our potential. I think we should set goals sometimes that we don't necessarily expect to be able to meet. Then if we succeed, that's great! And if we don't, it's okay. You never find out how much you can accomplish until you push yourself to your limits and beyond. 

Or that's the way I see it anyway. What do you think?