Back to School for GrownUps

….another day another dollar

Was thinking I’d have a bit of time after our company left to squeeze in another post before midnight… they sure did cut it close though! 

Now I have to think of something to write about…. mostly just in a silly/punchy mood, so nothing too serious. 

Didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped today… now where have you heard that before, hmmmmmmm? 

Should have finished my marking at least… still got a few essays to do, although I have read them all now… just haven’t commented on the last few.  Also need to go through the database design documents that my college course students have submitted and head off any major design flaws….   and write script for seminar that I’m giving on Tuesday. 

Toughest part of the seminar is going to be keeping it within the rather limited word allowance - there is just SO much that could be said about Web 2.0….1500 words is just nowhere near enough!

This is the last of the long ones I will do this semester… and it is one that seems - given my background in computer programming and so on - that it should be one that I can do a good job of.

Have not quite decided on how to go about it though.

So far, pretty much all of our seminars have followed the ~regular~ format… basically, whoever is giving them writes a paper, and then reads it during the class.

Somehow, for the topic of Web 2.0 that just feels wrong.

We have a multimedia station in the room…computer with projector and all that fun stuff… so I’m thinking that it would be reasonable to make use of them.

Hope the prof agrees… I’ve emailed him and am waiting for a response… in the meantime just pulling together a bunch of notes using my favourite mindmapping software, Inspiration . Inspiration also has a Web 2.0 version, called Webspiration, which I have very much enjoyed working with - when I went to use it today though, I discovered that apparently their Wednesday update broked it.

Used to be that you could set the colour, shape, font, etc that you wanted on just one bubble… and then set that as default… my Set As Default button is all gone buh-bye. I detest it when things that work well for me get ~new & improved~ so that they no longer do. While I CAN find a workaround - it is cumbersome and annoying… *sigh* I think I shall pout now.

It would have been perfect for the presentation - back to the drawing board

Not IN in yet…but I’m one step closer

Got an email today with an update re: my application… 

Made it past stage 1 … now it goes to a meeting with the other university that is involved in the program (it is a joint degree, awarded by Carleton & Trent) 

The doctoral program in Canadian Studies is offered jointly by the Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and Indigenous Studies at Trent University and by the School of Canadian Studies at Carleton University.

The Ph.D. program offers five fields of study: Culture, Literature, and the Arts; Environment and Heritage; Policy, Economy and Society; Identities; and Women’s Studies. The program, drawing upon the faculty of the two academic units and universities, encompasses course requirements, comprehensive examinations, and a thesis.

One of my two areas will be Culture, Literature and the Arts… the second is tougher… probably Identities…but am also interested in Environment & Heritage and Women’s Studies…

So ….I am pretty sure - although not 100%…. that I should have a couple of handouts to read for my class tomorrow.

Can’t find them anywhere though.

I’m guessing that means that they are sitting on my kitchen table at home.

That is not at all a good place for them - especially since said kitchen table is 2.5 hours away.

Trying to find at least one of the things I need online, but my (motel) Internet is, as usual, dragging and annoying and I am not having any luck at all.

Oh well…have read the primary text…and I shall read all of the stuff I CAN get access to …. and that is going to have to do.

But it is annoying…and a good sign that I need to work just a bit harder at making sure I have what I need when I need it.

So ….our Reading Week is over and it’s back to school for this (supposedly) mature student…. we drove up today and are back at the motel…. with only 6 weeks to go now though!

It does not seem possible….SO much to get done yet…. 3 big papers, 2 more seminars, 3 small papers, and a research proposal …. and then there is all the teaching & marking stuff yet as well. Doing Twelfth Night tomorrow night and haven’t even read it yet! Bad flit! 

I will get it done though …I always do :) 

Would have worked on that tonight but I’m giving a seminar in the morning so that had to come first. And besides, we had a research meeting tonight; didn’t get back to the motel until almost 10. 

I will do the seminar in the morning, read Twelfth Night over lunch (already read the intro and all that fun stuff) …and then spend the afternoon finishing up with the marking of essays about Huckleberry Finn . 

Have been rather disappointed, on the whole, with the Huck Finn essays … me, by the time I’ve done 3 essays for the same prof, I generally have them pretty much figured out…. I tend to be very good at using the feedback I get so that each subsequent assignment or essay garners a higher mark. Perhaps that it one of the things one is more likely to do as a mature student?  I don’t know…I do know that I have been spending a lot of time providing feedback on each essay I mark and it doesn’t seem as though it is being used. 

Was getting very frustrated and cranky about it when I was marking the other day (which is why I stopped - not good to mark when you are cranky ) …. less so now… but it is something I think that I will spend some time talking about in my seminars tomorrow evening.

….all too often - me, at least - and it is, for some reason …I can’t imagine why… becoming one of the search terms that brings people to visit me . Go figure.

Today I have been totally frustrated - also ballistic, infuriated, irked, annoyed and LIVID ….with our bank .

They have taken 6 months to complete what should have been a simple transaction - and when they did finally move the money in question - today - they put it in the wrong account, which completely messes absolutely everything up - and cost us $500+ to boot.

Incompetent, rude, lying, no good… well…. today.com tries to be a family friendly site, so I will stop.

But hours … and a very long rant and several emails and much  msn whining …later, I am still so angry that I can’t see straight.

Which is not at all condusive to finishing the seminar about Canadian Crusoes that I need to finish. I keep trying - keep going back to it and working on it… but I am just so gosh darned FRUSTRATED that it is not going well at all.

I have to give the seminar on Wednesday morning… and it is not like I can pull it together tomorrow, either, as I have the drive plus classes and all that fun stuff….  til 9:30 or 10.

So I need to put my aggravation aside and focus. Deep breaths… now back to work.

One of my daily stops on my blog-hopping & dropping tour is the Fearless Blog … which has most recently been posting entries in a College Survival Guide .

Tip #1 suggests that you: Refrain from asking your college professors “Do I have to do this?” and provides the answer …which you can read right here .

Tip #2 is Do not show up for class: BE in class. I’m thinking that I might well provide all of my aviation management students this link ; they would do well to read it.

Tip #3 is  Don’t ever try to “wing it” on a test…another bit of advice I wish my students would read & heed.

All of the tips offered so far are well thought out, practical and most importantly, easily doable - well worth the few minutes of reading - and thinking - involved. I’ll be looking forward to more

One of the best reasons I know to keep going back to school - especially after your kids are all growed up like mine are - is because it gives you an excuse to keep buying cool ~stuff~ that you need for school.

I like school supplies…. stickers and pens and notebooks and books and ….and… and…

I am particularly fond of my electronic toys…  of course I must have a laptop…. and a bag to put it in. I was, until recently, using a Penguin book bag as purse/laptop bag…  but it’s about worn out, in spite of the reinforcing sewing a friend of mine did awhile ago.

So this week, while hubby & I were out and about, we bought me a new laptop bag - not exactly like the one in the picture, but close enough.  I also got a new - and very nice - leather wallet. And today I looked at new cases for my Blackberry Curve, too, but they were stinking-stupid priced at our local WallyMart…. I’m glad I waited, as there are lots of them available online for much better prices - even with shipping.

I’m thinking the next big purchase will have to be a Sony eReader … or a Kindle … or…. maybe for Christmas… unless getting into a PhD program is worth a new toy… hmmmm….

No, it’s not what I am, although some would no doubt disagree …. it’s where I’m off to today. 

I’m looking forward to it… am going out to lunch with Jane, the prof that supervised my Honours Essay last year.  I really enjoyed working with her, and appreciate the amount of time she was willing to volunteer to do it.

Haven’t got nearly as much done as I’d hoped to get to by this point in my time off…. still 5 days before I jump back in though, so will get there. At least a lot of the thinking/mindmapping work is underway … and most of my reading is done, although I still need to read Twelfth Night , as we’re spending the next two weeks on it in my TA course.

It worked out really well for that - there is a local community group who are putting it on during the two weeks we’re studying it… so instead of seminar the second week back, we’re going to go see it. Not all of my guys are into it…but enough to make it worth doing. I’m looking forward to it.

I’d never really much cared for Shakespeare before… but the courses I did through Athabasca University were far more interesting than I expected. It’s not an area that I’d want to specialize in it, or teach full time… but doing just the one play & seminar…with the added bonus of a live performance …works for me.

So … can never have enough school, right?

And free stuff is good, right?

Of course it is.

Students in my program (and others) have been offered the opportunity to take special summer courses in digital editing. One week in Victoria BC where I will be taking Text Encoding Fundamentals and their Application:

For those new to the field, this is an introduction to the theory and practice of encoding electronic texts for the humanities. This workshop is designed for individuals who are contemplating embarking on a text-encoding project, or for those who would like to better understand the philosophy, theory, and practicalities of encoding in XML (Extensible Markup Language) using the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) Guidelines .

Then, when I get back from B.C., I’ll spend the next two weeks at Trent, taking

• Textual Editing and Modernism in Canada: Theory
• Textual Editing and Modernism in Canada: Practice

All of which means that even if I were to be offered courses to teach this summer (which is unlikely at this point anyway) I wouldn’t be able to take them. Which is probably for the best, as I tend to fill up all of my summer with ~stuff~ and then Ross gets cranky.

So ….aside from writing my  Major Research Project and the three weeks, I’ll be taking the summer off… or as off as I ever manage, anyway

So ….I should have been getting some work done this afternoon… seminars, or marking, maybe.

But I happened to stop by BlogCatalog for some reason or other… bad plan. Not that BlogCatalog is bad, although I rarely get any traffic from there… but because I happened to  go to the directory and start looking at EDUCATION blogs…

and before I knew it, I’d lost a good hour…

Rate Your Students is a blog by professors… bunches of them, seems like. The description says:

Rate Your Students is a freewheeling blog about the life and struggles facing college professors. Oh, we occasionally rate our students - and yours, too - but mostly we try to figure out how to survive an academic life.

What the description doesn’t say is how very well-written and downright funny it is. Many of the articles that I happened upon include some ~adult~ language…. but it is a most enjoyable read none-the-less.

So…I have been busy on this blog today; did you notice?

I cleaned up a bunch of widgets (thanks to dreadpiraterose @ ConventionFans for the motivation ) …. dumped them over onto a page of their own … it’s called Networking , if anyone should happen to be interested. 

Still got a couple of little things to do widget-wise… I am still undecided about the widgetbox … it doesn’t work on the page, so might yet put it back in my sidebars to give it a decent trial (till the end of the week… and then if it’s still not generating traffic, I will just disappear entirely). And I do intend to put a link to my twitter account ’round here somewhere :) 

But it does look a lot less cluttered, I think.

While I was mucking about with pages I got rather ambitious too, and put up a couple of new ones. 

I hadn’t realized that I never did do my About Page for this blog… so I’ve gone and done that. 

And I also set up another page for the Back to Schoolers 101 series , which I will continue to add to as time goes on.

For now though, I think perhaps I should make use of my nice quiet house (hubby’s gone to do stuff in the basement of our other house … have a potential tenant, so he’s got a lot of DVDs and stuff to pack up and move out of the store) and get some of the things that ARE on my to do list for this week done.

Or maybe I’ll just get back to reading The Beast Within :) 

So … not really a Back to School for Grownups’ topic… but promoting my blogs - and especially this one - is one of the tasks that I am hoping to work on over my Reading Week …. in between getting other stuff done, of course .

I did do the 17 page Ethical Research form last night, and worked on my seminar about Canadian Crusoes today… almost done reading the book, and have decided to focus on issues of gender - which also includes more about the portrayal of natives, the topic I presented on last week.

I also managed to find time to fix my brother-in-law’s new computer, and to read almost half of my friend Steph ’s newest novel - it’s great… needs a publisher so that y’all can read it too

But, like I said, I’ve also been mucking about with blog promotion tools:

Entrecard is a no brainer…. well worth the time I spend on it, mostly because I don’t actually spend that much time on it. When I use the toolbar, I load 20 or 30 pages at a time, go do other things, and then after they’ve had time to load fully, go back and click through, reading those that interest me as I go.  I usually drop 300/day in each account, and generally  get about 200 return visits (more if I also buy ads - but I don’t earn enough EC to buy ads all the time, and I’m not inclined to cough up real money to buy more).

My next most consistent source of traffic seems to be becoming BlogExplosion .  I signed up for it several months ago, but it seemed pretty much dead back then…the forums were overrun with spam, and no one was approving new blogs. But just recently, I got an email that my blogs had finally been approved, so I decided to go back and try it. I still find their surf process a ~tad~ control-freakish ….  you have to click on the number you’re told, and stay on the page for 30 seconds for it to count…. and if you fail to claim the randomly generated free credits you win, you get kicked right out… bad blog surfer!!!   But it’s another one of those things you can just do in the background…click when you think of it… and I am getting a pretty good return on my clicks (60 unique views so far today, for example).

BlogExplosion has been taken over by new owners who don’t seem too interested in doing anything with it, which means that there are still issues … the forums are still more than a little spammy, although there’s a move to keep popping the non-spam threads up by commenting on them regularly. Would be SO much more efficient if they would just give a few people admin rights, but no such luck so far. And because it has been so badly (as in not) managed, not as many people are using it…. so there is a tendency for it to run out of new blogs to show at times… but its got potential… and even given its many issues right now, it’s working for me.

Linkreferral seems to bring about 30 uvs a day if I can be bothered to log in and do the stuff you’re supposed to do (30 clicks, 5 reviews, 1 forum post & 1 favourite)…. I just find most of the blogs I wind up at there soooooooo boring…. Entrecard and BlogExplosion blogs make for much better reading on the whole, I find.  The link referral reviews are lame - people don’t really want feedback, and if you bother to give them any, they’ll low rate you in return, send you whiny emails, or both.

I tried SpicyPage -  a site that allows you to make friends/connections, and submit links to each new post… not even worth the time it takes to submit them, y’ask me. I did try to get involved in the today.com group over there, but months later am still not approved and can’t post to their forum.

Twitter doesn’t bring me much traffic -  1/2 visitors/tweet … but it doesn’t suck back much time, so I usually do that when I post anyway.

Haven’t seen much benefit to Technorati , although I see (just now) that my authority numbers are starting to climb a bit.  I don’t think I’ve EVER had anyone find me through it, though. I do get an occasional visitor from BlogCatalog … but those are relatively few and far between…. probably my fault though, as I haven’t really found much to DO there and rarely think to log in. Same goes for Reddit … although there is an Education channel over there, the resulting traffic is so minimal I rarely bother with it. It does seem to have some residual benefit… but 1/2 visitors a week just doesn’t seem worth the trouble. I do stop by there to read, occasionally, but that’s about it.

I signed up for Widgetbox today; nothing from there yet, but suppose it doesn’t hurt to leave it for awhile. Oh, and I signed up for BlogUpp yesterday … a whopping 2 uvs from there so far.

What works for you? Got any ideas that I’m missing? 

This is our Reading Week ….  so I’m off for the next 10 days or so… yay me!  (It’s a bit messed up because the college I teach at isn’t off until next week … my Reading Week is from Tuesday - Tuesday, more or less - but Monday is a holiday too, so….)  I teach one class on Tuesday this week and then am off until 2 p.m. the following week. Works for me! 

Of course, just because I’m off from classes doesn’t mean that I don’t have things to do. I gots bunches (yes, I am an English student as a matter of fact, can’t you tell? )  In addition to tons and tons of READING - surprise, surprise - there are also a great many other things that I plan on getting out of the way this week. Getting a jump on things is, of course, a key facet of the whole maintaining one’s sanity deal. 

If  I can get bunches of reading and ~stuff~ out of the way this week, the remainder of the semester should be ever so much easier… at least that is the plan.

 So …. my to-do list:

• Mark Engl1000 Huck Finn essays and update their gradebook (including participation marks to this point)
• prepare for seminars 

1. Public Texts (March 3)
2. CanLit ( Feb 25) - Catharine Parr Traill’s Canadian Crusoes
3. Viral Contagion (Mar ??) - something re: computer viruses most likely (our choice)

• Begin mindmapping /planning for 3 essays

1. Public texts & emerging adults (what differentiates EAs as a public, and what texts do they claim)
2. Viral contagion & fiction for younger readers - at what age are these sorts of issues turning up in fiction?
3. On adolescence & emerging adulthood in Early Canadian literature and letters (Catharine Parr Traill & Willie)
   

• Major Research Project activities

1. Fill out, print, copy & send 17 page application re: Ethical Research (so that I can talk to people)
   
2. Design online survey re: emerging adults & fiction
3. set up appointments with Penguin publishing, Orillia library, others

• book appointment with potential phd advisor
• organize books & readings needed for remainder of the semester
• mark design documents re: Aviation Management relational databases and provide them with feedback
• play with grandkids (I saw the older one the other day, but the baby was asleep, and we didnt stay long enough)
• get some advance blog posts written

I think that’s probably enough for a week…. :)   Realistically, I likely won’t get it all done… have got a couple of lunch dates, and a doctors appointment and so on to deal with too….. but everything that I do manage is less on my plate for later… so I’m going to try.

Happened across an interesting Back to Schooler blog post earlier today (using BlogExplosion ) by the way. Amanda A. posted about the cost of getting a GED - and of not having graduated from high school.

So …the reason we left CHALLENGES to the end of our Evaluation process is because - if you’ve spent time and energy on figuring out what resources are at your disposal, and what your priorities why ) - HOPEFULLY the obstacles to completing the items on your to-do list have pretty much resolved themselves. 

But, yeah, I do know that that is not always the case…. and that some obstacles & challenges just are not easily resolved.

One of the biggest problems, of course, is that each day only has 24 hours…. it doesn’t matter how much you’re trying to juggle, or how many people’s needs you have to meet… you still only get 24 hours. And whether you like it or not, you DO need to sleep.

A once in awhile all-nighter is one thing… but too many of them is likely to wind up COSTING you more time than it gives you. Getting sick, cranky, overwhelmed, sleep deprived, clumsy, etc. etc. rarely contributes to success in the long run.

So - you have to work with what you have.

Other obstacles can include a lack of $$$$, confidence, or family support, and difficult profs …. all big issues that deserve a blog of their own, I think…. look for those sometime in the near future.

Now…. what’s left on your list re: challenges/obstacles/barriers?

I wish I could solve them all for you …. but since I don’t know what they are, I’m pretty useless, I guess…. I’d be happy to try to help find solutions if you’d care to email me with a specific situation though.

And in the meantime, I hope that you’ve discovered that by actually taking the time to break it all down and actually LOOK at what’s contributing to the load you’re trying to juggle has helped somewhat.

Sometimes, just recognizing the number of balls you’ve got on the go can help …. for me, anyway …. knowing that I DO have a lot to manage and therefore need to be a bit nicer and less demanding of myself can go a very long way to allowing me to take a deep breath and get on with it.

I would love to know what you think of the Back to Schoolers 101 series. 

Is it helpful?  (or, if you’re not actually doing the BTS thing, do you think it could/would have helped if/when you were?) 

And most importantly, what other topics do you think would be a good addition? 

This is a continuation of Step 3 re: Evaluation: Priorities. Before that, in Step 2, we talked about Evaluating Resources … and before that was Step 1: Take Stock .

Before I move onto the next bit, evaluating obstacles/challenges, I thought we’d spend just a bit more time on HOW we evaluate priorities.

It is relatively easy, sometimes, to let things get a bit muddled up… to get more worried about what is best for everyone ELSE and forgot to prioritize our own needs. And to get all bent over needing to be PERFECT (or as close to it as humanly possible) …. and not being happy with what we do accomplish in spite of the many challenges we face.

Not that I would ever be guilty of any o’ that, of course

It is a really good idea then, when you’re going through your list of priorities and deciding on the things you absolutely gotta-do to keep the following questions in mind:

WHY is this so important?

WHO is going to be hurt if I don’t do it (or don’t do it as well as I’d like)?

WHAT is the cost of doing - or not doing - it?

Also… a reminder…. especially when it comes to school assignments - take note of what things are WORTH in the overall scheme of things.

A paper that is worth 30% of your mark is worth worrying about.

A paper that works out to being worth 2% of your final mark is NOT. Seriously!

Just this week, I had a student opt not to hand in an assignment that was worth a fair bit because they “didn’t have time” to get it done. But that same student DID find time to complete 2 tasks that together total a pittance in terms of marks. *sigh* DO THE MATH!  When you jot down your assignments in your date book or Blackberry or wherever, why not also make note of how much it is worth?

Anyway ….speaking of priorities, time for me to go vote (strike vote… ICK! I so hope we don’t go there) … and then go to a lecture.

It is 1:35 a.m and I’m to give a seminar in CanLit tomorrow morning… okay, well later this morning, not tomorrow.

it’s as done as it’s going to get… would, if I was here by myself, set up my printer and get it printed too, but since ross is sleeping….

it will have to wait till morning.

No good reason for being cranky really … mostly feeling better than I have been lately - and although I did manage to faint a time or two, at least neither of those were during classes or my speech or anything…could have been worse.

I am frustrated with my wrists though… still hurtin’ ….

and with my craptastic motel Internet. Talking about me staying (sans Ross & van for a couple of extra days this week - cabbing back and forth for school stuff… wouldn’t mind so much if I could count on Internet. Maybe it IS time to look for a new motel - there are a few in town - would cost more, but less on cabs… and if they had reliable Internet…)

And I am not quite tired enough to sleep…would like to read in bed but can’t since that would bother Ross too.

Oh well…guess I shall try the sleep thing anyway.

Taking a time out from the Back to Schoolers 101 series just for today … don’t really have time & energy to give it the attention it deserves… mostly because I am not feeling well and am having a really rotten day.

I passed out while teaching this morning … I HATE it when that happens… and this time, I was soooooooooo tired afterwards that I kept losing my place, and feeling that if I stopped moving I’d fall asleep. I ended up letting them go even earlier than I’d intended because I just could not stay awake any more.

Slept all the way home and still dragging (and passing out)… AND I still have that CanLit (part 2) seminar to prepare for…. I have the materials, but need to redo it and print it out so that I can pick it up where I left off and deliver it smoothly. The seminar isn’t actually until Wednesday, but can’t leave it for tomorrow as I teach from 8 - 11 again, then we have the drive to Peterborough, then class in the afternoon, and research group (at which I am presenting my - yikes - scripted speech ) ….not likely to have much time to work on the seminar ..and not safe to leave it till after everything is done in case I still feel like this.

Anyway …enough whining! I was going to tell you about the new toys I got in the mail today. The insurance company OT person found me a keyboard - one that works very well for me. It is even smaller than either of my laptop keyboards, and the Enter and Shift keys go the right way!   It works! It works! It is rather noisy, and will probably drive Ross crazy in the motel, but it WORKS.

She also sent an upright mousie thing….THAT does not work so well, at least not yet…. I think it would…once I get used to it… but I am not likely ever to get used to it until I can figure out how to make the right-click button - or what I think should be the right-click button, anyway, work properly.  Right now it just does weird stuff like closing windows I don’t WANT closed! Will beat it into submission eventually though …. and then, I think, thatI will be able to work on the computer without nearly as much pain.

Wouldn’t that be cool?

So …step #1 was to Take Stock .

Step #2 was to Evaluate - Resources .

And now we are onto evaluating PRIORITIES.

Got your list in front of you? You DID make a list right? Good for you - want a sticker? If so, send me an email with your address and I will be happy to send you one

Alright…so today we are looking at your priorities. How long is your list?

Does it include everything you’re trying to juggle right now?

• Good… now chop it. Seriously - I want you to go through it and cross off everything that nobody else but you cares about. If no one is going to get hurt if it isn’t done, and it’s not going to cost you anything, cross it off.

There…doesn’t that feel better?

• Now… go through your list again and put a star beside the 3 most important/pressing things. Nope… not 5, or 10, or 20… just the top 3.
• And find the 3 that can wait the longest too…. mark them somehow also…. a triangle or a line or whatever turns your crank.
• Now…. with the rest, if there are any (and if there are, are you SURE you can’t dump a few more?) … those you are going to look at one at a time and ask yourself - and answer honestly, of course - if you really have to be the one to do it.
• Is there anyone on your resource list that might be able to help with it?
• If so, take a minute and ask them if they’d mind. Worst that can happen is they say no. And if they do, it stays on your list and you do it when you get to it.

Ok…once you’ve cleared off whatever can be delegated….

• The next step is to look for any that you could do right NOW and DO THEM. Don’t forget to cross them off.
• With the stuff that’s left over, go through and make note of the date they have to be done BY.
• Oh - and if any of them are great BIG things (like a 20 page essay for example) - break it down into steps and figure out when the steps should be done by (for your SANITY if not for actual due dates).
• Once you’ve done all that, hopefully your list will be becoming more managable and you’ll be able to really PRIORITIZE it …. as in put things in order of PRIORITY.

The things that are time sensitive but not IMMEDIATE don’t count when you’re feeling overwhelmed …. you write those down in your datebook and try to plan when you’re going to do them. It will feel better, honest.

One of the biggest reasons we non-traditional students get overwhelmed is because we (and I am including myself cuz I do it very well, ask Steph , she’ll tell ya) tend to get fussed about everything that we know that has to be done ~whenever~ ….rather than focusing on what needs to be done RIGHT NOW.

To do lists - especially ones that you update frequently - can be a lifesaver… but you have to keep up with them in order for them to help ….  and that can be tough even for those of us who are fortunate enough to have all the toys …..I loves my Blackberry and my laptop(s) ….but even the Blackberry doesn’t do me a damn bit of good if I don’t put the stuff that needs doing IN IT so that I can worry less and function more.

I’m not quite done going on about priorities…but this will have to do for now, cuz I have one more blog to write, a textbook to consult, and I need to get to BED…I teach early tomorrow

More next time.

Step 1 was Take Stock .

Now that you’ve done that, you have a list, right?  Priorities, Challenges and Resources….

So …. now it is time to EVALUATE.

Which one of the 3 lists is the longest? Bet it is not Resources - or else, you wouldn’t be searching the net looking for ways to manage juggling school, family & finances. So let’s start there:

• Look closely at your list…. have you included the services that your school offers to help students who are struggling, one way or another? Every place I have been involved with has support services of some kind - for people with disabilities, students who need counselling/tutoring/study help, and even some financial assistance. They usually all have housing centres and job banks, also. What supports are available at your particular institution?
• If you don’t know, start with the counselling centre, whatever that’s called where you are. They can help you find additional supports, honest… and that is what they are there for. Those counsellor types are often also very good at helping one do the kind of work we’re trying to do here - and they will have a lot more to work on if you sit down and talk to ‘em than I do.

• Next - did you include your professors as resources? At LEAST one of them? Most people that teach do so because they LIKE teaching - and they want their students to succeed. (Yeah, I know, there are a few that aren’t like that - but seriously - if you don’t have even one prof’s name on your list of potential resources, that is NOT a good sign). Talking to a prof - sooner rather than later - can go a long way toward helping you to succeed at school …and NOT just with school issues.
• Connecting with profs - and letting them know when you’re finding things tough (preferably without whining) - can not only help in the short term…  but it goes a long way to help you actually build relationships with them …and that, my friends, can go a VERY long way when it comes time to ask for reference letters for further programs or for jobs.

• Okay … onward… next up - how many of your fellow students made it onto your resource list? Why not? They are probably one of the best possible resources you could have. They know what you are dealing with (at least at the school end of things), they know what its like, and they are THERE.
• Making connections with fellow students makes a whole lot of sense - you need someone that will pick up handouts or let you borrow their notes, and so on on days when you can’t make it to class. And most everybody else needs exactly the same sort of thing… so you do it for them, they do it for you. Usually it will work out to be reasonably fair - and if it doesn’t, and you need their help way more than they need yours, treat them to a coffee here & there: it will be fine.
• I know that it can be hard to make connections with fellow students sometimes - especially if there aren’t all that many mature students in the group - but make the effort anyway….really! It is well worth the time & energy.

• Family & friends that are willing to help? I hope you’ve got some of those on your list already ….if not, you’ll want to be workin’ on that, also. And if so, have another look at them and consider whether any of those already there could do something to help with whatever’s dragging you down right now.
• You do NOT have to do everything all perfectly, y’know. And you also don’t have to do it all by yourself. Ask for help - the worst that can happen is that - whoever- will say no. And if that happens, so what? You will have lost NOTHING.
• One good friend that you can stress and whine and complain and …did I mention whine?…. to can make all the difference sometimes, also (thanks for that, Stephanie )

• Another resource that should be on your list is TIME. If all else fails, and you just can’t find a way to do everything that needs doing when you think it needs doing…. s’okay….  one thing about those schools, y’know… they tend to stick around awhile.
• Which is not to say that you should give up, drop out, and forget about the whole school thing…. that is NOT advice I tend to ever give anyone …. but if all else fails and it just can’t work RIGHT NOW, that does not mean it can’t ever work. Sometimes, you have got to set priorities…. and that, of course, is where we’ll head next time.

• And in the meantime, here’s some homework for you - yeah, I know.. like you need more o’ that

Go back to your Resources list and add at least 3 places/people/things you could try asking for support/help.