Lauren's Blog

Work, to me, has become a necessary evil. Unless you're one of the very few people who actually enjoy what they do for a living, working is something that's done just to get from one day to the next. I had a job this past summer as a waitress and even though I hated it every day that I had to be there, I still went back. I knew that I needed to save money for school this year and that if I were to quit, there would be no other way of doing that. For some people, that seems to be what their entire life consists of. They hate their job every day that they have to go but there's no practical way out...

Posted by Lauren Buesgens at 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

The article "Working," by Studs Terkel is by far the most interesting one we have read this semester. The fact that the people that are interviewed are average working-class people makes it much easier to relate to. Although the articles by Aristotle and Dostoevsky are very deep and are able to challenge the way people think, they are very difficult for the average person to understand. One point I thought was especially interesting was when the steelworker kept on comparing himself to a mule. The article really illustrates what it's like to be a middle-class American and having to deal with bosses and co-workers. The part about the parking lot attendent stuck out to me because I worked as a waitress this past summer and I saw the exact same thing with the treatment from the different classes of people. Often times the very wealthy people tipped very poorly and expected amazing service while the middle-class person was very friendly and tipped very generously.

Posted by Lauren Buesgens at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have to take this online course for the school that I'm in and one of the assignments is to create a blog. For some reason, I'm unable to create another blog using the same account so hopefully this one will work. I mean, it's not like I didn't make this one. Oh yeah, the other part of the assignment was to share information about myself. Well, I'm at the U because I wanted to go to a big school and not be where everyone else from my high school was. I'm from Becker, Minnesota which is only about 60 miles NW of the Twin Cities so it's far enough away from home (especially since I don't have a car) but yet if I really needed to I could go back for just a weekend. I like to do pretty much any sport and love just hanging out with my friends.

Posted by Lauren Buesgens at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So as everyone already knows, we didn't have class this morning. It seems like these breaks are coming just at the right time for me. Last week, I lucked out and one of my econ assignments got an extended due date. This was perfect for me because I couldn't figure out one of the questions and ran out of time (staying up until 2:30 am to finish what I could). When I got to class the next morning I was told that we would have another day to work on it. Today was the perfect day once again because I was in desperate need of sleep. These little breaks are helping to make my workload a lot less stressful. Hopefully i'll be able to get a few more!

Posted by Lauren Buesgens at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

After a long week of moving rooms and homework, I feel like I'm finally catching up on some sleep. For the entire past week, i don't think that there was a single night where I got more than 6 hours of sleep in a night. For some people that may be normal but when you're used to 8 it makes a huge difference. There were a few nights with only 4 hours that didn't help too much either. So this weekend I decided to take it easy and now I feel amazing. I had two amazing movie nights in a row and just hung around the dorms. Now today it's all homework and then hopefully one more early night to get ready for the week.

Posted by Lauren Buesgens at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm kind of starting to freak out a little bit about this final paper. It's not the length or the research that's bothering me; it's finding one specific topic to write about. I have so many ideas just flying through my head and I seem to never be able to narrow it down to one question. These kind of assignments really make me hate having choices. I just don't know what to do with myself. It kind of makes me feel like I'm in middle school all over again and I need the teacher to hold my hand for everthing that I do. It probably doesn't help too much that I'm doing the same thing for two other major papers right now so I'm actually trying to think of 3 topics instead of just one. Hopefully after I can make up my mind, it'll all be downhill from there.

Posted by Lauren Buesgens at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I got to spend this last weekend at home, and from the way things started out, I should have known that it would be bad. Things started Friday morning when I had an alarm clock malfunction (missing class) and almost missing my ride back home. I grabbed all of my stuff as fast as I could and was ready just in time for my mom to pick me up so that she could go back to work. I spent Friday night filling in at my summer job because they were short on staff. After working into the late night/early morning I went straight home to bed and got up the next morning to do it all again. Just my luck, the restaurant was the busiest I've ever seen it and at the same time understaffed. I happened to get stuck behind the bar all by myself. This was pretty much the worst work experience ever. As soon as I finished there, I sped up to Garrison, MN (right by Mille Lacs Lake) for my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary party. I got there just in time for everyone to be going to bed. When we woke up this morning, we took family pictures, ate breakfast and headed back toward the cities with a few pit stops along the way. One thing that I know for sure is that the next time I go home, I'm not leaving my house!

Posted by Lauren Buesgens at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've always known that college is supposed to be stressful and more work than high school (which, in my case, hasen't been too much more difficult to this point) but this week I had an overload. I know it sounds like I'm complaining, which I'm not, but it was just a lot of work. I tried to get to bed at a normal time last night so I'd be ready to go today but some of the girls in my hallway decided that it would be a good idea to start screaming (that's right, not just yelling but high-pitched screaming at 11:00 last night) and made it very difficult to sleep. After a great night I started out this morning with a microecon midterm. It really doesn't help the fact that I completely didn't get one of the questions when there's only 4 total. After that was finished I hurried to the bookstore to get a solutions manual for my calc 2 class. I spent the next couple of hours studying and then went to my race relations in america class to give a 30 minute presentation to the class about the assigned reading topics for the week. When that class ended, I was left with just enough time to get back to the west bank and bomb another midterm. It was kind of a depressing day but thinking about it now, I'm excited that I don't have anything else due for the rest of the week!

Posted by Lauren Buesgens at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I began today getting up at 5:30 to go to the Twin Cities Marathon. I volunteered there to work in order to fufill some of my required community service hours for my honors program. The events began horribly when I had to run from the super block to the west bank at 6:00 in the morning so that I wouldn't be late. After getting to our meeting point, we were given free coffee, panera bagels and t-shirts; this made my day a little better. The race itself started out very boring. Finally it picked up a little bit and I got to see so many amazing people. There were two days that were running the marathon (yeah, that's right, 26 miles) and they were pushing their handicapped children. Just to run that far is increadable but then to have that extra weight makes it so much more unbelievable. To see the compassion and drive these people had was truly inspiring. Watching all of this made me want to stop being so lazy and actually do something with my time....maybe I'll start today off with my homework!

Posted by Lauren Buesgens at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)