Dropped

Well, I did it.  I dropped a class.  I couldn't handle it anymore, I had to drop Financial Management.  The teacher was bad, the book was bad and it was causing more stress than I already had.  On one hand, I feel like a failure, but on the other, I'm kind of relieved.  I'll try it again at OIT next year.  Maybe I'll have better luck then.

Two Weeks In

Today is the end of the 2nd week of classes and things are going pretty well.  I've not gotten ahead in anything, but I have not fallen behind either.  I love my all my classes, but my Hardware/Software Integration class is driving my crazy.  The tests that we take are on the previous version of the book which has a slightly different arrangement and more details in some places and less in others.  Since the class is basically the quizzes, this is really going to affect my grade.


School/Work/Life balance is going OK.  I was able to make Brandon's basketball game yesterday.  I am getting some sleep and everything is turned in on time.  Not too bad.  I did put in some good hours at work this week, the most in quite a while, but I'm not sure how much longer that will last.  This is a three-day weekend and after church, I'm coming home to finish the last of this week's work, but I told the kids that tomorrow (Monday), I was all theirs.  No work, no school, no homework.  I'm hoping we can do something fun.

Oh, one last exciting thing that happened this week.  I met the neatest lady.  She is in one of my boss' classes and she needed help and asked me to tutor her.  I have gotten so much out of it!  What a rewarding experience.

Trepidation

Monday is the first day of the term.  I convinced two of my instructors to send me the syllabi and schedules for those classes and know my only thought is "how am I going to do this?"  I've put all of those assignments in my calendar, but once I get a list of all of my assignments for ALL of my classes, I might just pass out.  Deep breaths....That's what I need to remember now.  Take it one day at a time.  I see very little sleep in my future.

Christmas

It's been a non-stop bake and clean fest around here.  We've baked about 12 dozen cookies, two loaves of banana bread, half a dozen banana muffins, 3 pumpkin pies, and still have bread pudding to go, but that will be done before going to Christmas Eve service at church tonight.  All of the presents are wrapped and under the tree and the house is moderately clean, especially considering we have a house guest.  The stockings will go up tonight and the rest of the house looks great.

I have promised myself...No more overachieving for the rest of the year (yes, I know that is only a week).  I'm going to take it easy next week.  I won't even crack a book for next term. 

Here's hoping that the rest of you take it easy as well.  May you have the very merriest of Christmases and the best New Year possible.

With Love,

Lori

Fall Term Done, Scholarships, Winter Term Preview & Other Updates

It took 4 days to get grades posted, but everything is in today.  I eeked out a 4.0 again.  I really thought I was going to get a 'B' in Speech.  I never in a million years thought I could ace that class. 

I emailed most of my instructors to get letters of recommendation for scholarships.  OIT's scholarship application is due February 1st, so I thought I'd get going on it.  I have one of them back so far, so I'm on a roll.  Hopefully I can get a bunch of scholarship money and not have so much in student loans.  It's hard because they base your need on 13 credits term and when you're taking twice that many (or more), they don't take that into consideration, so that makes things pretty tight financially.

On the homefront, it's been pretty busy.  The kids are in a musical at church so they have play practice 3 times a week last week and this week.  Brandon has a lead and a solo, Kimberly has a line and Ellie and her fellow 3-5 year olds open the play with "Away in a Manger" with gestures and everything...SOOOOOO cute.  Because the demand is lower, I am on an "on call" basis at work for the next three weeks.  If somebody needs training in something, I'll go in...Otherwise, I'm just hanging out at home.  I plan to get some sewing and decorating done since there is absolutely NO Christmas decorations up yet in my house.  Sooo weird!!  My unemployment got upped for a couple of weeks, so we are right on schedule with our landlord payments and one of my SILs sent us a very generous amount to get something for the kids for Christmas, so I'm able to get my layaway out early.  I just wish I had some Christmas spirit.  Maybe when I start wrapping things...

Lastly is Winter term.  I already have my books for OIT (26lbs worth!!!).  I have one book for my CCC classes so far.  I'm going to have to rent a book for one of my classes because it costs $212! (ouch!)  This is my schedule for Winter term:

CCC
Financial Management
Marketing
Technical Report Writing
Math-111 (College Algebra)
Electronic Culture


OIT
Intro to Management Information Systems
Intro to Relational Databases
Hardware/Software Integration


That's 30 credits in all.  I'm really excited about the Electronic Culture class.  It is a Humanities class that they only offer every couple of years, but it goes perfectly with my major, so I'm pretty psyched.  I'm going to get a bit ahead in my reading to lessen the crunch.  All of my classes are online, except for Financial Management, which is a hybrid where I go every other Wednesday evening.  I tried to get the instructor to just let me take it online, but no such luck.  Oh well, we'll see what happens!

One More Week & Thanksgiving

Well, I've made it to Week 10, the final stretch.  Unfortunately, this is when everything is due.  I have a speech and a written critique of it along with two quizzes in Speech.  I have one more programming assignment due for Visual Basic.  I have have an e-business plan and website for Business on the Internet and lastly I have to make up a quiz for Lean Management on Wednesday, which is when we're studying for the final.  The good thing is that I only have 2 finals, Visual Basic and Lean Management.

To complicate matters further, I have taken to freelancing some Admin work on Elance to help pay for Christmas.  Two of those projects are due this week.  Why, exactly do I do this to myself?

On the homefront, WE DO NOT HAVE TO MOVE!!!  We came to an agreement with the landlord and he is rescinding the 60 day notice.  Now we can move on our own time.  One less thing to worry about.  Thanks to Amanda and everyone else for your thoughts and prayers.

I am supposed to have a second interview at a software company sometime this week, and that would be a major win.  In the meantime, I got extended on my internship, so that'll hold us for a while.

The kids are great.  Kimberly lost another tooth and can now really sing "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth."

Thanksgiving was amazing.  We had 14 total, plus some stragglers that came throughout the evening. We had a big turkey, which Kimberly named Ted and he was quite tasty.  Thanks to my friend Tommie, I was able to shop Kmart on Black Friday and put some amazing deals on layaway.

I have registered for Winter term, but I will give the details after I find out if I have that job or not.

Two Down

I completed the last of the financial accounting series tonight.  I'm glad to have another class done.  The only things I have left to do this term are a final business plan and website for Business on the Internet, Two programming and 1 reading assignment for Visual Basic,  Two speeches and corresponding written critiques for Speech along with 2 more quizzes.  This is besides the basic assignments for Lean Management.  Oh, and I have to write a "Lessons Learned" report and give a presentation for my capstone class.  All of this didn't seem like much until I wrote it all down.  Now I'm tired.

I've had some frustrating things happen with school and outside of school this week.  First, I found out that the community college I attend (CCC) will not be offering the second Visual Basic class this year which is frustrating because if I had known that, I would have taken some electives fro my Bachelor's degree instead of the first VB course.  Secondly, for some reason, I did not do well on my 2nd Speech Quiz.  I took it once and got a 60, which completely freaked me out.  So I emailed the instructor, who reset the quiz.  I read over the chapter and PowerPoints 3 times and I completed the study guide and I still got a 72.  I have emailed the instructor again, so we'll see what happens.

On a personal note, we are having issues with our living situation.  We have lived here for over 4 years (we moved in 5 days before Ellie was born).  We rent a house that has been divided into a duplex, though not completely.  There are no separate utilities, and up until about 4 months ago, there were doors that went from their unit into ours.  We had issues with the next door neighbor's roommates smoking.  I sent letter after letter but nothing was done.  In addition, we had a meeting with the landlord about a year ago because there were many items that needed to be done around the house.  However, nothing was ever done.  About a month ago, we received a notice that he had filed for bankruptcy and and we were listed as a creditor (because he owes us the last months rent and our deposit).  I called the bankruptcy court and they said we were not to contact our landlord at all unless it is an emergency regarding the house.   Now, I know that he is not going to keep the property.  He owes way too much money on it and the other properties he owns.  He called and spoke to hubby and hubby explained to him that because of the items that hadn't been fixed and because he is filing for bankruptcy, we were using our last month's rent for October and would pay the difference between our deposit and our rent for November, which we did.  This may not have been the best way to go about it, but I wasn't going to keep paying rent on a place which I knew was going to be foreclosed on.  We have since received a 60 day notice and, as of yesterday, an eviction notice.  So, we have to go to court on Friday, the 19th and we'll see what happens with that.

We've started packing, and, if we are able to stay until then, we have to be out by January 7th, which happens to be the first week of Winter term.   Ooh fun!!