So today I had Keyboarding, the bane of my existence, and Career Development. We had a spelling test in Keyboarding, and while I hate keyboarding, I hate spelling more. I haven't had a spelling test since 4th grade and I could spell then, too. Now, I understand that spelling is important. The last thing you want to do is look like a total idiot when you're typing a memo or a letter, but technology is here. This is what spell check was invented for! It comes standard with Microsoft Word. They even put a little red line underneath it when you screw up, so you know you screwed up! Although I will say, that in my wanderings around the interwebs, I have found some of the most atrocious spelling and grammar I have ever seen in my entire life. I read things like 'your stupid' or 'im hangin wit my boiz' and all I can imagine is every nun who ever taught me spinning in their (not there!)collective graves. It's quite a pretty funny image, when I stop and think about it. Just as a primer:
They're over there with their family.
You're very proud of your grades.
And for goodness sakes, punctuation is your friend!
Now on to Career Development. We were doing catch-up on assignments. Our mock interviews were supposed to be on Friday, but have now been pushed back to next Wednesday. So, Resume, done. Reference list, done. Cover letter, done. Oh, and don't forget your personal story. That was easy, I just copied my first blog! Okay, so all of my stuff is done. Now what? Spent the rest of the class, doing what I do in keyboarding. I fucked off on Facebook, and the Cheezburger network, home of Failbooking, Failblog, and lolcats.
I'm NOT in any way blaming my instructors for this. I think they're both great, and I respect them both. I blame the administrators for not allowing me to test out of these classes, when there is no reason for me to take them. Sure, I can complain, but what the hell good is it going to do? Besides, I only have one more week of the stupid classes, then it's on to something that requires brain cells.
Yeah, today I'm venting. I told you at the beginning of this blog, that you would hear the good, the bad, and the ugly. Today, I'm feeling ugly.
Going to bed now, I have the day off tomorrow, and hopefully by then, I'll have all of my gruntles un-dissed.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
Today's Classes and Other Observations
Since I'm blogging about real life, and real situations, I've decided to change names to protect the innocent (and my GPA). So if I mention a person, it doesn't mean I'm talking about you, so don't get paranoid. Or if I do talk about you in my blog, and you recognize yourself, and don't like it, come to me. I'll talk to you and let you know why I said what I said, and we can speak like adults.
So on to class. Keyboarding. No one can give me a satisfactory answer as to why I have to take it, when I already type 65 words a minute. There's no option to test out of the class, so I do the stupid exercises. fjfjfj dkdkdk slslsl a;a;a;. Yay. Type a memo. Type a letter, first block style, then modified block style. Type a report. Now type a bound report. So, what do I do? I type the memos, letters, reports, then spend the rest of the class fucking off on Facebook. I check my email. I would have blogged from class, but for some reason, Blogspot is blocked. Of course it is! So before we start our assignments for the day, we have to do warm up exercises. Here's an example:
Melva Bragg required exactly a dozen jackets for the winter trip.
The 1903 copy of my book had 5 parts, 48 chapters, and 672 pages.
Olga, the French Goalie, defended well against the frazzled team.
Isn't that riveting???? 672 pages!!! Dozens of jackets!! Frazzled teams!!!
Honestly, I'd rather shove a red hot knitting needle in my eye than have to sit in this class all day. And I have spoken to my instructor about this. Someone told her that I said I'd rather stick a pencil in my eye. I quickly explained that I never said that. I told her I said RED HOT KNITTING NEEDLES. She laughed pretty hard at that. She knows it's not her. She's actually a pretty cool lady.
The afternoon class was CPR. You will all be happy to know that I passed my certification test with flying colors! My practical was last week, and my written test was today. There were two parts. The first part was CPR, and the second part was for the AED. That's the heart defibrillator. The shocky thing. And just to let you know, it's nothing like what you see on TV. The person doesn't jump 6 feet off the bed, and there's not really a big loud noise. It doesn't even buzz. It's pretty anti-climatic, really.
So now, I'm required to stop if I see an accident, or someone in distress. If I don't, and someone finds out I failed to act, I could lose my certification. Ah, heavy is the head that wears the crown.
Now, I have something to say to some of my classmates. Not all of them, but the ones who are juggling being single moms, school and work. I don't know how you guys do it. I would be exhausted. Yes, I went to school as a single mom, but I also didn't have to work at the same time. So this last part is to let you know that I'm pulling for you. I admire the fact that you want something more for you and your child, and I'm telling you, don't ever give up. Because being older, I can tell you, there are not many things I regret doing, but there are millions of things I regret NOT doing. So hang in there guys! It's going to be worth it.
That's all for tonight. Have a wonderful day!
So on to class. Keyboarding. No one can give me a satisfactory answer as to why I have to take it, when I already type 65 words a minute. There's no option to test out of the class, so I do the stupid exercises. fjfjfj dkdkdk slslsl a;a;a;. Yay. Type a memo. Type a letter, first block style, then modified block style. Type a report. Now type a bound report. So, what do I do? I type the memos, letters, reports, then spend the rest of the class fucking off on Facebook. I check my email. I would have blogged from class, but for some reason, Blogspot is blocked. Of course it is! So before we start our assignments for the day, we have to do warm up exercises. Here's an example:
Melva Bragg required exactly a dozen jackets for the winter trip.
The 1903 copy of my book had 5 parts, 48 chapters, and 672 pages.
Olga, the French Goalie, defended well against the frazzled team.
Isn't that riveting???? 672 pages!!! Dozens of jackets!! Frazzled teams!!!
Honestly, I'd rather shove a red hot knitting needle in my eye than have to sit in this class all day. And I have spoken to my instructor about this. Someone told her that I said I'd rather stick a pencil in my eye. I quickly explained that I never said that. I told her I said RED HOT KNITTING NEEDLES. She laughed pretty hard at that. She knows it's not her. She's actually a pretty cool lady.
The afternoon class was CPR. You will all be happy to know that I passed my certification test with flying colors! My practical was last week, and my written test was today. There were two parts. The first part was CPR, and the second part was for the AED. That's the heart defibrillator. The shocky thing. And just to let you know, it's nothing like what you see on TV. The person doesn't jump 6 feet off the bed, and there's not really a big loud noise. It doesn't even buzz. It's pretty anti-climatic, really.
So now, I'm required to stop if I see an accident, or someone in distress. If I don't, and someone finds out I failed to act, I could lose my certification. Ah, heavy is the head that wears the crown.
Now, I have something to say to some of my classmates. Not all of them, but the ones who are juggling being single moms, school and work. I don't know how you guys do it. I would be exhausted. Yes, I went to school as a single mom, but I also didn't have to work at the same time. So this last part is to let you know that I'm pulling for you. I admire the fact that you want something more for you and your child, and I'm telling you, don't ever give up. Because being older, I can tell you, there are not many things I regret doing, but there are millions of things I regret NOT doing. So hang in there guys! It's going to be worth it.
That's all for tonight. Have a wonderful day!
Sunday, March 28, 2010
How I Got Here
To truly understand what I'm doing, you have to understand how I got here. It's not easy to make the decision at 47 to go back to school and make a total career change. But I did, and here's why:
1. I got sick. Not just a little sick, not sick and tired, but truly sick. My body had started betraying me. Now I'm the first to admit that I had abused it horribly in the past, and apparently it decided to exact it's cruel revenge. I'm not going to go into details here. I'm not dying, nor do I plan on dying any time soon. I just spent 2 years waking up every morning feeling as if I had been hit by a truck. Every inch of my body hurt. Sitting was painful, standing was painful, pretty much everything I did hurt. Now my doctor was very adamant. "You can not keep doing the job you are doing. You have to have a job that gives you freedom to move, and freedom to sit when you need to. You can NOT be tied to a desk for 8 hours a day, it is not going to work for you." My profession was Customer Service. Customer Service is a euphamism for "being abused by complete strangers because the company you work for has not lived up to their expectations and they want you to fix it NOW." In other words, I was in a chair, tied to a phone, in front of a computer screen for 8 hours a day. I loved my job. I was good at it. I'd had commendations for outstanding performance, letters written to the head of my company praising my efforts. Now I couldn't do it anymore. And it was all I knew how to do. 25 years and my life had to change. Now what?
2. The first two weeks being out of work is great. It's like a mini-vacation. Then boredom sets in. Now I'm pretty sure that Maury Povich is a nice guy. But if I heard him say "You ARE the father" or "You ARE NOT the father" one more time, my brain was going to explode. Along with Dr. Phil's "How's that working for you?", or Judge Judy's "They don't keep me here because I'm gorgeous, they keep me here because I'm smart." My brains were starting to turn into Cream Of Wheat, and leak out of my ears. Not only that, I started to get depressed. I felt like I couldn't do anything anymore. What was the point of getting out of bed, when I had nothing to do?
3. I decided that being permanantly disabled and collecting a check for doing nothing was not for me. My daughter,Lisa had been in school for a while, and was almost finished when she said "Mom, why don't you talk to your doctor about going back to school?" So I did. I told him I wanted to go for Medical Assistant Technician, and everything it involved. I was waiting for him to say "Are you crazy?" Instead, he said, "That's a great idea! That would be perfect for you." My next obstacle was "How am I going to afford this?" A chat with Financial Aid at the school I wanted to go to soon cleared that obstacle, with grants and student loans. Then the self doubt set in. Was I too old for this? I mean, I'm 47. I'll be 48 when I graduate. So I talked to my dad. His response to me was, "Well how old will you be if you don't go to school?" The wisdom of Yoda has my father. So much for that excuse.
So now I'm in school. I have been since November. I have 11 months to go. So I decided to write this blog so you could share this journey with me. Sometimes it will be long, sometimes short, but I'll write every day I'm in school. I'll tell you all the things I'm learning, how I'm doing, what I like and what I hate.
Strap yourselves in..it's going to be a bumpy ride!
1. I got sick. Not just a little sick, not sick and tired, but truly sick. My body had started betraying me. Now I'm the first to admit that I had abused it horribly in the past, and apparently it decided to exact it's cruel revenge. I'm not going to go into details here. I'm not dying, nor do I plan on dying any time soon. I just spent 2 years waking up every morning feeling as if I had been hit by a truck. Every inch of my body hurt. Sitting was painful, standing was painful, pretty much everything I did hurt. Now my doctor was very adamant. "You can not keep doing the job you are doing. You have to have a job that gives you freedom to move, and freedom to sit when you need to. You can NOT be tied to a desk for 8 hours a day, it is not going to work for you." My profession was Customer Service. Customer Service is a euphamism for "being abused by complete strangers because the company you work for has not lived up to their expectations and they want you to fix it NOW." In other words, I was in a chair, tied to a phone, in front of a computer screen for 8 hours a day. I loved my job. I was good at it. I'd had commendations for outstanding performance, letters written to the head of my company praising my efforts. Now I couldn't do it anymore. And it was all I knew how to do. 25 years and my life had to change. Now what?
2. The first two weeks being out of work is great. It's like a mini-vacation. Then boredom sets in. Now I'm pretty sure that Maury Povich is a nice guy. But if I heard him say "You ARE the father" or "You ARE NOT the father" one more time, my brain was going to explode. Along with Dr. Phil's "How's that working for you?", or Judge Judy's "They don't keep me here because I'm gorgeous, they keep me here because I'm smart." My brains were starting to turn into Cream Of Wheat, and leak out of my ears. Not only that, I started to get depressed. I felt like I couldn't do anything anymore. What was the point of getting out of bed, when I had nothing to do?
3. I decided that being permanantly disabled and collecting a check for doing nothing was not for me. My daughter,Lisa had been in school for a while, and was almost finished when she said "Mom, why don't you talk to your doctor about going back to school?" So I did. I told him I wanted to go for Medical Assistant Technician, and everything it involved. I was waiting for him to say "Are you crazy?" Instead, he said, "That's a great idea! That would be perfect for you." My next obstacle was "How am I going to afford this?" A chat with Financial Aid at the school I wanted to go to soon cleared that obstacle, with grants and student loans. Then the self doubt set in. Was I too old for this? I mean, I'm 47. I'll be 48 when I graduate. So I talked to my dad. His response to me was, "Well how old will you be if you don't go to school?" The wisdom of Yoda has my father. So much for that excuse.
So now I'm in school. I have been since November. I have 11 months to go. So I decided to write this blog so you could share this journey with me. Sometimes it will be long, sometimes short, but I'll write every day I'm in school. I'll tell you all the things I'm learning, how I'm doing, what I like and what I hate.
Strap yourselves in..it's going to be a bumpy ride!
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