tempered dissapointment

As far as 'something's gotta give', it turns out it was the math.  I wasn't ready to write the unit test so I didn't.  I did get my other assignments done though.  I spent many hours at the local library to get it all done.  My local library is only open until 4pm or 8pm depending on the day of the week so it's a bit limiting.  (I used to say I was going to the library until midnight now I wish I could go to the library until midnight.) 
So my third term back is wrapped up and I find myself without deadlines. 
Would you believe I had nothing I had to do this morning (not to be confused with nothing I should do) and so I stayed in bed with my iPhone and caught up on facebook and re-read the other blog I did a couple of years ago when I chronicled our 14-week road trip through Mexico (http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog/roadtrip2010/1/tpod.html ) while my children delivered me freshly made cookies and milk.  However, I also logged into my University account and saw my final grades for the two courses I just finished... both are A- which is a bit disappointing.  (Wow, things really have changed ;)
I'm taking next term off so that I can chaperone my son's team on their two training trips in Jan & Feb.  But since I didn't finish the math, I will still have that on my plate - but first some turkey and mashed potatos on my plate, please.

new fangled technology

As previously mentioned, it was my mother who put me up to this.  It was also she who showed me how easy it was to 'create a blog' - from her own blog site.  What she didn't mention was that this blog site requires weekly posts (or maybe she's just saying that now because she wants to see weekly posts) lest there be 'blanks' (?).  All this to say that I have other, far more pressing deadlines and if the odd 'blank' finds its way into my blog, please do not take that to mean that I am an unreliable blogger. But really, something's gotta give.

Right now, my fantasies are about next Thursday at Noon because by then I will be/better be done for the term.  Between now and then, I have 3000 words due and a Math unit test.  All very doable until you take into account that the research for 1500 of the words is supposed to be a 'group' effort.  And to put it charitably, my 'group members' are reminicent of Hobbs (of Calvin and Hobbs.)

Going Back to Move Forward

We've all had the dream where you suddenly find yourself naked in public.  You question how you could possibly have managed to get, not only out of the house without clothes, but all the way to wherever you are when you make the realization.  This dream is not nearly so reoccuring  for me as the dream that I have to go back to school - to high school no less!  In that dream I am usually overcompensating by telling everybody I have a year and a half of University under my belt, that I shouldn't be there.  Because in my dream I don't get to go back as a moderately thin 18 year old who actually enjoyed my high school years; no, no, I'm a 30-something mother of three trying to fit in with the moderately thin 18 year olds AND stay on top of all that work! (Usually I can't even find the classroom.)   I've lost track of how many times I've had this dream over the years.  It would seem I've come to terms with exposing my expanding 'horizons'  in public but not with admitting that I dropped out of school.

Well, if things keep going the way they are for me, you may just find me at the grocery store naked because one of my worst nightmares has come true.  I've gone back to high school.  Actually, it's in conjunction with going back to University.  It turns out that my Ontario Grade 11 Math is not recognized in BC and I need it as a pre-requisite for other courses.  Let's just say that I was an above average student in high school… except when it came to Grade 11 Math.  I struggled through that  %#@* course TWICE (after dropping it the first time) and I finally finished it by the skin of my teeth - or so I thought.  I am distinctly not excited about taking it a third time.  But chalk this up to another lesson about how if I'd stayed in school the first time I wouldn't have to jump through these hoops now.

How can I best set the example for my kids to 'stay in school'?  Apparently, I am a living example because one day my daughter (12 at the time) said to me: "You're so smart! If you'd stayed in school you could have done ANYTHING!"  So rather than jump on the implication that I was pretty much a failure, I grabbed that 'teaching moment' by the horns and said, "How about you learn from my mistakes and stay in school!"  Aye, there's the rub.  Because I don't actually feel like it was a mistake because then I wouldn't be where I am now.  You see, I get immeasurable satisfaction from being a mother.  It's the one and only thing I've always known I wanted to be – so you could say I chose Motherhood as my major… talk about perpetual undergrad studies!  But alas, I am going back to move forward – now, when I have less time and more committments than ever (specifically three important ones),  but it's those "committments" that motivate this search for betterment.   I want to prove that I'm worthy of the admiration my kids seem to have for me.  And I am expecting those dreams to start changing – although now maybe when I do find the classroom, I'll be naked.

What are you going to do with that?

The reasons behind keeping the 'secret' of my return to school (I didn't tell ANYBODY until I was already attending classes) are shrouded partly in insecurity – about my age, my capacity to take this on at this point in my life, my uncertainty about my own determination - but are mostly due to the fact that I don't have a plan.  And people don't respect the lack of a plan.  It's not efficient.  There's no accountability.  When I first started to disclose that I had returned to post-secondary studies, my news was invariably met with "What are you going to do with that?"  And people were not satisfied with my answer of "more than I'm doing without it."  So I made up an answer that satisfies social convention (yet still avoids expectations) – I say that I couldn't afford to finish my degree way back when and now I finally can; and it has the bonus of a built-in excuse for dropping out.  It provides the accountability people need to accept my decision.  (The irony is not lost on me that I use a white lie to gain accountability!)

They say that 40 is the new 30 (and I'm only 39) and that 3 is the new black (referring to number of children.)  If that's true then I am the epitome of fashionable... but my classmates may argue otherwise as there's no hiding the fact that I am the oldest in the class.  And if by some chance my classmates are blind, my age comes out in my confidence to speak up in class. (How's that for more irony? Confidence and insecurity - but I'm not insecure about what my classmates think about me.)

So here I am trying to set an example for my three kids, one of whom I'm in a race with to get my degree.  I'm old, unsure, without a plan but earning As – something I didn't put much focus on when I was younger.  Why exactly am I blogging about it?  Because my mother told me to (another thing I didn't put much focus on when I was younger.)  I think she's just looking for a roundabout way to ask me what I'm 'going to do with that.'