Oh yeah, baby.

I'm good.

I submitted my first two assignments on Friday (one for each class: Global Managerial Economics and The Legal and Ethical Evironment of Business), and although I'm still awaiting a grade for Global Econ, the Biz Ethics grade is in. Guess what it is?

That's right. An A.

94 out of 100 points and positive comments by the professor with the only suggestion being that I take a look at proper APA formatting for in-text citations. I had thought I had it right with that assignment, but was wrong - no matter, though, as I've got it down now. Although I am slightly irked that what I had thought was the proper in-text formatting was the information that I got from the Student Guidebook to Proper Citation in APA Style sent to me by the college with the books for this first term ...

But- an A! On my first assignment! I'm thrilled!

Now, wallowing in ego, I'm going to dive into yet another assignment(I just turned in the second one for Global Econ, so now it's on to the second one for Biz Ethics). These second assignments are actual papers, not just discussion board posts, so they're tougher in that I have to include title page, abstract and references pages. The paper I just submitted for Global Econ was 8 pages total, with only three being the actual report. Well, ok, all in all it was actually 7 pages and one measly line on the 8th, the last Reference page (damn long URLs). The actual paper length needed to be 2 to 3 pages, so I'm right on there, but all the other pages make it seem, well, more intimidating at first. For Biz Ethics, the required length is 3 to 4 pages, and I'm hoping I won't need nearly as many references to figure this stuff out, so I might end up with a total of 6 or maybe 7 pages for that one.

In-text citing and keeping track of references is taking up half my time though. Damn the American Psychological Association. Have they nothing better to do than come up with ways to mess with college students? No, no- I know. There's a reason for it, as Mama Wren and I discussed at length. It's because of stupid people, basically. There are so many "students" out there who can't write worth a damn that someone had to come up with a system to keep all the papers uniform and neat, for the professors' sakes. I understand, but I hate it. I'm not stupid. I can write just fine on my own, thank you very much.

Damn stupid people. Sigh.

Well, wish me luck with the Biz Ethics paper- it's a whopper of a scenario, involving theft, wrongful death, and the laws of foreign countries as they apply to international cruise ships in their waters. Oh boy. The ethics of it is easy; the research into said laws, public and private, is gonna be the bitch of it.

A word to the wise: avoid cruises wher the ship is flying any flag other than U.S. If something goes wrong and the ship is flying the flag of another country, regaardless of which country's waters it's in, you may well be very, very screwed. A sneaky little thing called Admiralty or Maritime Law. Ah hell, with the obesity rate of Americans in relation to the shrinking swimwear sizes, just avoid cruise ships altogether. Your stomach will thank you for it.