Finally Finals!

In two weeks I'm done until August! It's been so stressful I look forward to the break. I've learned a few things this semester. First, pay attention to how the professor teaches. They all have a particular way of doing things. Once you figure it out, it's so much easier to get through the class. For instance, my Marriage and Family Relations Teacher goes by the outline that's available to all students but I only found it by accident. If I had known this earlier, I could have saved myself a TON of note taking!! My Sociology professor does lectures (Spencer Blake). Write down EVERYTHING he says that pertains to that days lecture, he WILL ask you about it later and it WILL be on the test. In Psychology, my professor is somewhat, how do I gently say this.......flighty. Bless her heart, she gets distracted easily and if you want to know what the chapter is about, read it. That's the only way you're going to do well on the tests. In math, SHOW YOUR WORK! She's a stickler. Her name is Laura Nelson and she's great but even if you have the correct answer, if something is off in showing your work, she docks you!
I changed my major. I'm now going for a Social Work degree. I decided to do that a while ago but after spending all day at the UASAL (Utah Arts and Science something something) conference for extra credit in Sociology, I wondered if I was heading in the right direction. I want to help people but have learned that I can't handle being a case worker for DCFS. I get too attached to the kids. I know this because of the job I have now. I asked my professor what I could do with a Social Work degree and he reassured me that I was getting the correct degree. You can be a therapist with a Masters as opposed to having to have a Ph.D. in Psychology. Now I don't know if I'm going to go that far with my education but I decided that I love the sociology aspect of what I've been learning.
Just when you're really starting to make freinds in class, it's about to end. I have made one really good friend that looked me up on facebook so we'll be keeping in touch. I thought when I started that being older would be a disadvantage but actually it's been pretty cool. My life experience trumps young smart butts any day. One of the most interesting things is being able to share in Marriage and Family Relations. That's my LIFE they're talkng about! Well at least most of it. Sometimes I think I contribute way too much but my new friend likes my comments so maybe it's not as bad as I think it is.
Next week is review and preparing for finals which are the first week of May. I will be doing a LOT of studying. I have four finals to take, one of them is take home so that will help a little, but the other three are in school, and the one I'm worried about the most is Sociology. That's the only class I'm not at almost 100% in the class so my score is critical.
Now all I have to do is decide what classes I want to take in the fall. I'm taking the summer off to have a grandbaby and a wedding. I think that will keep me busy enough!

Headaches and Hearts

I'm sitting here, having just finished my two class assignments listening to my cousing Nate's new cd (Nathan Wayne, In Behalf of The Fool). It's a great cd, I highly recommend it and not because he's family, but because it's DANG GREAT!! So I decided to blog. I woke up with the worst headache this morning! Bob woke me up to give me my Valentine's before I had to go to school. He woke me out of a very deep sleep and scared the bejeebers out of me! I remembered I was going to get my test scores today which made my headache worse. Nothing a ton of diet coke wouldn't take care of!
I got my first Sociology test back with a score of 87%. I was stressing out so bad last week because of this test in Sociology and a Psychology test on the same day. By the time I got home Friday, I stressed myself into a small Fibro attack but it subsided by Sunday so it wasn't too bad. One thing my Sociology Professor believes in is variety! The test had 100 questions and very little was true/false. There was one section (all multiple choice) that I didn't miss any on. There were 24 questions that was match the term to the definition, and the rest was another type of matching questions. He added some extra credit questions but docked me on the extra credit one point for saying "residence" instead of "place of residence." Picky Picky!! This guy is tough! I missed getting an A by three points and I was kind of surprised at how upsetting it was to me! Should I really be that upset over not getting an A? I think it was because I had studied so hard and thought I really knew the material. I read one section wrong and messed that one up! Oh well, in this class if I get an A on the final, that's the grade I get for the class so it doesn't really matter what I get on the other three tests. So I think I will not stress about this any more! I've just got to get that A on the final!
I did have a great Valentine's Day at school, though! I did a class presentation that had a possibility of five points. A lot of kids did the presentation. It was all extra credit. It didn't really need it but I thought it would give me a buffer if I did poorly on a future test. I remembered that I had an old two color poster board laying around the house and we had to present on one of the theories of love. I did the Lee & Sternberg's Attachment theory of love. This theory states that your attachments as an adult are related to the attachment you had to your mother as an infant. If your mom was attentive, etc. you should turn out to be a secure adult, if your mom avoided bonding then you should turn out to be an insecure adult in relationships. Fascinating. Anyway, I did infant on one side and adult on the other. My poor board was ripped in a couple of places, had something sticky on it and I spilled diet coke on it on the way into class! I pretended that it looked marvelous and the teacher gave me a full five points credit. She told me as I was leaving the class that of all the presentations, I was the only one that got a full five points!! What a great start to the day, and then at lunch the student council had a cute Valentine's Day thing going on. They had speed dating but I couldn't talk Bob into that activity. ;) They also had balloons with prizes attached. I threw three darts and won two prizes. Since I could only claim one, I got a big heart shaped box of chocolates that I gave Bob for Valentine's Day. He came and had lunch with me which was really fun! We decorated and ate a heart shaped sugar cookie......yum!!
I then went to Psychology and got my test back wich I had scored 95% on! Yay!! That really made my day! I also turned in another extra credit assigment that gave me an additional 4.75 points for that class in case I might need it in the future. Ok, so I'm slightly anal. I am super stressed with all the work I have to do. I did a lot of reading and writing notes over the weekend for a couple of my classes. I thought I was actually ahead then got to class this morning and found out that I had two writing assignments due today! Holy Cow! I totally forgot to pay attention to the sylabus for that class. She was so sweet to let me get them turned in by midnight tonight. I got home from math, typed them up, and emailed them to her. Phew! I don't know if I'll get full credit, but at least they're done.
Bryce paid me an awesome compliment tonight about how proud of me he is and how amazed he is at how hard I'm working in school. I told him, "Right back at ya kiddo"! In fall, Shane will be joining us so there will be four Park family members in college. Catalin (Reese's fiance) is going to the Police Academy in the Spring or Summer.
Side note: Reese had her ultrasound this morning. She's having a boy! I was secretly hoping for a girl but am so excited that it just doens't matter! It is becoming more real as time goes on. I've been too scared to get too attached after our last grandbaby didn't get this far in pregnancy but so far so good with Reese. They are really excited since they both wanted a boy. Due date is July 9th.

A New Term

Ok, so it's been way too long since my last post. So sue me, I'm busy!! Just kidding, I am, however, way too stressed with trying to do school full time and I got a new part time job working with kids who have behavior problems. That is not just time consuming, but mentally and emotionally exhausting as well! So, last term ended great! I was able to get A's in both classes. Math I really had no doubts, but English was another story. I had writing assignments due every class and that was extremely stressful! I'm so glad that's over! I decided to take a break from English for this term but continued on with Math. I decided to try taking classes that might not be too difficult since I knew I had to go full time this term and I'm still not quite familiar with this whole college experience thing.
I changed my major from Psychology to Social Work. I'm in Psychology, Sociology, Marriage and Family Relations, and of course, Math. Math 990 to be exact. It's a continuation from 950 but will get more difficult as time goes on. We are already almost past what I learned in 950. I'm hoping it won't be too difficult to keep up, she teaches us as if we already know the material. Some do, but some don't!
Back to thinking that these classes would be easy. Especially the Marriage and Family Relations class. Being married for almost thirty years and having raised six kids, I thought this one would be a breeze! WRONG!! What I didn't expect was all the stupid facts and termonology involved and required for the tests. We had our first test on Monday. I studied my butt off and even did a test review in class where she all but told us the questions, but she DIDN'T present them in the way they were on the test. She just said things like, know what this means and know what that means. Whatever!! So I wrote it all down, got the answers, studied them and then bammo! On the test it's presented in a completely different way than in the book or the way it was presented in class. I was the last one to finish (in tears) and I ended up having to guess on way too many questions. NO ONE got them all right. Lucky for me she grades on a curve. The highest was 36 out of 40 correct, so she graded on 36 instead of 40. Then she gave us all credit for two of the questions that she agreed with us were rediculously presented because everyone got them wrong, so I actually ended up with about 97% which was a HUGE relief. I about fell out of my chair when I got my test back! I really was so shocked!! What I find interesting is that she claims she has nothing to do with how the tests are made up. It's done by the College Board, but my Psych teacher makes up her own tests. Why is that? I don't get it. How can one teacher have that authority and another not? I wonder if it has something to do with one being full time and the other only part time.
I'm really nervous about my Sociology test. The test covers five chapters. That's just too much information to try to maintain in my little brain!! I've been lucky so far to keep my grades up, but Sociology will be the real test. I do, however, absolutely love my Biology Professor. He makes class so interesting! He never brings anything to class except the day he brought mini candy bars to do an object lesson, (that reminds me, I still have a Reese's in my backpack waiting to be devoured......mmmmmm chocolate)! He has a great way of getting us to understand what Sociology is all about. My Psychology teacher is great too but she's just a little flighty. She constantly forgets what she's talking about and gets flustered too easily. It's amusing, but she gives tests that are much better to understand and I got 90% on that one so that makes me VERY happy!!
I aced my first math test. Bryce and I are taking this class together which is a blast! He teased me all last term when I didn't ace my tests so I got to tease him this time, but I tried to be nice! I'm so grateful to have such great kids! They have been so supportive of me going to school. I get stressed out way to easily and they always know how to make me feel better! I don't know why it's so important for me to get A's but it is! I just want to do the very best that I can and so when I think I'm not doing as well as I should, well you can imagine. Then add to that my job which doesn't give me enough time to study or do homework. I had to ask them to schedule me less hours so it should get better in that department.
I'm also trying to still do my Reliv business but it's been coming last and that makes me sooo sad! I love Reliv and what it's done for me. I'm going to Conference next weekend in Atlanta which means I have to miss class for a whole day,(yikes)! I'm so looking forward to getting away and being with all my Reliv family though so it should be fantastic. I should never have taken this other job but I want to help kids so badly! And with Bob out of work again, every little bit helps! So I'm in a bit of turmoil right now. Got any suggestions? Feel free to comment, try not to be too brutal! If you know of anyone who needs a great, hardworking Warehouse Manager, let me know!

My First Post

I probably should have started this when I first decided to go back to school, but procrastination is my best friend and should probably be my middle name! I lost my job in August and with no new great prospects and totally wanting to get away from the rubber stamp/sign business, I decided that this just might be a great time to go back to school. I have wanted to go to college for a very long time but never got around to it, then I got married in 1982, starting having kids in 1983, and that was it! My hats off to moms with young kids who are in college, you are much stronger than I am! It's hard enough for an old fart like me, 31 years out of high school, (many of those years being sick), and just having two teenagers at home. I told my husband that there was no way I could work full time and go to school so if I was going to do this, I needed his financial as well as emotional support. He is actually really excited for me. This has, however, created a tremendous amount of stress for me and I DON'T DO STRESS!! I have been having to learn (who am I kidding, I'm still learning) some stress reduction techniques. My favorite is to just zone out and spend the whole day in bed staring blankly at the television, sometimes I even turn it on. Since I'm short on time at this particular moment, I'm just going to start with the why and not go too much into the how of going back to school at my age. Since I'm going to be 50 in August, I thought maybe it might be a good idea if I figured out what it is I want to do when I grow up. Hubby got his degree five years ago so he's in full support of me getting mine now. Really, I think he's just excited at the prospect of me earning a much higher income than I've been able too in the past. Unless you're fortunate enough to fall into a job that pays well and offers the ability to move up in the company without a college degree, or they help pay for that degree, there's not a lot out there that pays decent money. Even working for my dad I couldn't make very much. Not that he didn't want to pay me more (yeah right, oops was that too sarcastic?) but it was a very small business that was more like a very expensive hobby for him. I ended up having to go to work for a different company and that was a total nightmare and a waste of a year of my life! That's another blog so I'm not going to dwell on it as it will just lead me into one of those zoning out sessions anyway and today I have things to do, so that's all for right now!