Aaahhh, a day off!

Well, not really. I took a day off because I have a take home exam for my multicultural counseling course. I knew if I tried to do this an hour here and an hour there in the evenings with all the family distractions, it would never work. Since this is my first test, I'd really like to knock it out of the park. I'd really like to make a 'B' or higher. This experience will show me if I'm on the right track with my study habits or if I need to do some major tweeking.

You're wondering about the electricity, right? Well, despite my husband's prognostications of doom, it was a minor wiring problem which only cost us $78 to fix. Homeowners are always concerned about home repairs, but when the house is older, you're sure every problem will require major work because things just wear out in some cases. That's the good news. The better news is that we finally got a new dishwasher!!! It's a Frigidaire with a stainless steel look (because I just refused to pay another $50 for true stainless steel) and while I've only used it twice, I'm pleased so far with the results. I also got the three year service plan for $56 since we tend to go through appliances like Kleenex.

Thankfully, my brother was able to install it for us. Just about every store we looked at wanted at least $119 to install a dishwasher. It takes about an hour, but that price seems a little high to me. Thank God for relatives who can fix and install stuff.

Now, if I can just get my bathroom finished!

It's Making a Little More Sense....

This is our third week of classes and with every class I feel a little better and a little worse. Better because I'm understanding what is needed to make this work; worse, because I'm understanding what is needed to make this work! I am so tired, I can't believe it. The fear of not understanding what the teachers want is abating, but when I think of what the future will bring when I'm taking three classes a week, with papers, massive readings and tests, I need a bag to breath into. In addition, my house is a mess. I know I shouldn't be anal about this, and I can't be if I'm to survive, but I hate a dirty house.

Through discussions in class, I'm getting to know my classmates a little better and we have a lot in common. Many of us are moms with children ranging from grade school to college. Many of us are in transition from the home to work, or from one profession to another. When I hear the stories of how some of these women came to the decision to go back to school, I certainly feel that my situation is not quite as desperate. After all, we're all shooting for a better financial and professional future. It takes a lot of guts to jump back into the fray, when many of us would feel more comfortable with what we were doing before.

TGIF

And I mean that! Second week of school, first week of work, whew!!! I get tired just thinking about it. I've never been so glad to see a three-day weekend in my life. How far away is Thanksgiving vacation?

If I don't make a date with my husband, I'll never see him again. I know it sounds silly, but we've drifted into a relationship of polite strangers living in the same house. The schedules have been so nuts lately, we're literally passing each other in the night. I think we'll try to have a kid-free dinner this weekend, and I'll do a big family lunch on Sunday. I'd like the kids to be able to sit down with us and talk.

Settling In

Week two of classes has begun and the sheer hysteria and panic I felt has ebbed to managed sheer hysteria and panic. After reading five long chapters, outlining, reading and ordering books for the suggested reading, each day I wonder if I've taken on too much. I'll let you know after I've actually gotten a grade for something.

I started my second year with Americorps this week, as well. I'm working at a family literacy center. The primary lesson being taught to these mothers is that they are their children's' first teachers, and literacy should begin right after that trip down the birth canal. It's very inspiring to watch these young mothers struggling with adult education, some of them learning a new language. The children are on one side of the center with child care workers while their mothers are in class. Mid morning, they have what is called "PACT" time, parent and child time, where they sing and read. Now today this was mostly accomplished while two or three children were screaming so loudly they could have wakened dead vampires from almost any crypt in New Orleans. But somehow, I think they appreciated the reading of "Brown Bear, Brown Bear".

The Second Day

I barely made it to my 4:30 class because I had to pick up my daughter at 3:45. I basically dropped her off, watched her walk into the house and drove off. (Of course I called her when I got to class to make sure she was all right.) Once again, our class was a little too large and was split into two.

This class is about cultural diversity in counseling and our professor warned us it would be a 'button pusher', as did the writers of the textbook. Amusingly, he observed that white men usually taught these courses and he couldn't figure out why. His syllabus was very interesting and gave us a variety of ways to earn points towards our grade, including blogging about movies and restaurants of other cultures.

The number of assignments does not particularly worry me, but the amount of reading and additional reading does. I'm going to have to schedule my time carefully to make sure I get it all done. At present, I have five chapters to read by next week's classes. Since I'm a visual and kinesthetic learner, this will probably mean meticulously outlining each chapter so that I get the most out of the reading, but I've read that listening to music while studying helps.

The first day, continued.....

Okay, of course I couldn't find the classroom on the first day, and when I did, it was packed! The school was obviously unprepared for how many moms were going back to school. Mostly, it felt like every first day of school you've ever had, except half the students already had kids and the other half had had hysterectomies.

Deciding the class was far too large for the personal attention we'd all been promised, we were promptly split up. It's a good thing I hadn't made friends yet. My professor looks like Santa Claus in the off season. He asked lots of probing questions, and initially learned that few of us were enterprising enough to have read the first three chapters of the textbook. (I had read up to the middle of the first chapter, but I didn't want to be a suck-up.)

Our first assignment was to write a 'reflective paper' on what we'd gleaned from the first class, no more than two pages, double spaced. Wouldn't it be great if it stayed that simple?

I'm exhausted from this day, but I'm too excited to sleep. Class two is tomorrow, as well as another orientation day for Americorps, and the possibility I'll get another $40 parking ticket because there's no where to park in New Orleans that isn't residential near the Loyola campus.

The First Day

Last night, I nervously looked at my schedule, making sure I was going to the right class on the right day in the right room. I put out my books and notebooks, pens and highlighters. The last forty-five minutes of waiting for the class to start was miserable, but my fellow Americorps members had wished me well earlier in the day with smiles and encouragement. I'll tell you what happens later.

Americorps

Tomorrow I start a week long orientation for Americorps. For those of you who are unaware of this organization, it is a nationwide volunteer organization that helps out with everything from building homes to literacy. I'll be working on the literacy end in a family program which promotes education to parents and children. Members receive a living stipend for a year of service, and an education award if you complete a specified amount of hours. This is actually my second year (you can only do two), but I'll receive an education award of $4700 dollars which will go a long way towards paying for my tuition. If you're interested, check out the site at www.americorps.gov.

The Final Hurdle

Today, I went back to the college to get my parking pass and ID (one of the worst ID pictures I've ever taken, so I hope I don't actually have to show it to anyone). The only thing left to do now is to go to my first class, which is a week away. I'm feeling kind of ambivalent tonight. On one hand I'm really excited, but on the other, I really wonder what I'm getting myself into. Do I have the tenacity to put one more huge thing on my already overflowing plate, and how can I juggle family and work with it as well?

In the meantime, I've taken a look at some graduate level papers, and I feel that if I'm careful about content and structure I can handle it. One thing the professors shared with us is some of the same advice I've shared with my daughters, which is to ask for help when you feel you're beginning to flounder, not when you're ready to hang yourself. I think I should write that on the top of each of my notebooks.

This time I really want to do it better. My undergrad career was all about getting away from my parents' home and having the life I didn't' have as a teenager. The problem is you can't always do that and have a successful academic career as well. There are a million things I would change about those years, but the problem with changing the past is that your future would be substantially different. And there are things in that future I'm just not willing to part with.

Orientation

It took three and a half hours! I had no idea orientation at a small college could take so long. And I'm still not finished. The ID machine went down, and I didn't have my proof of insurance or registration, so I couldn't get my parking pass. So it's back to school tomorrow (or the next day) to complete those things.

Ever since I applied, I've wondered what to expect on the first day. At today's orientation, the professors stressed how important writing skills would be, and that if you had any deficiencies in this area to take the non-credit graduate writing course. I write all the time; fiction and non-fiction, manuals, etc. but I think I'd better go to the library and look at some graduate papers to see if I need this course. I don't want to be derailed just because of a lack of technique.

Second Career

Suddenly, I have more sympathy for my kids. My sixteen-year-old and I each got vaccinations today; well sort of. She got the last of the Gardasil trilogy, I got a tetanus shot, and had blood taken to see whether or not I'd had the MMR as a child. I had mumps as a child, so I guess the odds are high that I'll need another vaccination. Anyway, the phlebotomist took all my blood and gave me a cotton ball in return. I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying my re-entry into higher education!

In addition to that, I got my financial aid award letter, and just like buying a new house, they're trying to lend me more money than I need. I've got to sit down with my financial advisor and make sure I don't borrow more than is absolutely necessary.

I've chosen a field; well sort of.

I've been thinking about an advanced degree for the past three or four months. My first choice was a Masters in Social Work, with a desire to work with foster children and adoption. I was very close to registering for classes, but I just couldn't pull the perverbial trigger. Being an adult student puts even more restrictions on your choices. When you're 18, your biggest obstacles are whether or not you can get into the program you want and can your parents pay for your education. Let's add family, work, and more complicated finances to the mix. Clearly, you're not going away to school (no matter how much you'd like to), but grad school, even at the smallest schools, is not cheap.

The program I was looking at would have required one year of taking pre-requisites. Grad school part time means three years. The school I was considering didn't seem to have many classes at night, and that would be a problem for my work schedule. I had to look for other options.

I'd looked at every local college, except the one which is a mile from my home. A small Catholic university with a good reputation, I took a look at their website and found they had a Masters in Counseling. Counseling and social work are under the same umbrella of working with the public and helping them with their problems, offering referrals, etc. So, I called and made an appointment with the head of department that same evening.

When I told her I hadn't been in a classroom for twenty-five years, she joked and said, "Well, that has been a while!" Later, she told me the oldest person in her program was 66.