Wonderful and Horrible At The Same Time

Hello everyone. I appreciate your patience during this long gap with no post. What? Oh no, I haven't given up on blogging, I have just been too busy mentally to think of anything to write about. I have had to focus my attention on classes. Oh, you thought that chair killed me? No, lol, it is still tucked away in the corner, well out of the path I walk.

Anyways, I have two bits of news that are both wonderful and horrible at the same time. *Grins* First off, school. Only 2 weeks left of this term. This is wonderful because I am almost done with this icky politics class, but horrible because the last 2 weeks always seem to take forever. I want to be done with it NOW! I am hate this class. Next term, however, looks to be more interesting, with 2 accounting classes, and the 3rd being Sociology. I am really hoping that 3rd class is interesting. It is so much easier to do the writing when the material intrigues me.

Ok, enough with school stuff, you say. I agree, listening to me complain about classes is probably boring for you. On to the second bit of news then. My back pain. No, it hasn't gone away, but the doctor I have been seeing has done more than just toss a prescription at me for the pain. She sent me for x-rays to see if there was a problem there. Turns our my bones look great. She said there are no signs of osteoporosis and no fractures. There were a few minor spurs on my spine that could develop a bit of arthritis in the future, but no problems that are causing my pain now. So she says that means it is muscular. She referred me to physical therapy. That is wonderful as maybe with some proper exercises my back will get straightened out and the pain will go away eventually. But at the same time it is horrible, because they are gonna make me stretch in ways I haven't moved in a long time, and that is gonna hurt like hell for awhile.

Personally, I still think the pain is from nerve damage, but I would be delighted to be proven wrong. If this physical therapy doesn't work, I have no idea what the next step will be.

That is pretty much all that is going on with me at the moment. I do plan to get back into posting daily or at least 3 or 4 times a week as soon as this term is over. So if you can hang around for another 2 weeks, there will be more regular posts after that.

Take A Breath

Graduation went very well. I got there in plenty of time, got signed in and then spent an hour waiting for things to start. Once the audince was seated and everything was ready, all of us who were graduating that day were allowed to go out and sit down in our section. Then we sat through a bunch of speeches and finally the big moment. We all went up onto the stage, one at a time, and got our handshake from the dean while our name was announced as a new graduate.

I was so worried about tripping and falling off the stage, but lucky for me they had ramps to go up and get down off the stage so no stairs to trip on. Yay! After everyone had gone across the stage, the faculty and graduates were allowed to leave, and then all the family and friends that came were allowed to join us. They were serving cake in the main room, but I was exhausted, so Ducky and I just headed home.

Standing around for an hour and sitting in that chair for so long killed my back, so I was hurting for the next few days. Got a couple of nice pictures though, and I will be ordering copies soon to send out to friends and family. My grandparents sent me a very nice graduation gift, and my friend in VP gave me loads of congrats.

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa, the card was great and the gift is much appreciated. Thanks to all my friends who were there to cheer for me after, your support and best wishes mean so much to me.

Now, I am working to my Bachelor's degree and I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, so hopefully things will continue to progress and improve.

One Week Down

Well, I have completed my first full week of classes. This is definitely not going to be as easy as it has been. This is my first term of my Bachelor's program and I sure did end up with some icky classes.

I have Business Law, Global Politics and Intro to Accounting. I may not get to post here very often during this term as these classes require a lot of research to be done to answer the questions. However, I am not quitting this blog. I will post as often as I can, so please don't give up on me if I miss days here and there.

The easy stuff is over, now I have the hard work.

As for other news, I have an appointment on Weds for my medical aid, and my Graduation is this Saturday. I will post as often as I can. *Hugs* to everyone reading.

Week In A Whirlwind

Wow, what a busy week. I have spent hours on the phone, filled out a stack of paperwork, sent e-mails and faxes. And that was just to complete my graduation paperwork and enrollment process. It doesn't count the time I had to spent building a web site for my Web Design class, nor the writing I had to do for Composition.

I am glad that week is over. I am due to graduate on the 26th, my robes have been ordered, all the paperwork for that is done. Classes are done for both the term and my first degree.

I can't believe I managed to graduate with a perfect 4.0 GPA. Two whole years of college with perfect grades. I wouldn't have ever thought I could do that.

The new term and the first part of my second degree starts tomorrow, but thankfully I am done with writing classes. *Dances* Yay, no more essays to write.

Everything else is on track, I have appointments on the 23rd, and Feb 4th for my medical and my back. I am excited about graduating and looking forward to the next set of classes.

As for my blog, now that all the paperwork is done, I will be posting daily or close to that again. I apologize for the week without posts, but I had no time to write for you all with all the stuff I was trying to keep track of.

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a pleasant and safe evening last night. I wish you all have a Happy New Year. May this upcoming year bring you joy and see some of your dreams come true.

This year holds a lot of potential to me. I will be graduating college and getting my first degree. I will also be enrolling again to start on my 2nd. I have doctors appointments coming which may just fix my back, so it is possible that I may be able to get fixed and finally be able to get a job again.

I really hope this happens, it would be so nice to be able to work, to go out, to stop being stuck in this damn chair all the time. But, I also have to face the alternative, I may not be fixable, I might have to suffer this pain for the rest of my life. But there is a good side to that too, if the doctors tell me that I can't be fixed, then I may be able to qualify for disability, which will make my life a bit easier, as it will give me access to help where I need it.

I just hope that this year will be just as good as last year was. Even though I have been in pain, life has brought me much happiness over the last year, and I can only hope it will continue this way.

Many of us make new year resolutions. Most of us don't manage to keep them, but the resolution I made last year, I kept it all year, so I will make the same one again this year. So my New Year's resolution is to always try to find something to be happy about, to always try to find the bright side of things, no matter how bad they get.

What are some of your wishes for this new year? What resolutions did you make and keep last year? What resolutions are you making this year?

Procrastination Works!

I hear people say we shouldn't procrastinate. That we should get thing done as soon as we can and not wait until the last minute. For some things I guess that is true. But for me, I perform better under pressure sometimes.

I had a major paper to write for my Composition class. I knew about it and was supposed to be working on it for over a month. But I just kept putting it off. Every time I would go to write or to think about what i wanted to say, my mind would wander and my thoughts would be chaotic. Sitting there looking at the blank sheet of paper, I just couldn't think of anything to write.

So I put it off, there was always tomorrow, or next week to get it done. Until I woke up Saturday, the paper due that night, over 1200 words needed, and I hadn't done anything. Ah, I thought, I still have hours yet, I will do it later today. Finally it came down to the wire. It was due in just a couple of hours. I needed to get it done. Miraculously, the blank paper didn't faze me. I knew what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. I churned out over 1600 words in less than an hour.

The paper was turned in less than an hour before the deadline. I wasn't sure if it was any good, but at least it was done. Just a few minutes ago, I checked into class. The paper had been graded and commented on by my Professor. I received an A, 100 points of 100 available. The Professor said I did well and had a good grasp of the assignment.

I have always put off critical things like that until the last minute, and almost invariably, I have done much better work under that pressure than I have done if I completed early. So, regardless of how much people say procrastination is bad, I would have to say, it works for me.

Sign Here, and Here and There

So it starts. I am just a few weeks away from the end of this term and this degree. Now I get the joys of all the paperwork. I have to fill out papers for Financial Department to graduate as well as to re-enroll. I have to fill out papers for enrollment, more papers to choose classes and on and on.

E-mails and faxes are flying back and forth to get every detail taken care of. This one needs my signature, fill out that form, you have a choice between these classes and you must take this one. This is a required class but you can take it now or later.

The decisions I make during this month will set the path for the next two years of my life. So many details to cover, so many choices. I wonder at times, can I handle this?

I worry I will miss a critical detail and mess up the whole process. I think about 2 more years of classes and homework. It is a big decision to make, to commit 2 years to something.

But I know I can do it... I know I will succeed at this. So I will sign on all the dotted lines. I will e-mail, call or fax whatever is need to to whoever needs it. It will all be worth it.

By this time next year, I will be sitting here, knowing that I am almost done. And when I stand there at the end, with my Bachelor's degree in my hand and my Associate's on my wall, I will be happy and proud that I made it through. That day will be here sooner than it seems.

It is a wonderful feeling to be doing something that I never thought was possible for me.

On My Way

Like many people, when I was in school, I hated it. My reasons may not have been the same, but the emotion was. All through high school, I swore that once I graduated I was done. I had no desire or plans to go to college. I wanted to be completely done with any type of formal schooling. I would tell anyone who asked that I would never, ever go to college, that I hated school that much.

And I kept my word. I got engaged to my high school sweetheart on the same day I graduated, and a year later we were married. Oh I slipped once, and signed up for a correspondence course, but I lost interest fairly quickly and never got very far into it. I still hated school and never planned to go back. The mindset held true.

Until January 2006. I found myself unable to work at a regular job. All my job skills were in retail and security, both fields that required physical mobility. Which I no longer had. I couldn't unload a truck, stock shelves, or walk a patrol. I had no other skills that I could do, no abilities to get a job that could accommodate my physical limitations. So, I went online and looked at colleges.

Two days later, I was sitting in the admitting office, signing the paperwork that would start my college years. I was 32 years old, and finally going to college, something I swore I would never do. Amazing how life changes your mind, isn't it? Something you swear to at 18, 19, even at 25 can all totally change within just a few years. I finished all the registration paperwork and was told classes start in 3 days. I was there on time for my first class. I felt embarrassed at first, surely I was too old for college now. But it turns out, many people my age or older have gone back to college or like me, finally took the steps to further their education.

I wasn't sure when I enrolled, exactly what it was that I wanted to do, so I settled on an Associates degree in Computer Office. I figured that would give me 2 years to decide what my main goal would be. It didn't take long for me to decide I would continue on to get a Bachelor's degree in Accounting when I was done with my Associates.

That was almost 2 yrs ago. Today, I am in the middle of week 7, of my last 12 week term. I am due to graduate with my Associates in January. Next week, I go in to register for my Bachelor's and commit the next 2 or 3 years to more schooling. I think back now on that vow I made in high school. Never to go to college. It makes me smile to think how young and naive I was then. So much I didn't know, thinking I knew everything I ever needed.

These last 2 years in school have not been easy. My physical limitations caused me a great deal of difficulty in attending classes, but even still I rarely missed any. When I moved, the driving distance became to much for me to handle, so I switched to online courses. I was lucky in a way, choosing Computer Office made for some easy classes. Much of the material I had already learned just from using my own computer for many years. The classes I was required to take simply refreshed and expanded on the knowledge I had already cobbled together.

Some of the classes were difficult for me though. I hated the history class. It wasn't difficult to do, but there was so much writing involved in answering all the questions. General Psychology was a fun class, Oral Communications was nerve-wracking, I hated giving speeches. I was a little scared of Algebra as I had failed it 3 times in high school, but I was happily surprised to have little trouble with it.

I have made it through almost 2 complete years of college now, and to my amazement, I have maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA. Straight A's in all my classes so far. Only this term left and if I can manage to get an A in each of the 3 classes I am in now, I will graduate to my Associates with a perfect score. Not bad for a person that hated school so much she swore never to continue, is it? Looking back, I did horrid in high school, D's and F's and barely managing to graduate. I would never in my wildest dreams ever have thought that I could do so well in school.

I am looking forward to getting that degree in January, but the classes I am in now are the most difficult ones so far. Two of them are computer classes, so I am doing well in them, they are challenging but not impossible. The 3rd class is Composition 2, this is the hardest class I have taken. I am fighting hard to maintain an A in this class and I am not sure I will be able to. Regardless, I have come to far to give up now, so I am putting all my effort into this, and I am looking forward to all the possibilities that are opening up.

Going back to college has been the best thing I have ever done for myself. Sometimes I wish I had done it sooner, but I know that the time wasn't right until now. So 5 more weeks of school and then I have my first degree. And then I start on my second. At 18 years old, I would never have imagined having 2 college degrees to my name. I am constantly amazed at how my life has turned out. I will be thrilled to hold that first degree, and stunned if I make it with a 4.0 GPA, but regardless of my grade at the end, I will be able to hold that degree and know that "I did it!"

And that, to me, is the most valuable knowledge I can ever have. To know "I did it!" and that I can do it again!