Crack that whip!

Hi! It’s me – Amber. Yes, I KNOW I haven’t written for a while, but this FASCINATING blog entry will tell you why. Here’s why:

My issue is that suddenly, I have no time. After completing my first class in grad school with a whopping 98% (oh yes, you read it correctly – I will NOT be in graduate school for 7 years. Not that I was in undergrad for 7 years. I’m just saying. Hypothetically.) I have begun my second term, and because I must have some sort of death wish, I decided that this would be a good time to take two classes.

You see, my program is a non-thesis program. That was one of the attractive features. So in lieu of a thesis, I am required to do either a Professional Project OR a Service Oriented Field Experience (SOFE). Every other year, the SOFE class goes out of the country, and this fall, they’re traveling to South Africa. This sounds awesome to me. I’m thinking it’ll be kind of a work trip, not unlike the mission trips I take with the kids in the summer. So I’m totally looking forward to it – I’ve signed up, and I think that if I keep telling my dad that I’m going, he’ll be lulled into a sense of complacency and not bat an eye by the time it’s time to pay for it. I can hope, right? Anyway, the only prerequisite for the trip is that you must have 18 credits. I did some math (I tell you, I’m on FIRE!) and realized that in order to have 18 credits by then, I have to double up on classes once. And given my rather un-stellar scholarly history (you know, back BEFORE the 98%) I decided that I should double up as soon as possible in case I can’t handle it and have to try again later. So I am now enrolled in one in-class class, and one online class.

Keep in mind that the purpose of the 8-week terms is so that students who work full time won’t be overloaded and so it is assumed that you are only taking one class at a time. Therefore, I have an online class where we have about four or five mini-assignments per week, and an in-class class where the teacher scares me and we have four large projects and mountains – MOUNTAINS – of reading. I’ve decided that I’m going to have to start reimbursing my office for all of the paper I use printing out assignments, articles, etc.

So what finally happened? I had to break down and get the internet at home. I didn’t want to – I never needed it before because I’m online all day at work. But I realized the other day that it is not humanly possible to get all my schoolwork AND my regular work done in an 8 hour day. Not. Possible.

So I spent about 3 hours on Saturday doing all of the assignments for my online class and I brought my laptop to work to get it configured by our tech guy so I could install my internet at home. Long story short, when he configured it for me, he trashed the account of the person who the laptop USED to belong to, and what went out with that trash? ALL of my COMPLETED homework for the week. I almost cried. There was a shaky lip. But I just went back and recreated it.

So what am I saying? I’m saying that maybe the blog will be updated more now that I have the evenings and weekends to be online as well. Maybe I’ll have time to talk on the phone – I haven’t been doing much of that at all because I don’t have time at work and by the time I get home, I’ve used up all my brainpower on reading and responding to discussion questions in my class forum. Don’t give up on me though. It’s only seven more weeks until I have to focus on something else.

But right now, I have to stop procrastinating and go read about creating caring and capable boards. No no, don't be jealous.