What was your favourite part about returning to school?
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Blogging, Education, Memories
The NaBloPoMo prompt for today:
What was your favourite part about returning to school?
That’s not an easy question. It wasn’t cool to acknowledge being happy to return to school each year, of course, so while I was glad, I didn’t really acknowledge it to myself. As a result, it is more difficult to access those memories.
Even though I knew there would be endless amounts of review each year, I was always excited about the possibility of learning something new. After we left Gadsden, I was able to look forward to school library access, too. (The elementary school I attended in Alabama didn’t even have a library, and back then, the Gwinnett County Public Library wasn’t the award winning facility that it is now.)
I also had a secret hope that maybe this would be the year when I would meet someone like me. Someone else who didn’t fit in. Someone who preferred books to most people, who either didn’t go to church or was only there because his or her parents forced the issue, who would be willing to discuss the questions brought up by all the contradictions in the Bible and various church’s teachings (and how preachers and other church leaders actually lived). Someone who didn’t think it was bad to be intelligent, maybe even someone who would admit to daydreaming and making up new stories about people they’d read about, or completely new stories of their own. The kind of people you didn’t run into just because your parents bought houses in the same neighborhood, or went to the same church, or worked for the same company.
I did meet someone who became a dear friend in the first week of my Junior year, on the bus, in fact. She even lived in my neighborhood! I continue to be amazed by the fact that I said something to her first, as she’s far more extroverted than I have ever been. Dorothea is a treasure, and I will always be thankful for meeting her.
Tags: Friends, Libraries, NaBloPoMo, Reading, school
School & More Reading
Posted by Cyn | Filed under College, Education, Reading
Registration closes tomorrow, so I have to decide before the end of the day whether or not I’m taking classes for summer semester or not. Bah. I want a break, but if I’m not in school my student loans come out of deferment.
I’ve been reading–and loving–Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson books. They’re a lot of fun, so I’m pushing them at Sam, too.
Briggs has some amusing information on her site about silver bullets, including a reprint (with permission, of course) of an old Gun World article, Long Ranger, Go Away!
Tags: Patricia Briggs, registration, school, silver bullets
Cohousing?
Posted by Cyn | Filed under College, Education
I’m working on my final project for the technical writing course, which is a comparison of cohousing developments to single-family and more traditional multi-family housing. I’m finding it difficult to find any of the books I want to use as references in the library (school or two counties). Do any of you who are local happen to have books on the subject? Copies of Communities magazine, maybe? I’d appreciate a chance to look at such things rather than needing to buy them via Amazon!
Tags: Atlanta, cohousing, school, technical writing
School Happy
Posted by Cyn | Filed under College, Education, Geekery, Writing
I finally got the grades from the first technical writing assignment I turned in last week, and the peer reviews I did on two of my classmates’ rough drafts. I got full points for all of them!
I was worried about one of the peer reviews, because the person chose to do a set of instructions for starting to cross-stitch. I know too much about that topic to evaluate it well from a beginner’s point of view, and that was the intended audience. I actually approached the professor with some questions, and wondered if I should swap reviews with someone new to stitching. Happily, the professor said I provided a balanced review that reflected my experiences as a former beginner and currently experienced stitcher, and that I was respectful throughout. I was trying very, very hard to avoid any hint of condescension, and it appears that it worked!
My topic was “Creating Your First Podcast,” and that received full points, too. It had to be done with a Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level less than 8th grade, which was not easy. I got it down to 7th grade, and couldn’t go any lower. The professor said that was due to the technical terms I had to use, and was perfectly acceptable.
Tags: grades, podcasting, school, Stitching, technical writing
Winter Semester Grades
Posted by Cyn | Filed under College
A week into Spring semester, I finally got my Winter semester grades: 99.7 in the career class, 97.6 in the project management class. I should still have a 4.0, then.
I’ve got to get my and Katie’s FAFSAs done. I should have already done it. It feels so weird to think about the fact that she’ll soon be in college, too!
Never, Never on a Sunday
Posted by Cyn | Filed under College, Education, Family, Fun, Geekery, Movies
Nope, not Sunday. Mostly. Well, maybe sometimes. Damned earworm!
I was trying to be Very, Very good today as I wrapped up my assignments for the semester. Unfortunately, I got completely distracted by the fact that I hadn’t done a bloody thing with Pagan Parents since adopting the site. I got it working at a minimal level, so it should be easy to add content now.
Hint Hint: Content! I need content! Collaborators! Seriously, if you have opinions about parenting as a pagan, or you know of resources that I should link to, please let me know. If you know somebody who might want to write an article or blog with us there, have him or her contact me.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Pagan Parents, school, Science Fiction, television, Veronica Mars, Veronica Mars Season, video
Semester Is Past the Half-way Point!
Posted by Cyn | Filed under College, Writing
And so far, I’ve only lost one point in my Project Management class, none in the other class. That was due to a stupid mousing error — bad hands! Oh well, if that’s all my hands cost me this semester, I’ll be happy.
The career course required us to do “long-term career planning” this week. I don’t know how useful their idea of career planning is, to be honest, in today’s economy. There aren’t many people who can count on moving up steadily in one path, due to the fact that the economy changes so much more quickly than it did 30 to 50 years ago. Do I feel sanguine about making predictions as to where I’ll be, professionally, in 30 years? Um, no. For one thing, I’ll be 71 years old then! For another, I’ll be happy just to get back to work, period!
Today’s Thing-a-Day time was spent coloring. It was nice.
I have a happy Sambear dancing in front of me, because he just posted Chapter 17 of Heart of the Hunter. He already hit his word target for the novel, but happily, he isn’t stopping ’til the plot is wrapped up.
Tags: careers, podcasting, Sam, school, Thing-a-Day, Writing
Adult: FMS from What?
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Geekery, Humor, News, Sex
I have a Google Alerts search going for “fibromyalgia,” because if there’s something out there that will make this crap better, I want to know it yesterday. The alert brings in all sorts of nonsense from quack remedies to naysayers, in addition to the actual content.
Today’s alert takes the cake, though. Somebody wrote to Dan Savage’s Savage Love column asking, “Can I Sue Somebody for Fisting-Induced Fibromyalgia?“1
Savage’s medical expert is out of touch regarding the latest FMS research, but I have to agree with his reply to the letter-writer.
Sam and I tried to game a little tonight, but he was sleepy and I’m fading, too. I did some writing today, and more webifying, and worked on a couple of school assignments. Then I got all-too-obsessed with trying to figure out how to make the output of a couple of WordPress plugins work nicely with my template.
I hope y’all had a lovely weekend!
1 http://www.villagevoice.com/people/0806,savage,79044,24.html
Tags: Dan Savage, Fibromyalgia, Gaming, Google, HTML, Sam, Savage Love, school, search going, Sex, Sue Somebody, webifying, wordpress, Writing
School update
Posted by Cyn | Filed under College
School is going along fine. In fact, another semester is almost done for me, and Katie’s almost at the end of her semester, too. She’s kicking ass and taking names. Now that she’s settled academically, she’s stretching out into some extracurricular stuff and making more friends. We’ve managed to connect with a Girl Scout troop, (finally!) despite silly paperwork slip-ups.
I think I need to rearrange my classes for the next part of the semester (I’m already registered), but this unit’s classes are going very well, and I’ve actually learned useful (in one class) and interesting (in the other class) stuff.
I had told the school when they initially did my transcript evaluation that I didn’t have as many upper-level credits as they said I had, but they insisted that I’d done my major work and wouldn’t really listen. Weirdnesses kept coming up, and I kept pushing about things like the Hope Scholarship not coming up in my financial aid package. Someone finally said, “Oh — you aren’t eligible because you already have a bachelor’s degree.”
What? Um, no. You see, I’m in the Bachelor’s Degree Completion Program because I don’t have a bachelor’s degree yet. Capiche?
Well, it seems that when Mercer University sent over my transcripts, they couldn’t manage to just pull the transcripts for Cynthia Roberson (my name when I attended that school) with my Social Security Number and my Mercer Student ID. No, they also sent over Cynthia Armistead’s transcript — someone whose name was Cynthia Armistead when she attended Mercer and got a bachelor’s degree, someone with a different SSN and MSI and middle initial. And instead of noticing these discrepancies, my school blithely entered this transcript in and gave me credit for her work!
So there’s been a whole big deal about getting all of my transcripts again, and re-evaluating them anew, and changing my planned classes to reflect the results. I’m getting two sorts of attitude from the bureaucrats I have to deal with in straightening out this nonsense: people who obviously think I should have shut up and taken the credits, and people who think I was trying to pull a fast one (hence the business about them getting all my transcripts again, directly from my old schools) and re-evaluating them).
Fortunately, the classes I’ve taken so far are classes I needed to take. Yay. The classes that start in a couple of weeks are in question, so I need to talk to my so-called “advisor” about them. The “advisor” is the person who deals with everybody who is in the bachelor’s degree completion program. She doesn’t do individual advising, really. She doesn’t give a flyin’ flip about me or my plans, abilities, background, etc. She meets with students once, when they enter the program. That’s it. That’s the plan. She doesn’t want to see us again. She’s not happy that she’s had to talk to me more than once.
I was just way spoiled by my marvelous advisor at Southern Poly, Dr. Mark Stevens. Nobody else can live up to that standard. But this woman shouldn’t have the same title. She’s a paperwork-stamper.
I’m actually enjoying the database portion of my current business/computer course so much that I’m looking at which technical concentration in the bachelor’s degree completion major would give me the most opportunity to go deeper into the topic.
Oh — with the other person’s bachelor’s degree transcript, I had something like 91 transfer credits. That’s the maximum you’re allowed to transfer into the school. Without her transcript, just using my credits, I’m coming in with 79 credits. The science class I’m taking now should have been my last “core” class, but this school counts “Science, Technology and Society as a 400 level class. The STS class I took at Southern Poly was a 200 level class. So one more core class, some business and management stuff required for my major, and then the technical concentration courses. Three full semesters, at least, maybe four, since there may be prerequisites required for some of the technical concentration classes that I don’t have yet.
That’s not too bad — just another year of school, really. Wow. I can see the end.
Tags: bureaucracy, College, Cynthia Armistead, Cynthia Roberson, high school, Katie, learning, Mark Stevens, Mercer University, school
I’se a student! But still a crip, too
Posted by Cyn | Filed under College, Education, Health
Well, I’m officially in school and off to a running limping start.
I made it to my statistics class on Tuesday, but only after a nasty fall. I was only about 20 minutes late, and the professor was more than understanding. I was utterly lost for the first part of the class, but by the end of it I felt very comfortable. I can do this.
My body took over on Wednesday, though. I slept all day, despite alarms and phone calls. Seriously–I did not wake at all until after 2:30 or so, and I believe that was because my bladder and need for pain meds finally won out over the need for more rest. So much for the weekly blood test appointment at 11. I didn’t get much homework done through the rest of the day, either, though I did try. Hopefully eating the whole day is enough to appease the fibromyalgia demon.
So today has been given over to doing all of the week’s assignments for tomorrow’s course, Comp100. That’s the “learn to use Windows, Word and Excel” class that’s required for everyone at this school. I’m really annoyed at having to take it at all. There are lots of little assignments, and while I know this stuff inside–out even makework takes time.
Right now, I’m taking a dinner break. I deserve that much.
The biggest challenge of that course (other than following the *exact* directions rather than doing things in more efficient ways) is that the textbook is too bloody big and heavy. I had problems with that at my last school, too. I need a serious bookstand, because holding these big texts really is a physical challenge for me. They’re increasing my pain, which makes it hard for me to focus on reading the assignments.
In happier news, my admissions “advocate” called me today to tell me that the transcript evaluators had revised their opinion of my credits and given me another 13 credits! So I’m another semester closer to graduating. I think that puts me fairly close to senior level, which means more financial aid eligibility.
Katie and I have fallen into a pattern of doing our homework together every day. That’s nice, and it helps a lot with my missing the time we spent together homeschooling.
I’m hoping that I can get caught up and stay there by the end of this weekend, and then have time to breathe and do fun things again. This is just a half-time schedule, so I really need to build a lot more stamina before I try to add two more classes next semester!
You know what I want? A trike. Really. A great big trike with a nice big basket. I think I could ride to school near as fast as I could get there on MARTA. I might have to spend the night there before I could ride back home, but give me some time and surely I’d build up some kind of constitution again. Eventually.
I know how to ride a bicycle, certainly, but my balance has gone to heck thanks to the FMS and I don’t recover from falls well, so I’ll give in and ask the universe for a three-wheeler. Surely they’re less expensive than the scooter I need, right?
Tags: Homeschooling, school, tricycles