Is It Naptime Yet

All my grades are in:
CRJ 302 Quantitative Application in CRJ (stats)      B+
CRJ 450 Seminar: Sex Offenders                         A
JOUR 101 Critical Analysis of the Mass Media         A
MUS 133 History of the Beatles.                          A

My stats teacher sent out an e-mail the Thursday after finals about if we were able to use what we’ve learned and show that our grade is not the true mean or shows the true average, with mathematics and what not, then he would take into consideration the changing of the grade. I got the email Friday and was preoccupied with the thought. I also had a lesson to prepare for Church on Sunday. I did  a little bit of math to see of I could figure something out, but it was a true mean because I got some some really good grades then and got plenty of not so good grades (So it wasn’t that I got almost all good grades but had one outlier that dropped my grade.). I just decided to make peace and be happy. My total average for the semester is 3.825, just under the 4.0 average for A and over the 4.7 average for A-. I’m happy  that my average for the semester is an A-. I could have tried harder.. but I tried hard enough. I should have received an A- for Journalism, according to my calculations, but since I was an active participant and pointed out a mistake on the test he may have thought I deserved an A…I don’t know, but I’m happy with it.
It is done.

So, I know people are probably tired of me writing about school. Oh well.( You’ll get one more post after this because my final grades need to come in and possibly one when my diploma comes in the mail months from now.) I took my last final last night. It went well. I don’t feel like a college graduate. (Maybe I should have planned on going to commencement, but how would sitting on my butt for two hours listening to people I don’t know and then shaking the hand of someone I don’t know change this feeling?)
It’s strange how chapters of our lives close so suddenly. I was engaged for five months then suddenly after a half hour ceremony I was married. I was pregnant for nine months then after six hours of labor and ten minutes of pushing I had a baby girl. It seems like in a blink of an eye our lives change drastically and their is no going back. I’ve gone to college for five and half years and last night after a 20 minute final I was done. I had completed all I needed to do and that was my ending to this chapter of my life. I may go back to school. In some ways I look forward to attending again. Maybe I’ll get a second degree. Maybe I’ll get a masters. Maybe I’ll just never go back but will be at home homeschooling my own children while I discovery the world through their young eyes and remember things I’ve forgotten.
For now I say goodbye to the overpriced textbooks, the skanky dressed girls on campus and the terrible parking at UNLV. Goodbye to paying for a student union I never wanted or ever will use. Goodbye to the Political Correctness on a liberal campus in which conservativeness is not accepted. Goodbye to the teachers I hated and those I learned from. Goodbye to the business students who smoked right outside of the entrance to Beam Hall. Goodbye to running into old friends. I’ll miss school. It defined me as more than just a mom, or a housewife. I enjoyed saying I was a student and a stay at home mom. Now I’ll have to find other hobbies.

Today is the official start of finals. I had one on Friday. I got a  92.5 % on it, but I spotted a question that did not have the correct answer to choose from, so the teacher added another 2 points to everyones test, which bumped my grade on the final to a 95%. This is great, but it only gives me a 89.8% in the class. So close to the A – that I wanted. I may still get it because he seems like a teacher that rounds up the grades…I hope. Really I was just trying to get good grades this semester and it appeared that I may be able to get straight A’s if I aced my last test in a couple of classes. I’m happy that I did so well by just doing my normal routine for school.  I have one final tonight on campus to go to. It’s at 8:10 pm. That is one thing I hate about on campus night classes. The finals are so late at night. Plus I drive there for a total trip of 40-50 minutes for a half hour final. I think I’ll do okay on it. It’s my music class. I remember a lot of the info on the study guide, but some of it is questionable. Even if I get a B on the final I have a strong enough A in the class that I should still get an A for my final grade. My CRJ stats class has it’s final available from today until Wednesday at noon. I figure I’ll take it tomorrow. I need to get no less than 19 our of 20 questions to get a 90% in that class. He does not seem like a teacher that would round up. I know the second half of the material for the test pretty well, the first half is questionable. I figure if I study the chapters well maybe I can get an A on the test. We’ll see. I have gotten 19 our of 20 on a couple of the exams. but they were early ones, and this last one is a little more difficult.
My final final will be Thursday night at 8:10 pm also. That is my CRJ Sex offenders class. He gave us the questions and answers last week  so I’m confident that if I study I will be able to get an A on the test and in the class.
Then I will be a college graduate. I can’t believe it. Now that I am pretty much finished with school I don’t want to stop.  It was also a great semester to end on. I loved all my classes and I enjoyed learning.

So times are a little stressed right now, but to tell the truth not nearly as bad as I expected. ( I have two weeks of school left, one week of classes and one week of finals. Jon also has a term paper to do.) I’m studying so I can get straight A’s this semester. Their I’ve said it so now I have to. (I may have said it before but it was a long time ago so I don’t remember.) It is very doable. I have an 89 in my Journalism class. So I just have to get an A on my test which is Friday the 8th. I believe I can if I get most of the study questions done from the test bank. Just watch, the ones I don’t find will be the ones I get on the test and I’ll fail!! No, I guess I’m just slightly worried about that though. I feel that I’m also just hanging on for my stats class. I have a 92 or so in the class. I have one more assignment worth five points and the exam. I’m hoping that if I study I’ll be prepared enough and will get an A though this is the hardest exam, so I’m slightly worried because I have had a hard time with half the material. My other two classes I’m not worried about at all. When I told my MIL about my plans of getting straight A’s she said that even if I get a B I’ve done well since I have two kids and was going to school full time. I suppose people say that I’ve done well even if I do just average because I’m going to school while taking care of two children. I have a hard job taking care of two kids and going to school full time, but I don’t want them to be my excuse if I don’t do as well as I planned. People ask how I go to school and take care of the girls. Really it’s not that hard unless I have a hard class, in which it would be hard with or without kids. I have neglected things in my life while I go to school, so that’s another way I do it.

My goals for after school are such (because these are things that I’ve neglected while in school or some my whole life):

1. Read the scriptures daily. This goal is now mandatory. I’m at a crossroad where I need to know if I have absolute faith and knowledge in my religion. I’ve been raised LDS and around LDS people my whole life. I think I know the church is true, but I am not positive. I’ve made wrong choices and repented, but I have some decisions coming up in which my absolute faith/ knowledge in the church is necessary. In ways, I have just gone by others and their faith. I’ve made it by through my hope and others surety, but I have doubts and now is the time to resolve them. As life progresses I will expand on the importance of this, but as of now just know that I need your support to help me through this test.

2. Make my house a home. I’ve had hard times because I feel crowded and unhappy in our situation. I wish we had a bigger place, but we do not so my goal is to make it my own. I’ve space bagged a few things and they helped and I believe will help a lot in our situation of baby clothes once I do the rest. I hope to organize my home and decorate it. I have two sets of drapes to do and I want to paint. I want to get ride of boxes and hang pictures. I think I’ll be able to do this if I don’t sit around too much.

3. Be more involved with others around me and my girls. I need to have a twice a month date with my girls and a local park or the library. I need to make friends and go out with other women around me and in general get out of the house. We’ve decided to wait on our next child until things are figured out so maybe by the summer we will have a second car, since we won’t be buying a van and hopefully the car we buy will be less expensive than the van I wanted.

Really those are the area’s of my life I need to work on. I hope I can keep busy after school so I don’t become unhappy as I have other times when I’m not in school. I’m really quite lazy so I hope if I can work hard for a couple of months on the home then I can be lazy once it’s done and it would be a less guilt laziness. 🙂

Jon thinks we may be on the down hill of Lilah’s temper tantrums. We’ll see as the week goes on. She still seems to cry when she gets upset  about Eden taking something rather then using words. She cries for a shorter periods, sometimes, when she’s trying to get something. I suppose I’m seeing a glimpse into the teenage years….crying and outbreaks for apparently no reason.  It’s just frustrating because I feel like she’s trying to manipulate the situation by crying….but then again Eden cries when she gets upset so she may just be mimicking her sister.  It’s just frustrating. I’m hoping they’re getting better.
Lilah also can’t wait for Halloween. My goodness. She wants nothing more to be an Incredible. I told her Anna was making the costume and she went on about Anna and how she’s sewing at her house. Then she wanted Anna to bring the costume over so she could have it. I will be happy once Halloween is over. It’s fun to see her get so excited but it wears thin on a mothers nerve. I think I’ll do something with the calendar. Put some scary sticker or face on Halloween and each day we cross off the days until it’s time, or put a sticker on. Just so it’s not quit as abstract as us telling her it’s a couple of weeks away, or it’s just not time yet. Eden’s going to be a purple Ladybug..essentially what Lilah was two Halloween’s ago. She’ll be our Eden bug.

I was able to give a good Relief Society lesson today. It’s was on Choosing Life or Death. Since most don’t have immediate thoughts or experiences I was able to get through all my quotes and each point that I wanted to make. Plus the women didn’t go off on any tangents. It’s frustrating when you want to interrupt someone or move on, but it’s hard to interrupt or ignore those who want to participate.

School is going well. I’m enjoying the easier classes, and working hard in the difficult ones. I was able to get an A on my first test for my Sex offenders class. Of course he went through each question in a round about way so I was able to focus on those things that I knew were on the test. The next test may be a little more difficult, but he does give us study sheets. It really is a perfect class for me. I love the challenge of learning the terms and understanding the deviant behaviors. I love that’s it’s suppose to be slightly difficult, but it’s interesting enough that it makes it worth it. The professor is also an interesting guy. He talks mostly in a monotone, but I like that he’s laid back but clearly states his expectations. Because of things in my past sex offending is interesting to me, it’s also such a prevalent thing that I feel that I’m also learning ways to protect my children and notice behaviors that sex offenders have, so I can be extra careful.

I have taken two test in the last two days…and I have one more to take by tomorrow. I don’t think I have ever been so prepared for three test at the same time….I suppose the test scores will tell me how prepared I thought I was.
My CRJ Stats course is the one test I still have to take and I have until tomorrow. That class is starting to become difficult. We’re getting into the part where you have so many steps just to get the answer…so if you mess up then you have to do the whole thing over…luckily most of it is repetitive steps. But none the less it takes half a page to do a problem and by the end of the semester it takes at least a whole page. It also takes more brain power than I normally like to exhort…It’s hard for me to do things in just commercials, or even when the girls shows are on or with them playing. That is the hardest….to study when they’re awake….especially with Eden awake. Lilah watches TV and is fine…Eden wants attention, or she gets into things…So you lose concentration and forget where you were or you mind starts wondering while reading and you’ve read a whole page and don’t remember a thing. That happens a lot to me.

The semester is nearly half way over…that I can’t believe…I’m finishing week 6 of 15.
I still haven’t decided if I’m going to walk. It just seems like such a big production…and then there’s sending out the announcements and having my girls sit relatively still in a large auditorium for at least 2 1/2 hours. Plus their might be horn blowers and just loud people, in which I know Lilah would be scared of the horn blowers.
I also know my mom might try to persuade me to walk. Andrea had to walk because of mom…and I’m sure she wanted to walk also, at least to some degree. I didn’t go to her graduation because it was the same one as Jon’s. Jon wasn’t walking because he didn’t want to sit through it…so why should I go if my own husband wasn’t walking? I was also about 32 weeks pregnant with Lilah…so being pregnant and sitting in an auditorium on hard seats didn’t sound to appealing.
It still doesn’t sound appealing, but I’m also thinking of the accomplishment of graduating. I have a few more weeks before I have to decide…I guess I’ll let you know.

So I’ve mostly completed my first week of school. I still have a couple of lectures I need to watch, but I’ll do those while the girls are taking their nap.
My music class was cancelled so I had to change my schedule a little bit. I do plan for these things and I register for one more class than I plan on taking. My extra class was Social Work 101, but the professor wanted “several hours of discussion weekly”, and their would be one paper along with the three tests. I was not wanting to do “several hours of discussion” which included responding to the lectures and then responding to other students responses, so I decided to register for SWK 315. Now this sounds strange, aren’t upper division classes harder?…well not always. I had some pretty easy psych courses that were 400 level. My main motivation was it was being taught by a different professor, so my hope was there would be different guidelines for the class and discussions particularly. Anyways, it was exactly the same guidelines plus two papers. I think both 101 and 315 were developed by the same professor, but one is just being “taught” by a different one. I say this because while I worked at Distance Education we did have teachers that just took over for another one, and they used the previous lectures and guidelines, and they just do the grading and answering of questions throughout the semester. Anyways I dropped the 101 and I picked up the 315 on Friday, and since it’s Internet I was not able to see the material until the next day, Saturday. Then I was like no way am I doing this. I just couldn’t handle a third class online that would be so demanding. I hoped my music class would go through, but on Tuesday they cancelled it, only ten of us had registered. I decided to register late for a different music class that I knew would be going through. MUS 133- History of the Beatles, on Monday night. I registered Tuesday so I have not attended this class, plus the teacher does not appear to be on UNLV’s employee list. Which tells me he’s new, or a grad student possibly. Since Monday is a holiday I actually won’t go to the class until the 12th of September. I figure I’ll read though the book, an anthology written by the Beatles, and try to get in touch with him through the department. I’m hoping I haven’t messed up completely and that the class will be more fun with tests or papers, maybe a little time intensive, but not as much as the SWK ones would have been. So that’s my strange life. My sex offenders class was interesting. I probably won’t talk about it too much because the public is often misguided on certain things, or just plain judgemental. I also don’t want to traumatize whoever reads this.

The semester looks hopeful. I’ve done okay managing my time, though my sex offending course has a ton of reading each week, plus so much vocabulary that I’ll need to learn just so I can understand the material and be able to use it. I’ve been tired this whole week and I’ve taken naps in the morning. I’m trying to get past that, because it wastes time.
The semester is a starting and now there is no looking back.

On a side note. The first day I have to take a shower, so I can go to class, both girls decide to stay awake until 4:09….Well that’s when I decided to get in my shower because I couldn’t wait any longer…they were both sound asleep at 4:27 when I went to check on them.

Also we’re getting high speed Internet. My phone line won’t be busy while I’m on-line and overall my Internet connection should be mush faster! I’m so excited!!! It’s costing us much more a month, but I think it’ll be worth it because of the upgrades we’re getting on out phone line and the fact that I will not have such slow connection. Yay!!
(I’ve done six semesters of Internet courses with horribly slow connections, not always able to see the videos clearly for the powerpoint’s, but I always had sound, and on my seventh and final semester we finally get high speed. Go figure.)

Today is the first day of my last semester. Now it seems strange to say that. I know for the past 8 months I’ve been worried about school and it coming to an end but, as of today, I’m excited to say that I will be done in just a mere 15 weeks. It will have taken five and a half years. I write that out so it will be read and it will be clear. I want my last semester to go out with a bang. It’s my last chance to recover from last semesters madness and get awesome grades and my last opportunity to fell like I’ve learned something. okay. I know it sounds strange. I know half way through, and especially the final weeks, I will feel tired and worn down and I will want to put the minimal effort into completely my last semester of courses. I’m hoping that by writing this down, and having those of you who read this, my wonderful family and close friends, obviously those who care enough to bookmark and comeback anyways, help me and keep me to my word. Goals are more likely to be obtained if written down, and for me goals are more likely to be done if I have someone else to remind me, or at least to be proud of me when I accomplish them. (do I sound co-dependant or what?) Anyways. I’m hoping by writing it down this will give me the motivation to actually do it. I know I can do well. I just need to apply myself and stay on task.
One thing I hate about school is how much time it takes away from my kids
I admit, my children watch a little more TV during my school semesters, especially when I have tests approaching. I try to balance that with some quality time. Like we played outside this morning while it was still cool. The grass actually had dew on it. I haven’t experienced dew on our grass yet because of the heat, so it was a new thing and Lilah enjoyed it. I try to read and play with them in the afternoon before their nap, but there is plenty of time in the morning where they just entertain themselves, or the watch a movie or PBS. We also have a DVD of the best of the Electric company…at least then I feel like Lilah is learning something while being entertained.
Anyways. my schedule is as followed.
JOUR 101–Internet— it seems like there will be weekly assignments and lectures to watch..a little time intensive, but not bad.
CRJ 302—Internet—it’s a stats course for criminal justice. I am actually looking forward to it because I did well in my psy stats and I’d rather do hours of studying math, than hours of reading and writing this semester.
MUS 137- British invasion music of the 60’s– I believe it deals mostly with the Beatles. I’ll be taking this course Wednesday nights. I’m hoping it’s fun, so even if there is papers or hard work, at least it will be interesting.
CRJ 450- seminar on Sex offenders. I’ve never taken a seminar course. I imagine that it’s just like a regular course, but the content has not been approved as a course that should be given each semester. I find sex offenders interesting because they usually have sexual addictions, and it seems that everything goes in this world..until you break the law, or make someone else uncomfortable. I wanted at one time to be a criminal psychologist, but I decided it would probably take too much out of me as a mother, or really a woman.  Certain things just harden your spirit. I hope the course turns out to be interesting.
I’m looking forward to my semester..and to my graduation.