Alive!

I’d like to say alive and well but that would be taking it a bit far.

I took my biology final today. I did just fine, thank you. I actually got to find out all of my final grades today. Math, biology and English; 3.2, 3.6 and 4.0. I’ll take it. Now I am going to sleep for three days. I wish! I came down with the creeping crud the week before finals and have been all in a thither about it. Pretty much all I have been doing is sleeping, working and trying to make my brain retain some of my school work.

So I am taking a couple of days off from work now. One of the benefits of being self employed, and I am going to get my taxes done. One of the not so great things about being self employed. I really know how to celebrate don’t I?

Then it is on to next quarter. I have switched schools and hopefully this will be a good fit for me. It was a pain in the ass having to go through all the paperwork, testing, and advising again, but it is done! Unfortunately I found out if I want to make the cut off to apply for the program I want next year, I will have to take chemistry this summer. I am trying to figure out how I am going to work that out. Chem is only offered during the day in the summer. Oh well I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.

So a few days to catch up on much needed chores and do my taxes so that I can apply for next years financial aid and scholarships. Then I start the next round of classes, but it shouldn’t be too bad. I am only taking two classes and hope to get my math (the one subject that gives me the most problems) done for a while. I will have to take stats when I go for my Bachelors but first things first. I need to do well enough in my prerequisites to get into the nursing program of my (fingers crossed) choice.

Life is messy and so are quadratic equations

Or why I hate math.

This is why I’m not here. It is called the quadratic formula, and I have to know how to do it. In “real life” according to my instructor. What that means is not easy problems that come out with nice whole numbers but messy shit that sucks.

I told him I thought this was bs. I am forty-six; I have never needed to know this, and I think my life has been pretty damn real. What, some crazed mass murderer is going to run into the restaurant where I have lunch, waving a gun and yell “Everyone dies! Except those of you that can graph this quadratic equation.” If that happens I’ll just ask him to shoot me first.

Anyways just about the time I think I get it, something goes sideways. *sigh* I just don’t have a math brain. I am really trying to get this shit but really? Isn’t this what we have calculators and computers for. Yes, I love it when my instructor is showing us a problem and it doesn’t work out as planned so he grabs his graphing calculator to figure out what went wrong. I’m like ~Dude if you can’t do this without a graphing calculator how come I’m supposed to be able to? And you’re the instructor!

Humbled and empowered.

Last week was enlightening.

I wrote this last week and meant to get back to it after I had slept. Well things have been hectic and I never did so here it is now. Lots has been happening, hopefully I will have time to write here. Back to my controversial English paper on abortion…

As you know, I have decided to go back to school. Something I have done a few times in my life, but this time I am decidedly the older student. I haven’t been back in a college classroom in over twelve years; next week I turn forty-six. If all goes well I will get my RN at fifty and my BSN at fifty-two, all while working. I have read about the aging brain; its ability to continue to learn. and make new neural pathways much longer than science had thought it could, even a few years ago. While this is true, what does decline is our ability to quickly recall information. We still learn and we can recall what we learn, but not as fast as our younger peers. I have read about this and I knew it was happening to me; hence, my decision to go back to school was partly based on this. The more you use it, the slower you lose it. I want, and like to learn. I knew things would be different, and they are.

I took my biology midterm last week. I was the second oldest person in my class. Half my grade depended on that test. For the first time in my life, I was not one of the first ones done. I normally test well; I don’t have test anxiety. Things were different, I had to reread some of the questions and think a bit about them. There were a few where I even guessed on. All of these things are new to me, so was the feeling I had when I left the class. I didn’t know for sure how I had done. I knew I had passed, but I didn’t really know how I had done. By that afternoon I was able to see my grade, I got a B, just missed an A. Not bad, a B is acceptable. I would have preferred an A, who wouldn’t? It was an interesting day, I have known I was slowing down but it has been gradual, almost imperceptible. The forgetting of minor things, the inability to remember a name, little things like that. But it hit home that day because I was able to see a more marked change; I could compare myself to twelve years ago and see the difference. It is interesting. I am not upset or even particularly bothered by this, it is a fact of life. I can still learn, it just means I will have to adjust the way I study and prepare for tests. And the more I work at it, the better I will become. Realistically this is just the beginning, I am taking a full course load and trying to work full-time. If necessary I will have to cut back on one of those; we will see. Oh, I was able to pull up a report on how I did compared to my classmates. I was in the top twenty percent, not bad for an older student. I can do better though.

More about the other things I learned about myself that week, later. Bedtime, I have been burning the midnight oil a lot this quarter. I need to get more sleep, but there is just so much damn homework!

Reading, writing and arithmetic

Well I may be doing a lot of writing even if it hasn’t been here!

Taking on a full course load and trying to work full time has left me with no time to do much else. I’m taking Intermediate Algebra, English and a Biology class, while I started out with doing all of them online I have switched to a in person class for the Algebra. Unfortunately that meant catching up with my class while still maintain good grades in the other two. I think I may finally be getting it under control. Don’t want to say that too loudly and curse myself. Hopefully I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew; I believe my adviser called it an aggressive plan. Math has and continues to be difficult for me but I finally feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

So I hope to be back to blogging again, at least somewhat regularly as I enjoy it. Wish me luck I have another math exam tomorrow. I feel somewhat ready for it, which is a change of pace. Off to bed now, oooh lookie I might get to sleep before 2am!

Week One~going crazy

It is my first week of full time online student, full time work and part no time life!

This is how I felt trying to doing my Algebra homework.

Still alive, barely, I think. The usual stress, fatigue and overwhelmed feelings and then add some unexpected bullshit. So everything is normal, I guess. Hopefully things will start to settle down and I’ll find my stride.

Feels like all I’ve been doing is homework. Oh yeah that is all I’ve been doing! Too bad writing blog posts doesn’t count as doing English homework. My ass is starting to make a permanent impression on my couch. Nice visual, huh? Anyways I’m alive and hope to be back here commenting again soon.

By the way I leave for five minutes and they completely change WP? What the hell like I don’t have enough shit to deal with?

School is in session

Forgive me, I am somewhat overwhelmed.

I may not be around much for the next week or two. What on earth made me take three online classes at once? Oh, one of them is intermediate algebra, did I mention I have always sucked at math? And my college has decided to try a new online program for some of it’s online classes. Lucky me two of my classes are in the new program. I found this out the day I started. They all appeared to be in the old system, until I clicked to open them and then two of them redirected me to a new program. Wonderful get to be a guinea pig and try to figure out how to navigate in a new program.

The day I started my classes, literally fifteen minutes into it the internet crashed. When I called the cable company, after listening to bad muzak for twelve minute they informed me that the entire area was down because a car hit some pole. It never did come back up before I just gave up and went to bed. Not my lucky day!

Also my biology teacher seems to like to do video presentations ~long ones. Long and boring ones that are poorly arranged and she says Uhm a lot. After fifteen minutes of listening to her go uhm countless time and convey about three minutes of information I thought I was going to scream. All the while looking at a picture of the syllabus which I had already downloaded and read. *sigh* at least it made me want to go do math problems….

I am really beginning to love this photo. I think I may make it my Gravatar picture.

Arghhh!

Feast or famine would be a good way to describe my life.

So I have decided to go back to school. I start a full class load in January, luckily I can start out by doing it online. Worry about commuting, working and going to school full time in a couple of quarter. Worry about the paying for it too, later, hence the working full time and going to school full time. But that isn’t what this post is about, exactly.

I start school again in a week; I have a lot I need to get done before the third. Like wrapping up re-financing my house, getting back on the healthy eating thing or as I like to call it this first week of no cookies, famine. I also need to get my paper work for the end of the year in order so that I won’t be trying to do my taxes while taking finals. Oh and I will be doing all my classes online this quarter so, of course, my internet connection is acting up.

I’m a bit cranky with the no sugar thing. Sugar is my drug of choice these days, and I have been on a bender. Hard not to when everyone is a pusher at this time of year. Unfortunately my choice of drug makes me fat and cranky unlike some drugs that make a person cranky and thin. Pot is legal now in my state so I guess I could be mellow and chunky but the problem with that is most junk food tastes like crap. I may be a sugar junkie but I am a snooty one, I like my sweets to be organic and handmade!

Some days are cookie days.

Hopefully the new router will fix the internet situation. I signed all the paperwork for the re-fi and that should be done, unless the bank pulls some asshattery. I am somewhat successfully weaning myself off the daily sugar rush but boy is it hard. Do not get between me and a coconut macaroon, you could get trampled. If WP doesn’t eat any more of  my posts I’ll be happy.

Happy New Year! And I say that without my usual sarcasm and sneer, I hope that this year will be good to all my fellow bloggers. It sure looks like it will be an interesting one for me. I anticipate I will have time to keep up on my reading of your blogs during the ten minutes of personal time I have allotted myself once school commences again.

I was going to post something nice.

Last night I wrote this thoughtful post on finding a moment of tranquility.

I spent quite some time contemplating, writing and editing a post. Something semi serious and, at least I thought, a nice post about dealing with stress.

Then either WP or the internet fucking glitched and lost most of my post! So screw it! There went all my damned hard earned peace! The world is not meant to know the kind, sweet gentle me; oh hell she doesn’t even exist for all you know!  So back to normal.

~ This is me being tranquil ~

By the way I did not find my tranquility in a glass, or a bottle for that matter. Did you know I used to be a bartender? No? Yes, I was a good one too, or at least I made good money doing it. But I just couldn’t handle all the damn drunks. Seriously. Did you know that if you add enough alcohol everyone, and I mean everyone, becomes stupid, angry or morose. Yep, if you add enough alcohol it will happen. I hate talking to stupid people. You can not have a conversation with stupid.  You are too drunk when I am telling you you’re a moron and you think it’s a compliment. Not that I like angry or sad people, but at least with angry drunks I could just throw them out. It is a little harder with depressed ones (aren’t all drunks depressed), I had to ignore them until they became total pain in the asses and then I could throw them out.

So anyways, not a bartender anymore. Interestingly I pretty much gave up drinking after that. Did I mention everyone becomes stupid with alcohol? I hate being stupid, so I quit drinking.

So I became a hair stylist. No comments about being stupid.

A lot of the same people but at least they are sober. Smart, interesting sober people are better than drunks. A smart, interesting drunk person is still drunk and it tends to cancel out the first two things. I still deal with angry and sad people sometimes but it is easier to understand to them when they aren’t slurring their words and repeating themselves.

Happy Holidays from the Angry Atheist!

Wandering mind

My mind wanders to strange places.

Getting a massage today and my masseuse and I begin talking about stress, which lead to Buddhists and the term monkey mind.

That makes me laugh and comment about the fact that most people I know that practice Buddhism do so because they have monkey minds and this is why I find them so aggravating. Not that I don’t often have a monkey mind, the difference is I’m not usually trying to rein it in. I actually enjoy my minds wanderings.

Example: Buddhist, monkey mind, orangutan, Clint Eastwood, spaghetti westerns, that movie he was in with an orangutan. See this is fun! I went from religion to old movies with hot old dude in less than two seconds.

Hot old dude (before he got old) with monkey.

Monkey mind can be helpful, what is more stress relieving than laughing while getting a massage?

Damn!

I had hoped to be writing a post about having taken my math final and being done with this class! But no!

I thought that my final exam would be available to take tonight and I have been studying and getting ready to just do it. But then when I went to open it I found out it won’t be available until tomorrow. God damn it all. I was ready, well as ready as I could be for math. I planned it to peak today.

Now I have to re-figure when I’m going to take it. I have long days and late nights to work and then there is the Holiday Building Party I am helping with and attending. *sigh* I wanted  to be done with it and enjoy my weekend but it looks like I won’t have time to do it until Saturday now.

Well at least my cookies are baked for the party. If only I can keep from eating them! They are those lighter than air, delicate melt in your mouth, absolutely fantastic sugar cookies I am famous for. No not those nasty, craptastic rolled ones with icing and look like snowmen and Santa.  I know those are the normal kind to make this time of year but I go for the delicate, crisp, airy ones that taste like spun sugar.

At least I had time to color my hair so I will look good for the party, I guess it is a good for business thing if I don’t have an inch of grow out, specially since my hair isn’t much longer than two inches. So hopefully I will be done with this class by the weekend. Damned good thing, because I checked the calendar and I start the next quarter on the 27th. Suck! I thought for sure I would have until after the first before I had to get back at it. So much for getting caught up on things before the craziness begins again. Now suddenly I have a ton to do in two weeks instead of just a lot to do in three. No rest for the wicked.

Next up finding time to organize for my taxes so I won’t be doing that while trying to do finals for three classes. Yup, crazy ass me decided to sign up for Intermediate Algebra, Cell Biology and English next. All while working and running a business. The bright side is you might not have to listen to me bitch much cause something is going to have to give and my sanity all ready went out the window.