Back to School for GrownUps

So …I started a new page, did you notice? Nontraditional student resources - it’s one of the tabs up there. 

I’ve only added a few links so far - things I came across in my wanderings yesterday, mostly. 

I already had some links here in my blogroll - but those tend to be links to helpful blogs or other sites - main pages, you know….    

The blogroll thing would get pretty unmanagable pretty quickly if I were to do what I wanted to do there - which is highlight some specific articles within blogs or other sites that are especially well done or relevant to nontraditional students. 

So …. I decided to go with a page - or pages - instead - I will keep adding to it  and hopefully build a useful directory that my visitors will find helpful enough to bookmark.

And why am I telling y’all about it? Well duh…. I’m hoping you will contribute to it, of course :) 

If you come across a specific article, blog or resource that you think might be useful to nontraditional students, please do let me know  so that I can include it.

You can, of course, leave links in the comment section, either here or on the Resources for Nontraditional Students page - or you can email me if you prefer. 

Patricia, over at the Communication Exchange got me to thinking today. She wrote an article about The Communication Connection Between Newspapers and Universities that raises the question of whether colleges and universities are headed the way of newspapers….  will they, too, be offered almost entirely in an online format? And if so, what will we lose as a result?

Don Tapcott, author of grown up digital , which is quickly becoming one of my most oft-quoted books, is very clear that the research done by his group shows that digital generations have very different values and expectations than those who came along before the technology. They have shorter attention spans, for starters  - and they want things when they want them, and most importantly HOW they want them. 

They take technology for granted …. and they know that they can use it to get what they want when they want and how they want it - so they are less likely to be willing to jump through the hoops that come from bad or pre-technology design or from tradition. 

grown up digital should be required reading for anyone interested or involved in teaching - and also for parents, and anyone in business that would like to stay in business over the long haul, for that matter! It really is well worth the investment.

Anyway …. back to the topic…

As Patricia rightly notes in her article , “for every improvement society makes comes loss” - and moving away from traditional on-site colleges and universities is no exception. 

For me, as much as I love my computer and the Internet, there is little doubt that I learn far better in a traditional learning environment. I need the interactions, the face to face time with classmates and professors, the challenges of having to speak my ideas out loud in the group before they are fully formed and ready to write.

I learn from my peers, and often it is a thought or question that someone else raises that gets me going off in new directions (I am called flit for a reason, after all )  I can DO online courses - and do very well in them - but they have so far been much less productive, overall.

But then, I am clearly too old to have grown up digital - so my experiences don’t really count for much, do they?  Although, given that I seem to be the biggest techno-geek in my cohort, perhaps they do :) 

Anyway ….I would love to know what you think would be the benefits - and pitfalls - of moving towards online educational offerings and away from traditional post secondary settings. 

And seriously - you should buy the book!  (And nope, this is not a paid advertisement, and I don’t receive any $$ if you do buy it - I just think it is a really important resource) 

No - not that Congress!

I have signed up to go to Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences , which is being held from 23 - 31 May 2009 at Carleton University in Ottawa . 

I’m not going for the entire thing - that would be too darn long, and besides, it would give hubby even more fits than he is already having about it. 

The issue, for him, of course, is not really about my going… it is about my going by myself. He is a tad uncomfortable with my being unsupervised given that one of my more nontraditional features is an alarming tendency to FDGB* wherever I happen to be. Since my car accident in November, he has been chauffeuring me everywhere and has become quite accustomed to babysitting me… now he seems to be having a bit of trouble letting go again - not helped by the fact that the incidence of FDGB episodes - and the severity - has admittedly increased somewhat of late.

He wants to go with me - there, and to my 2 weeks of summer school at Trent in June, as well. But he has to work and he can’t - and besides, honestly, I am starting to feel more than a ~tad~ constricted and I am rather looking forward to being a big girl and going places by myself again. It is great that he cares - but I SO miss having the freedom to just go be where I want to be and NOT TALK/SOCIALIZE all the damn time. 

Anyway, I signed up and booked myself a residence room from May 23 - 27. That puts me there for some sessions that looked particularly relevant and interesting on the Sunday, and 3 days of having to choose between career corner workshops in all kinds of things that sound great, Congress speakers and sessions , and the  Association for Research in Cultures of Young People Joint Sessions at ACCUTE that are taking place on the 26th, one of which my thesis advisor is chairing. 

I see the specialist about the FDGB thing next week - hopefully she will have some help to offer, although I honestly am not expecting a quick or easy solution - but even so, I am hoping that once we’re on the road to diagnosis/treatment it won’t seem like such a big scary thing…. for hubby, especially! 

Anyway, I paid my money and I am going - and I am very much looking forward to it. There are SO many sessions that interest me, and it is a great opportunity to get to know Carleton a bit, as well, which is a plus, since the Phd program I am entering in September is a joint program and Carleton is the other university. And if I make a fool of myself by doing the FDGB thing, well then…will just have to deal with it, won’t I? It won’t be the first time!  

* FDGB  = fall down go boom 

I was mucking about over in hubpages today and happened to come across this article about how to become an online class instructor for a university .

That is definitely something that I would love to do - I have the computer skills - and I love to teach ….but I wonder if I would still enjoy the teaching without the face to face interaction with students? Probably - I enjoy my online interactions with people I meet on Gather and through blogging and other social networking sites - so why not through teaching as well? 

My own experience with online course instructors has not been very positive on the whole though. I have taken online university courses both through Laurentian University’s Envision program , and through Athabasca University . 

In both cases, the materials provided were excellent. The instructor support, not so much. 

Both of my Envision courses had the same professor. First mistake, I guess. At least, if I had had different profs I might have had a shot at getting at least 1 that was…. well…. I don’t want to say good, since that would suggest that the one I did have was bad - and I didn’t have enough interaction to know that. The professor I did have was just totally unresponsive, mostly. 

No welcome email, or acknowledgement…. and when I emailed her with a question about an essay, her response took more than 2 weeks. It finally came about a week after the due date for the essay. Helpful. 

The courses I took at Athabasca all had different tutors - but again, so little interaction as to be pretty near useless. Honestly can’t even remember the names of either of the Shakespeare people …and the psychology one I remember mostly because I sent her my final essay back in January and am still waiting for a mark for it and for the course. Because of my car accident in November, I was late (with permission)…so some delay is understandable… but I would rather like to know how I did on the course… have the credit show up on my transcript… you know…  I did, after all, pay in excess of $600 for the course. It is a little frustrating. 

And if I had NEEDED that course to get accepted into the phd program I applied for, it would have been a lot frustrating. 

Anyway - when I am the prof, I will do a better job of it! 

Have you taken any online University courses?  How did you find them? What would you do differently if you were the prof?

Well finally!

Ross + I are on the way home from Peterborough and I have been wanting to write my blog but couldn’t find a way in to do that. The dropdown box that allows us to change from our main blog to the second doesn’t show up in the Blackberry browser any more. I knew I’d managed to get here before but it took me a while to think of how. Spam, that’s how. Had just finished telling Stephanie that and an email notification of a new comment showed up. First time I have been glad to see spam in my inbox

It has been a busy day. Had class early for canLit today to allow time for our field trip to see sights in the area that are relevant to what we have been talking about this semester. Went to a small church that Catharine Parr Traill’s daughter was married at. Thomas Traill and several of the Stricklands are buried in its small cemetary. We also visited the cemetary where CPT is buried, and saw her house and also Margaret Laurence’s house. Oh and the Moodie homestead as well. I took a few pictures. Most didn’t turn out so well but will try to upload 1 anyway.

After the field trip, Ross and I still had hours to kill. Usually on Wednesdays we go back to the motel and he reads/naps while I futz around on the computer. But since we were coming home after class tonight that wasn’t an option so we went and had a leisurely lunch at the Panda Chinese buffet near the school. Then we went back to the campus and hung around there until it was time for class.

Today was the last time I saw my seminar students as a class and I wanted a good turnout for the evaluation forms and for exam review so I bribed them with pizza. No surprise there - it worked quite well

Now we are on our way home - still about an hour to go. Tomorrow Ross writes his exams and after that it will be time for me to knuckle down and knock off some essays

I’m looking forward to getting them DONE.

Today was the last class of my MA core course in Public Texts… tonight is the last meeting of the research group…and tomorrow will be also full of endings - Canadian lit and my ENGL1000 seminars.

And as much as I have been looking forward to getting to the end of it all, I am a bit sad too. 

I hate endings. 

Of course, none of them are really quite done yet… while we won’t be meeting anymore, I have essays to mark for my seminars - and then there will be their exams on the 24th of April. And I still have two position papers and an essay to do for Viral Contagion, a long paper for CanLit, and one for Public Texts, and a proposal re: my major research paper …. 

and then once THAT stuff is all done, I’ll still have the major research paper to actually write…. 

so even though it is an ending…. there’s still quite a ways to go before I’ll have done everything I need to do to get my Masters….. 

Definitely into the home stretch though! 

Yikes!

Been reading some of the posts in the grad cafe forums …. just can’t get over how many people have received nothing but rejections (or unfunded spots, which isn’t much better). 

That has got to hurt. 

Every single application represents a huge investment …. not only do we wannabe grad students pay for the privilege of applying - and for multiple copies of test scores +/ transcripts to be sent - each one also involves a great deal of time & energy. 

Statements of purpose, resumes/CVs, and especially rounding up letters or recommendation from profs all take time to write, edit, get…. 

All so much fun - but when it works it all feels worthwhile. When it doesn’t, though….  

This year has been particularly difficult. The economy has impacted on a great many programs, and there have been a lot of cuts to both the number of positions and to the funding offered….which means there are even more disappointed people.

*sad*

Well, as I mentioned on Flitting on Fiction , I was mucking around with my Blackberry last night, and downloaded the new beta software that fictionwise (who have recently been bought by Barnes & Noble ) now offers for it.

eReader eBooks now work on BlackBerry Handhelds, along with Apple iPhones plus other mobile devices using Palm, Windows Mobile Pocket PC and Smartphone and Symbian Operating Systems (as well as PCs and Mac). You can download free eReader software at Fictionwise .

So of course, even though it was bedtime by the time I got there, I had to download a couple of books and try it. 

One of the good things about doing a degree in English Lit is that a lot of the books we talk about are classics - and a lot of classic literature shows up in the Free Downloads section. I downloaded Emma, by Jane Austen, and Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott for starters - haven’t read Little Women in decades, but it was a favourite when I was a young ‘un. There are other, more current eBooks as well, in the free section. 

What there aren’t - and what will cause me to  not spend my blogging money on book titles for the Blackberry Curve, but rather continue letting it build up in my paypal until I figure out which digital reader to buy - are very many books by Canadian authors other than Robert J. Sawyer - and much as I enjoy his books, he has yet to turn up on any of my syllabi and I don’t expect that he will anytime soon. 

Since the Kindle is not yet available in Canada, I’m guessing that I’m likely to be disappointed there as well…. have to check out the Sony eReader selection and see what they’ve got for me - but since I happen to know that Penguin gave its employees eReaders, I’m hopeful that many they’ll have a better selection …. although still not, I would guess, the textbook sort of stuff that I would so love to have available on a handheld device. 

Sure wish eBrary had a purchase option …. there are SO many books I want to read sitting on my eBrary bookshelf, but they are not mobile enough to suit me - I want to be able to download what I want and read it offline.

Anyway, enough pouting…I think I was meaning to talk about reading on the Blackberry! It is not nearly as bad as I thought it might be…. the only issue I have with it is that when you scroll down, using the pearl, of course, you pop entirely to the next section of text…. it is not a gradual scrolling action at all. I find that a bit irritating, especially as a couple of times, I apparently scrolled too much so the sentence I left off on carried on into a new sentence that had nothing to do with anything….  it was only because it didn’t make sense that I knew there was a problem.

I would prefer, I think, to have the last line of the previous bit show at the top of the next just to maintain some continuity. I suspect, though, that it is something one gets used to eventually.

So …what are public texts?

Michael Warner, author of Publics and Counterpublics , describes 3 “senses” of the word “public”. 

First, we have the public: a kind of social totality, or “the people in general”. this sort of public is thought to include everyone within the field in question - whether that be nation, commonwealth, city, state or some other community. (65)

Second, Warner talks about a public: “a concrete audience, a crowd witnessing itself in visible space, as with a theatrical public.”  A public, in this sense of the word, is bounded by an event or shared space, and “knows itself by knowing where and when it is assembled in common visibility and common action” (66)

It is the third sort of Warner’s senses of publics that we English MA geeks are most concerned with, of course - “the kind of public that comes into being only in relation to texts and their circulation” (66). 

Warner  discusses at length the sort of publics - both the public and a public - that exist around texts. Some key features - and the 7 points he uses as headings for sections in writing about textual publics: 

1. A public is self-organized (and circular - texts create publics and publics create texts and in some cases there is no answer to which comes first) 
2. A public is a relation among strangers
3. The address of public speech is both personal and impersonal
   
4. A public is constituted through mere attention
5. A public is the social space created by the reflexive circulation of discourse
6. Public act historically according to the temporality of their circulation
7. A public is poetic world making  (i.e. there is a performative dimension to it)

Is a blog, then, a public text? Always, or only sometimes or some blogs? Does Wikipedia have publics? What about YouTube videos? 

Me, I think there are a whole lot of publics - and public texts - on the Internet, just as there are anywhere else that texts are produced, performed, discussed, interacted with….  and I am far more interested in how the Internet impacts on the creation of publics - and on how that is likely to impact on society, publics, texts…..  than I am in studying historical “public texts.”  But that’s just me - always looking to steer clear of ancientLit

So ….regular readers of this blog will know that I am currently completing a Master’s degree in English, Public Texts .

But what does that actually mean? 

According to the program website : 

In the Public Texts M.A. program at Trent University, we explore what it means to “go public” – to “publish” – and how that act resonates in the political, economic, and aesthetic spheres. Our students will develop new ways of looking at the production of texts, their circulation, and the relationship between texts and their publics, exploring issues which are emerging as central to literary research in the twenty-first century.

Well, yeah…we did that, I guess… but honestly,  I feel as though we’ve barely scratched the surface in many ways….and I’m frustrated - and a tad embarassed - to say that I am not sure that I could clearly articulate a definition of the phrase “public texts” at this point.

Or maybe that isn’t it…. I think that I know what I think public texts are.. just not so sure that my definition is not the same as the prof’s. And since I need to write an essay about emerging adults and public texts for this particular prof, I really DO wish I had a clearer sense of his definition.

Biggest thing on my to-do list this weekend is to type up a whole bunch of practice questions about pest control techniques for hubby.

I made him write the questions - partly because I didn’t have time and didn’t much care to read  his textbooks quite that closely, and partly because I figured that it might help him study and retain the material better. 

He is more than a little stressed about this whole examination thing! 

He is 57 years old and hasn’t been in school for a very long time, and, he insists, even when he WAS there, he didn’t do all THAT well. 

Now he has to write two multiple choice tests - and not only that, but the mark he has to get on each to pass is not 50% … or even 60%…but 75%!!! 

He is SO not looking forward to it. 

I made a testbank for him in MS Access… so he can practice with all the questions we’ve come up with …I did write some for him when he first got the books. Now I just have to get all of the new questions he’s written typed up for him, so that he can spend a couple of days practicing using that.

Hopefully it will help …. but he is going to stress about it till it’s over; that is clear. 

The thing is that everyone he knows who has taken it didn’t pass both tests on the first attempt…and if he doesn’t pass, nothing really bad happens…. he would just have to study some more and try it again - and could work in the meantime. 

But I think tis a point of pride…and I really, really hope he does pass it on his first attempt. 

I am so incredibly tired today that I am pretty near non-fuctional.

No good reason for it…. I went to bed at a decent time, woke up before my alarm went off and as far as I know had a decent night’s sleep.

But I sure do not feel at all rested.

Have had rather a lot of FDGB episodes this week though - (7 yesterday; 4 today …but who’s counting?)  - perhaps they are catching up to me

Went to class this morning, and then dropped my Ethical Research application off (glad that’s done!) …and then we came back to the motel, had lunch, and I have been trying to drop Entrecards and get some work done since. 

I have one more class to get through today - a one hour lecture, and then a couple of hours of seminar. Maybe only one, if all goes well…I suggested to my students that they all come at 7 and we are reading the play that we’re talking about this week as a group. I am really pleased with the response to my request that they negotiate what parts they want to read on our online forum - most have chosen a role, and most roles are filled, which is very cool. It should be fun! 

If only I can find some energy to manage to stay awake for it. 

Think I am going to go have a nap… I need sleep more than I need to drop my card right now, I think. 

Well… we got the word re: Today.com and Entrecard and while not at all surprised, I’m still bummed….

No solutions …so within the next two weeks, all Today.com blogs will have to remove their Entrecard widgets from their blogs. 

That really sucks….not so much because of the loss in terms of traffic, although that will hurt…but because I will miss the connections I’ve made with many Entrecard bloggers. I will likely continue to visit your sites…. I’ll keep my flitting.org widget…. but I know that many people won’t remember to stop by and visit my Today.com blogs if I’m not showing up in their dropboxes.

I have ads purchased on both of my today.com blogs - this one, and flitting on fiction …. so I shall leave them for a bit… but they will be gone by the end of March, so if you are a reader - as opposed to a dropper - you might want to add me to your bookmarks before then. 

Really am going to have to get busy and find some other ways to encourage traffic! I LIKE the $$ I make through blogging on Today.com … not about to give it up without at least trying to maintain my pay per post status. 

Doing the school thing as a nontraditional student is always challenging.

When I went to college for Computer Programming, I was single parenting and constantly broke. I did it anyway. 

When I started my undergrad in English, I was also taking care  of my mother-in-law, who had Alzheimer’s. It was a lot of work…and I did it anyway.

When ma became ill and we decided to keep her at home until the end - and then she died - I still managed to keep up with my school stuff and finish the semester on time. 

During my last year of undergrad, I managed to juggle teaching a full load, plus classes both in Barrie and in Sudbury (3+ hours  North of Barrie) ….. and the driving sucked and it was hard. Still, I made it.

In November of this year, I fainted at the wheel, wrecked my car, broke one wrist and sprained the other and lost my drivers’ license …… still, I managed to finish the semester with decent grades and on time.

And then there are all the other nontraditional students I know…. people juggling families, jobs, disabilities, learning challenges, illnesses….etc.  And they keep going and make it too. 

We are a strong bunch, we nontraditional students. 

I am strong and I can keep on doing this. 

Okay …so maybe today was a very bad day and I am sorely tempted to say to hell with it and …. 

…never mind. This too shall pass…. and I WILL keep going until I’m done. Damn it!

What a frustrating activity this is!

I have already finished the 17 page application for consideration of my research project by the Ethics board… that was truly fun too, given that the form is a pdf and while you can type in it, you can’t SAVE it, so you have to do it right in one sitting - and then retype any pages your supervisor modifies (only 1 in my case, but still). 

Now I am working on the 2 draft consent forms that need to go with it - it has to be submitted this week or there is no way that I’ll get approval back in time to actually DO the research I need doing. 

The consent forms are irksome. 

There is a lot that has to go into them, even if it really does not apply to my particular research project, which many of them really don’t. 

And the hardest part of all is that according to the guidelines, it has to be written in language that scores no higher than the 9th grade reading level. 

You try writing about university level research  and not coming off sounding either as incapable of DOING university level research or condescending!!!

It wouldn’t be so bad except that I know that someday I am going to have to give this form to people I want to interview - I would rather it not be something I am embarassed by.

My first draft was at 14.8 on the Flesch-Kincaid grade level score…. now it’s down to 11.4…. but still got to find a way to dumb it down simplify it 2 more grade levels worth.  ICK!

Tis the season….  I’ve been hanging out at the Grad Cafe quite a bit lately, and am struck by how many people are still waiting to hear back from the places they’ve applied.

I feel for them all…. the people who have no information at all yet, as well as those who have heard but the responses were less than what they’d hoped… i.e. out and out rejections, or acceptances without funding, or wait list status. Any of those would just suck soooooooo bad!

At least there’s a possibility that no news is good news… but even so, that’s a lot of stress for people to have to sit with for a very long time. 

I am so very glad that I know where I’m going …. I can’t imagine trying to keep up with all of my work, write major papers, jump through hoops (Ethics application - 17 pages + appendicies of hoops - ick!) while waiting.

I have not yet heard from York University , but I expected that …. they and U of T were both incredibly slow last year as well, plus York had their strike this winter as well, which I don’t imagine helped any.  Since I am not seriously considering York now that I know that I got into my first choice, it really doesn’t much matter to me…. but if it were the other way round, it sure would! And I would still like to know whether I got in or not, of course :) 

Anyway… here’s hoping that everyone who is still waiting …either for answers or to move off waitlists and into admissions gets happy news and SOON. 

…. just in case you ever decide to go on and do the grad school thing…

There are all kinds of things that can be helpful  to know when you are an undergraduate… not only in case you do decide to apply for graduate school - many of the same things can be helpful in terms of applying for scholarships as well. And you should be applying for scholarships, as well, by the way!

Anyway… focus, flit!

Some things to keep in mind during undergraduate studies

KEEP EVERYTHING YOU WRITE.

You just never know when one of those seemingly pointless papers you write during the course of 4 years of school will be just the thing to pull out, dust off, and use again. Part of the whole grad school gig is attending conferences. When you get a Call for Papers, it can be really helpful to have all of your previous papers on hand ….one of them might well fit.

Of course, if your proposal is accepted, you will probably want to rework the paper given what you’ve learned since… but they can make a great starting place for writing a proposal at least.

Best bet - when you receive your graded paper back, go back to it and correct the original file accordingly. Fix any typos, awkward sentences, etc. And then save it someplace safe with a good filename, and make periodic backups. You may never need it again - but if/when you do, you’ll be glad to have it.

DEVELOP RELATIONSHIPS WITH PROFESSORS

For both grad school and scholarship applications, letters or recommendations from professors are important….and the better your professors know you, the more likely they are to be willing, able to be positive recommenders.

Being a good student and doing well is a good start…but there is more to it than that, I think. Show up when they offer special essay times. Ask them for advice - not only about the work you’re doing in the class you’re taking with them, but about your academic career, about journals to keep up with, conferences to attend, etc. Stand out by taking an interest in their work.  Oh yeah…and if they wrote the textbook - buy it, and ask them to sign it too.

Something else you might want to consider here is that you are not necessarily limited to the profs at your university. Nothing to stop you from making contact with professors in areas you are interested in at others when you have the opportunity.

VOLUNTEER

Not for everything that’s going on ….. you have to have time for your life, and of course, for your schoolwork. But volunteering/showing up for wisely chosen activities can go a long way to building your connections and your applications.

With all I had to juggle during undergrad (I was taking care of my ma in law who had Alzheimers and couldn’t be left alone at all) I didn’t have time for ongoing committment type of stuff… but I did manage to turn up for things like the writers’ festival my prof arranged (and still do; I love it), and volunteered for a conference they held - which gave me exposure to the whole conference thing as well as earning me some brownie points.

What else? Any of you other experienced back to schoolers have advice/thoughts/ideas re: things you wish you’d known in undergrad? Or things that you did that worked well for you?

So…I am at home.

And very happy to be here too - in spite of the fact that I should be still in Peterborough so that I would be there for tomorrow morning’s TA meeting. 

We were planning to stay …. but I am sore and cranky and I just couldn’t stand the thought of hanging around the motel room all evening just to go to a one hour meeting tomorrow morning. 

I finish class at 2 on Thursdays. There is a tea that we could have gone to if I had been inclined to be at all sociable… and I suppose we would have gone out for dinner or whatever…  but I just wanted to come HOME. 

I really enjoy being a TA ….  although I DO much prefer it when my students actually SHOW UP (which far too many didn’t last night) … but the meetings ….blech.   If they had been on a day/time that I had other ~stuff~ it would not be so bad…. but they are scheduled for Fridays. So all year, I have either had to stay over Thursday nights, or drive back on Fridays.  An extra day (and $44 plus food) …or an extra 5+ hours on the road…. ick, ick, ick! 

Anyway…I found out that they hadn’t had a meeting last week, so I had not missed one…. so this week…. I’m being a bad grad student. 

So …. haven’t managed to accomplish much today …. even considering that it is Wednesday, which is a relatively busy class/teaching day…..

Motel lost its Internet completely during the few hours break I normally have, so couldn’t do any research then…. did get my powerpoint for tomorrow (re)done… but that was about it …

BUT  even so, I got to knock a significant chunk off of my workload for the rest of this semester - without doing any work at all….. that made me very happy! 

In CanLit this morning, I brought up the topic of the essay for the course…. just to confirm the date it was due and so forth… and during the course of the discussion, the required paper length dropped from 40+ pages to “20 - 25 pages”. 

Which drops my workload by about 1/4… instead of 110+ pages of essay to write over the next few weeks, I’m down to a piddly 80 or so …. still bunches, but now it feels doable. 

Got to like it when that happens! 

I can not believe how quickly this semester has flown by …. it is almost over! Still 3 big papers to write - and some other odds & ends to finish up ….

and of course, there will be marking from my TA seminars and my database courses…. but most of that will be done at home, in the comfort of my own house as opposed to here in the motel - which, although it has been cheap, and served us well for the most part - I won’t miss much. I would miss it a lot more if the Internet wasn’t so gosh darned annoying! have been here for an hour & a half and managed to drop a whopping 36 Entrecards so far Way too frustrating! 

I have 90 databases to mark, but no WAY I’m even going to attempt to download them here…. that would have me in fits, I have no doubt. 

Anyway, I have a novel to read yet tonight….AND a class to go to and we’re supposed to go out to the bar afterwards… should run through my speech (giving for 2nd practice run tonight) but my foot is asleep so haven’t gotten up to go out to the van and get it…. will do it on the way to class I guess. Or not. Have practiced it to the point that I’m bored with it now…. oh carp! Just realized that I haven’t yet checked to make sure that I did in fact get the file I needed onto my flash drive this morning… if not, I’ll need to be recreating my powerpoint yet before I go. 

I already know I forgot the other powerpoint I worked on and need for Thursday …will redo that … hoping I have this one though.  Cross your fingers!