Back to School for GrownUps

I loves my computer.

I loves my blackberry.

and I loves my Internet.

All of my toys make surviving school MUCH easier.

Except for the pdfs. I have WAY too many photocopied files. Have used my 500 “free” photocopy credits already - and I have stacks and stacks of articles.

I was trying to work with online files as much as possible, but it just wasn’t working for me… plus, there are a bunch of readings that are not available online - those we have to photocopy.

I am very frustrated tonight. I know that somewhere in my stacks of paper, there is a long article that I need to read before my class tomorrow. I have gone through every pile, my napsack, my organizer, my purse, etc, etc. I’m almost certain, having exhausted all possibilities, that the file I need is sitting on my desk at home. Damn it!

I need a better system for my paper.

I really need to get better about getting things done on the weekend! While I did make some progress on some things… most notably, my psychology paper and the Plan of Study for my SSHRC scholarship application - I still have several things I should have done…. one of which, now that I think of it, I need to do TONIGHT … it is for class tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.! Yikes!

I did load it in my browser - but then didn’t read it. That won’t do. Oh well…at least I did remember.

The other things I need to get done - 2 short papers to write - I can do those tomorrow after class…..and then try to get some more work done on the psych paper too. It is going to be SUCH a huge relief to get that done. And then I can settle down to work on the other 4 major papers and oh yeah - write a musical.

SO much juggling!

It is a good thing I like school … sure can’t imagine doing it otherwise!

Heard an interesting conversation re: the use of drugs such as ritalin by students …. the debate was over whether using them to get better grades was the same - as in cheating - as using performance enhancing drugs in sports.

I found it interesting not only because people were so split on the topic… but also because I really hadn’t considered that they might raise one’s grades. Not enough to matter, anyway.

It is no secret that I have attention issues (no comment needed, Tamara) … but I have always managed to do quite well without benefit of medication … Ross has suggested several times that I need his drugs more than he does - and he is quite possibly right….. but I have found ways to cope, and to force myself to pay attention … or to make up for it when I can’t/don’t. Have I been missing out?

Maybe I have…but I think I shall continue to do so, at least for the time being.

I do miss notetaking though …that was my main way of reining in my wandering at Laurentian…I signed up to be the official note-taker for any of those with learning disabilities in my classes…which meant that I had to force myself to pay attention… or at least, when I did drift off, to be motivated to get back to it sooner… it worked for me, most of the time.

At Trent, most of my classes are only 2 hours long instead of 3… that helps.

Well… it’s not REALLY a toy… honest! It’s going to help me to stay organized and in touch and productive and …and… and…

Well, it will! But it’s a pretty cool little gadget too

My red blackberry curve came today … had to go to Barrie to pick it up … stopped at the college and picked up my (I am SUCH a ~star~) scholarship letters as well. But then I went down to the UPS office and picked up my blackberrry.

So far, I’m liking it … barely scratched the surface of what it can do … haven’t even made a phone call yet… but I did get it set up to grab my email for me; that’s cool. Need to go in and change the settings on my university account to quit forwarding to my main account… means that with both on the BB, I get two copies of everything going through there, which I don’t need now that I have the BB.

Aside from its use as a phone-I-can-actually-hear-people-on (my Nokia SUCKED) and for getting my email, I’m looking forward to having my calendar on hand again … that was really what I used the most on my lifeDrive before I killed it

I NEED an electronic organizer! And now I have one again.

And it will be great to have the maps application too - assuming I ever figure that all out. I am, for a computer programmer type, often remiss at figuring out all the ~stuff~ my toys can do … I never did learn to use speed dial on any of my previous cells, for example. But I will learn the stuff I need to know for the calendar and the mapping functions…. and perhaps I might even figure out the speed dial thing this time.

Most colleges and universities have a number of resources available to help students succeed.

And many of them are used by far fewer students than could benefit from them.

Even if you don’t need a particular resource right now - it still can’t hurt to at least know what is available. Then, when you could use a bit of help with something or other, you will know where to go.

As a prof, the one place I wish that more of my students would use is the writing lab. There are 2 good reasons to find out if your school has one, and if so, to USE IT.

1. It never hurts to have someone objective look over your paper and point out problem areas. Students who use the writing lab tend to get higher marks than those who don’t. DUH!
2. Having to get your essay done BEFORE it’s due so that you will have time to take it to the writing lab means that you are less likely to leave it until the last minute…and that is definitely a good thing.

Other resources to check out:

Student success or student support services - whatever they call them… there are often several components that come under this umbrella - job search/career counselling, health/counselling services, and accomodation services & support for those with specific learning, physical or health challenges.

It drives me crazy when I see students who clearly have organizational/learning difficulties opt to fail - or just scrape by - rather than identify as learning disabled and accessing available services. And there is SO much available! One of my favourite tools for school is Inspiration software … it is a powerful took for mindmapping and organization. There are many, many other resources available, and people specially trained to help you figure out what would specifically benefit you.

Mature Students Associations - resources - and often, social events, specific to mature students

Financial aid office - even if you don’t qualify for state/provincial/government assistance, there are often bursaries available to help out in an emergency. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know.

One of my biggest challenges on Wednesday is just getting through my classes without nodding off, or without looking as though I’m trying not to.

Small classes - there are only 10/12 in each …so tis really hard to nod off without being noticed!

Ideally I would get to bed earlier Tuesdays so that my day wouldn’t feel so damn long… but I have a late class on Tuesdays and then we often go out afterwards… it is the only time, really, that I’m here to do the social thing…

And then there is packing up, and going through readings or my papers one last time and…whatever…I never have been all that good at shutting down and going to sleep as soon as I get ‘home’.

So - again today, I’m beyond tired, and have 9 hours of classes spread over 12 hours to get through. Last week I did not have time to stop for coffee on the way to class.

Today I will make darn sure that I do! Actually, I’m thinking to go someplace for breakfast with a coffee or two …and then fill my mug to take to class as well. Hopefully it will be enough.

today is going to be one of ~those~ days…

normally, on Tuesdays, I have a class from 2 - 4 and then possibly another from 7:30 to 9:30.

Which is good, because my Wednesdays are packed, and even though I always try to get my reading and homework done over the weekend, I invariably decide to have another go at my paper for Law & Moral, and reread some of those articles and oh, I should do some more work on that and this and do that other thing for TAing and…and… and…

But this week, I have 2 extra class sessions to attend, which means that I won’t have as much time towards doing any extras. Will still have an almost 2 hour block free from 4 - 6… suppose I can come back to the motel and try to finish up some stuff then.

I’m not yet happy with my paper for Law tomorrow … and still working on what I’m going to do with the poems for my seminars tomorrow evening…and have to finalize which section to focus on for the seminar I’m leading tomorrow afternoon and … I’m just never satisfied, I guess.

Will have to get as much as I possibly can done in the short periods between sessions today - can’t stay up late when I get home as Wednesdays are just way too long to do on less than a full nights sleep. 9 - 9 and then the 2.5 hour drive home… fun times!

At least this week, hopefully, I won’t get (as) lost trying to get from the university to the highway. At least that is the plan.

Have to remember to back the car up when I get back here tonight… oy vey! This commuting thing sucks! The things we do!

For some wanna-be back to schoolers, the first step to consider is likely to be doing some upgrading.

If you don’t have a high school diploma - or if you do, but are missing some specific courses that you need for the course you want to pursue - or if it’s just been a very long time and you are lacking confidence in your academic ability - upgrading might well be a very good first step towards restarting your academic career.

I could have should have done a math/algebra course before I jumped into my computer programming courses. Because I didn’t, I ended up having to do a college level algebra course that counted toward my overall average. DUH! If only I had had a clue, I would have gone and done it through upgrading prior to starting… it would have been a lot easier. Even if it wasn’t, really, in content - it most certainly would have been easier to just do that one and get it out of the way rather than having to do it at the same time as I was taking 6 other courses.

Most (all?) community colleges that I know of offer upgrading programs for those who need them, at least in Math and English.

If any of those issues is among your reasons for not starting school, a little bit of research to see what might be available to you might be well worth your time. Get to it!

Clearly, my biggest challenge in this whole going to school thing, is being organized.

I’m not.

There are SO many silly little hoops to jump through; assignments to finish, readings to do, transcripts to arrange, meetings to attend …and so on and so on.

And now, because I’m commuting, and staying in a motel 2/3 days a week, I also have to remember things like clothing and books and printer cables and computers and phone chargers and phones…

I DO know where my phone is right now… now if I could only find the darn charger for it!

Oh well… new one is on its way … worse comes to worse, I should be functional again by Thursday. I hope.

Some possible reasons to go back to school seem rather obvious…. to allow you to get a better job, or one in a field that you like (or think you will like) better than what you are doing already… and of course, as a strategy towards earning more money.

But there are a whole lot of other potential benefits as well.

For me, these have included

• increased self esteem - turns out that I am good at this school thing - both as a student and a teacher - which has led me to believe that I can do more - and be more - than I ever thought possible
• the more I learn, the more I want to learn - and the more strategies I have to go about learning those things that I want to know
• great friends, and helpful acquaintances
• a lot less time or inclination to get bored or depressed
• self-discovery - who knew that I would love hanging out events like the Leacock Festival?

I’m sure I have missed some possible benefits of going back to school…. feel free to add to the list! What unexpected benefits have you discovered through going back to school?

That’s what I have been doing today…. talking about my plans of study re: my scholarship applications with 2 of my profs …. and writing and re-writing and fussing over and editing and stressing and ripping my hair out and gnashing my teeth and…

Did you get the idea that this is not a particularly fun process? It most assuredly is NOT!

How am I supposed to write a narrative with a “sense of commanding familiarity” for a research project I haven’t started yet to be done in a program I won’t even be applying to until months after these apps have to be submitted! I DON’T KNOW!!!!!

I was successful last year - managed to win an OGS (Ontario Government Scholarship) … I want another.

Well, no, actually, my preference would be for an SSHRC this time…. SSHRCs are for the length of your PhD program …. so 3 years, like … rather than for just 1 like the OGS…

I would be very very very happy to know that I would have 3 years of funding and NOT HAVE TO DO THIS AGAIN ANY TIME SOON!!!!

Just checked my email account at my old university … there was a notice re: a new Textbook/Technology grant being offered to all full time university/college students in Ontario. Right now, the grant amount is only $150/year… the notice says it is going to go up to $300. Gotta like that.

Don’t have to actually qualify for OSAP or anything - which is good, since between our assets and my scholarship, ain’t no way that I would ever qualify even if I didn’t hate them (the feeling is mutal). Filled out an online form; they confirm enrollment and then mail out a check.

Me likey, as my kid would say.

Always nice to find money, innit?

If you happen to be a full time student in Ontario, here’s a fact sheet about it - you do NOT have to be OSAP eligible to apply.

It’s 5 a.m. and the wind is blowing; don’t know if it’s still pouring out - haven’t yet looked…

hubby is snoring.

And I’ve just tied my shoes and am about to down my coffee and head out the door to school.

2.5 - 3 hours away.

I have a class from 9 - 11, after which I will go check in at my motel, where I’ll stay until (hopefully) just Wednesday… weather and exhaustion level permitting, when I get done my last class at 9 on Wednesday I’ll hop in the car and drive home again … although then I’ll have to do this early morning commute thing again on Friday *sigh*

The driving sucks.

Being away from hubby and my dog and my full size bathtub with the jacuzzi jets and my washer and dryer and tv and…. it all sucks.

But it is the price that must be paid if I want to continue to do the school thing.

There are no graduate school programs near me. Until recently, I would not even have been able to do the undergrad thing either - there weren’t any of those until a few years ago.

It will be a while before the local campus is ready to even think about such things …. if I were a young un, I might have opted to wait… but I’m 47… too old to wait that long for the opportunity.

And so I rise and ~shine~ and do what I have to do.

It costs… not so much in terms of $$ … but in time, energy, sacrifice, committment.

What would it cost you to go back to school?

Ah - but what would it cost not to?

One of my biggest advantages since I started university has been that I am far more computer savvy than many of my fellow students (and professors) of English.

I am - was - able to use that both in research and writing… but right about now, I am feeling that I have totally lost my edge.

My new purple laptop is wunnerful… it is very pretty, and also very loaded, i.e. fast.

BUT I have to teach Office 2007 next semester - and I really don’t have the time or inclination to work through the textbooks to learn it all right now…. so I installed in on my pretty purple laptop and am trying to master it by using it. How hard can it be?

I have always learned by doing - but holy hell I am FRUSTRATED this time!!

Things that were so easy - that I could do without even thinking about it - in previous versions… all gone.

I just spent WAY TOO LONG mucking about on the Microsoft website looking for ways to DO THINGS that I never had to work at before.

I am not happy.

Why could they not have used the 2003 commands/way of doing things as search terms to pull up the how-to for 2007? Would that not have made sense?

Oh … right. Microsoft. Silly me.

I’ve been researching text to speech software this evening.

Last year, when I was driving 2.5 hours + each way to school and back, I often listened to school related materials in the car as I drove.

It worked quite well for me - I needed to ‘read’ a whole lot of classics - many of which I was able to download, for free, from librivox.com. The downloading was a bit of a pain - in order to keep the file sizes small, many of the works are divided into relatively small sections - so, to download all of Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, for example, required that I download 20 files.

But, once I had them, I could hop in the car, start the first one, and iTunes would just move through them one after another (in the correct order) beautifully.

It was a much better use of my driving time that listening to whatever was on the radio.

So - this year - still lots of driving time I could use - but I’m really not working much with any ancientLit of the sort that is available on Librivox - most of what I need to read is really exciting stuff that comes in pdf form - i.e. peer-reviewed, academic journal articles that are downloaded from online databases through our university library.

There are millions of the things - and the chances that someone is going to come along and voluntarily record and make available the ones I happen to need are slim to none.

But I do have an awful lot of them - and it would be a huge time saver if I could listen to them as I drive.

So I have been exploring options.

Adobe actually has a Read Aloud option under the View menu. Tried it - doesn’t work worth a darn for me.

It is greyed out/not available on a lot of the ‘justice’ pdfs I have downloaded for my course in Law and Moral Regulation in Neo-Liberal times.

And even in the files where it is not greyed out, it crashes and burns every time I try to use it.

I have downloaded the free trial version of NaturalSoft’s Natural Reader - works for a relatively small section of a Word document - not at all for my pdfs, although it does say that it can/will. Dunno if the pay for version would read a whole Word doc without my having to select a new section and hit play again - do know that that sort of thing is not such a good idea while driving though!

Will have to do some more research before I cough up some money for software, I think!

Recommendations cheerfully accepted!

Anyone who reads my blog for awhile will know that this is not something that comes naturally to me.

Although I do think that I have been doing an admirable job of organizing my posts into categories ’round here, don’t you? (She types right before she realizes that she is typing in the wrong blog entirely - fixed that now)

I have this problem with keeping track of paper. And there is an awful lot of paper to keep track of when one is in school, isn’t there?

I am a little perturbed at the lack of efficient use of available resources I am experiencing in my current program. Every course is generating scads and scads of paper for each student…. me, I’m a geek…. and I know that I can never put my hands on the paper I need when I need it…. so it makes sense to me to have everything that CAN be uploaded onto our course sites GO THERE…

Then, if we need to print it we can - and if not, if we just need the info, we can easily get to it and use it without wasting 20 - 40 pages of printing per student!!! per article. Some of my courses have an average of 5 journal articles or book chapters to be read each week - you multiply that by the number of students and oy vey!!! we are going through an awful lot of unnecessary trees.

Syllabi and assignments and so on are smaller - but since I already know that no matter how hard I try to make sure everything goes into the right binder as soon as I get and that I keep track of … yeah … it never works…

Knowing one’s own weaknesses can go a long way to being a successful student - for me, it makes a lot more sense to bring all the paper home and spend an hour or two scanning everything into the computer so that I will have it when I need it.

It seems time consuming at the time -but when you figure the amount of panicked OMG I CAN’T FIND….!!!! stress and aggravation I save myself when I need the stuff later, I figure it’s worth it.

Of course, if my computer were to crap out I would be TOAST at this point - I OWN an external harddrive, but my kids have it right now… which means MY computer is not being backed up regularly. Need to get that back and soon, je pense.

One of the most fun things about going back to school, for many of us, is the back to school shopping.

Me, I’m not much into clothing - and rarely get excited about the excuse to buy new clothes… but if you are into them and can afford it, it does provide a good excuse to update your wardrobe, or so I hear.

The back to school shopping that I most look forward to is the office supply sort. I’m not alone.

I was talking with some fellow students this week and turns out we pretty much all started our new school year off with a trip to buy cool back to school stuff (that we didn’t really need cuz we’re graduate students and we’ve been in school pretty much for what feels like forever) …. binders, pens, way cool organizers, etc. Several of us got new laptops this year - for me, so far, that has been more a frustration than anything, as my Internet at the motel where I am staying is abysmally slow, and in the parts of the university campus that I am at most of the time, there isn’t any at all!!! Imagine having a brand new back to school laptop - and it is PURPLE even - and hardly ever having Internet… it’s very frustrating!!!!

Anyway … I was back at Staples earlier this week and bought more back to school stuff that I am sure I could have managed without but…

I like school supplies

This trip, I bought 2 packages of markers, some large index cards (we’re making name cards in my seminars today) and a portfolio for each of my 2 seminar groups. The plan is that I will keep everything for each class in the correct portfolio, so I will show up with everything I need to hand out neatly organized - and if my students hand me ~stuff~ that I am not supposed to lose (students hate it when you lose their stuff) - I will put it right into the portfolio rather than tossing a stack of student papers onto the front seat of my car, or into a textbook which then gets tossed into the car or…

I’m hoping to spend less time looking for things this year than I have in the past, in other words.

Don’t you think that a good excuse to buy school supplies is a good reason to go back to school? Year after year? Works for me

…in terms of the subject matter - which I really do think I am very much going to enjoy learning more about… the class is about fiction. Which is very much the subject of my other blog, and also underlies my future research directions. The novels we are studying are well chosen and interesting, and the other texts and resources - academic journals, books re: fiction, etc…. are all things that I find fascinating, and expect that I will be able to use

This is, of all of my courses, the one I was most enthusiastic about of this semester’s course load.

Did you catch that?

Yep, I did say “was” …. as in past tense.

At a liberal university - supposedly, an extremely liberal university - and in a Graduate program focused on public texts - I really was rather surprised to hear that a huge category of work that I consider interesting - and that I engage in producing - was completely written off as lacking in any value whatsoever.

With one fell swoop, all bloggers were written off as having nothing whatsoever of value to contribute to anyone. We are, apparently, all caught up in blogging our every (boring, pointless) move, and have no sense, no judgement, etc… liberal, eh?

I would never suggest that all blogs have literary value - one of the joys of entrecard-dropping is that one quickly discovers that there are, in fact, a great many blogs that contain the sort of day-to-day drivel that it was suggested they (we?) all do. Others are clearly little more than advertising - and not particular effective or clever advertising either.

But there are also blogs which have a great deal to offer …. heck, some of them are even written by academics

I am rather less enthusiastic about the course at this point… it will still be of interest… but apparently it is likely to be a ~little~ limited in scope. Too bad.

Funny how little it takes, sometimes, to completely discount the notion of working with a particular prof as a potential advisor. Seems obvious to me, at this point, that even though there is quite a lot of content that is relevant to my work …. uh, no … not happening.

Last week was my first week as a graduate student at Trent - but it was all about orientation & training, no classes.

This week is really the start of school…I have my first class at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

All but one of my classes are 2 hours a week rather than 3 - I’m liking that. 3 hours, as we had at Laurentian @ Barrie, really did try my tolerance.

I get bored.

Easily.

There is a reason I am called flit

Two hour classes - especially 2 hour classes that are all in subjects that I actually CHOSE to take - as opposed to stuff I had to take because LU@Barrie is such a small program that there really weren’t a whole lot of options - should be a lot more managable.

I hope.

I REALLY hope!

One of my strategies for boredom during classes has been to wander off into the world wide web… often, I would go research whatever we were talking about at the time … there was always some aspect of it that I wanted to know more about… or, if I really wasn’t into it, I’d go read/chat on Gather, or do research for paper topics, or… whatever.

ANYWAY… at this point, the building that most of my classes will be in is under construction - and that, they tell me is why the wireless Internet in there is soooooooooooooo poor… non-existent in most areas, including the grad students’ office/editing room.

So I won’t have that option. Certainly can’t count on it, anyway.

So - they just can’t bore me is all

Honestly, I expect that at the grad school level, it is likely to be more discussion, less lectures…. I have my feathers crossed.

One of the best ways to figure out whether going back to school - or taking a particular program or course - is to have a look at the job postings in your area.

What is it that you want to be when you grow up? Find a job posting for that job - or better yet - a whole bunch of them.

What qualifications are they looking for?

And just as importantly - what are they paying?

Going back to school is, for many people, an excellent course of action.

BUT

if you are doing it to improve your career options, it would be far, FAR better to do your research before you make any decisions - and before you’ve put out any money!

This is a lesson that I learned the hard way.

I decided that I was going to go back to school and take computer programming. Applied, got in … paid… did well in my courses.

And THEN it was time to look at the co-op job postings our co-op consultant had posted for us.

Excuse me????

The hourly rates being offered were higher than minimum wage - but significantly lower than what I was used to making in social services.

ACK! That was not a happy discovery.

But really, I had only myself to blame.

The newspaper I read (for years) came from a much larger city than where I lived. Yes, programmers could make decent money - there. In a much smaller city, not so much.

As it happened, I fell into teaching, and it all worked out very well… but it would have been a much better plan to have done my research first!

I strongly advise it.

Which is not to say that you shouldn’t do it unless… but we’ll talk more about that another day