Out of My Mind

It’s been a while again.  Too much stuff going on, most days I feel like I’m losing my mind.  Here’s what’s been happening in our household.

I almost hate to say it for the fear of jinxing myself, but Sebastian is doing really well in school so far.  Granted, this is about the time he started flipping out in both first and second grade, so I know we’re not out of the woods yet, but I’m feeling cautiously optimistic.  We keep heaping on the positive praise and reinforcement.  I was worried about him being separated from his best friend this year, but I think it has actually helped.  He’s making new friends.  Every day, he tells me what he and this person or that person did out at recess.  No more days where he spends recess by himself swinging on the swings because his friend is playing with somebody else and he can’t figure out how to get the social interaction going with someone else all on his own.  It seems small and silly when I type it out, but it really is a big deal for him.  It makes my heart happy to see him growing and maturing.

Seb and I are now yellow belts.  I tested this past Saturday and Seb tested the weekend before.  Holy crap, the test was hard.  Over two hours of just constantly kicking, punching, blocking, sparring, etc.  I was worried that they might have to call EMS for me, but I survived.  And there were others breathing just as hard as I was, too.  But I do need to start doing more (any) cardio to get my stamina up there. Whew.

School is frustating.  Actually, only one class is frustrating, the other two are fine.  But my Admin and Mgmt. class sucks big time.  We are six weeks into the class and we’ve had one lecture, the prof. never has things posted when she says she is going to and doesn’t offer any kindof explination as to why she’s not doing what needs to be done.  If I had signed up for an independent study, that would be fine, but that’s not how this class is supposed to be and I’m getting tired of it.  I’ll definitely be filling out the evaluation form at the end of the semester because this class is quickly getting ridiculous.

The hubby is in his last semester, is not loving his job and is stressed out to the max.  Yeah, he’s loads of fun to be around.  ‘Nuff said on that matter.

I’m still trying to crochet when I can, but haven’t had as much of an opportunity lately.  I’m sure I’ll be crocheting like a crazy lady once my semester is over mid-december in order to finish everything I want to do for Christmas.

There’s more, but I need to get  a move on with all the homework that I should have started yesterday, but was too lazy to do.  I’m really unmotivated this semester, which stinks.

Sebastian had a good first day of school.  He said he even made a new friend.  About 2/3 of the kids in his class are kids he was with in either 1st or 2nd grade or that he knew from Prime Time, so that is nice for him.  He was a bit sad because his best bud Shin isn’t in his class this year, but the hubby and I think that might actually be a good thing.  It kind of forces him to use his socialization skills and befriend other kids instead of always relying in Shin. 

I didn’t walk him into school this morning, either.  Just left him at the front door when the bell rang.  I know that doesn’t seem like a big deal, but I’m trying to be less of a helicopter parent who has to be in control of everything, and that’s a start for me.  A small start, but everybody has to start somewhere.

I have my first on-campus class tonight.  Thankfully, it’s at the Oakland Center in Farmington, so it’s only about 15-20 minutes from here.  Unfortunately, the hubby got stock with a phone meeting this afternoon.  The plan for this semester (because hopefully, I can get all online classes again next semester!) is that he will leave work early on Thursdays, giving me time to get to campus, park and get into my classroom.  He’ll leave between 4-4:30.  Since today is the first class, he was going ot leave at 4, just to give me time to get there early and find my way around a bit.  On Tuesday, he came home from work and said he had a phone meeting scheduled at 4 for today, one he couldn’t really get out of.  Well, he was told he could leave early if he absolutely had to, but it was implied that he really needed to stay.  Ugh.  So now I’m going to be taking Seb with me to campus and the hubby will meet us there in front of the main building and hopefully, he’ll make it there before 5:30 when my class starts.  This is one of those times where I really wish we had family living closer.

Also, I did end up getting my hair cut last week.  I’m not totally in love with it.  She asked if I wanted bangs and I said yes.  I’m thinking I should have said no.  But oh, well.  It’s just hair and will grow out.  here are some pictures.

Front view:

and the back view:

She cut a ton of hair off.  It was probably about 4 inches past my shoulders in the back.  It’s still a little weird when I go to wash my hair.  I expect to grab big handfulls of hair to scrub, and there’s nothing there.

So, today Sebastian started the third grade.  Please.  Please, please, please let this year go well.  I really don’t think we as a family can take another year like last year.  I was talking with the hubby last night and told him that if the problems start up again this year, we’re going to have to take Seb to see a psychiatrist or something.  His pediatrician does not think he has ADD/ADHD, and I agree.  But socially, he’s still pretty immature.  We’ve had lots of talks about having good self-control, not letting himself get too frustrated and then throwing a fit and making good choices.

He was scared this morning, didn’t want me to leave his classroom.  I told him it’s okay to be nervous on your first day, and that I’ll be nervous tomorrow when I go to class.  His desk is right in front of his teacher’s desk.  Don’t know if that was a coincidence or if Mrs. Z. told Mrs. K. to put him there. 

I hope he does well today.  My stomach is a mess right now.

I’ve just spent the last hour on the phone.  Why?  Because not only is my financial aid messed up (again!!!) but the payment for our truck that i mailed out oh, nearly 3 weeks ago, never cleared.  So, yeah, I’m a tad frustrated right now.

I got a disclosure statement the other day for my student loans for the upcoming year.  It listed my subsidized loans, but had nothing for the unsubsidized that I had accepted.  And the subsidized is not enough to pay my tuition and fees, so I was a little worried.  Thankfully, when I called the direct loan dept., they had record of it and said it should be dispursed with my subsidized.  To be fair, there is a little blurb on my disclosure statement that says actual dates and amounts for dispursement may be different, but there was no way I was leaving that up to chance.  I’m still not 100% confident that it will all go smoothly, just because of the way WSU screwed everything up last semester with my financial aid, but as long as everybody has the same amounts, I’m hoping it will all be good.

And can’t forget the stupid truck.  I mailed out the payment on July 14th and my check still hasn’t cleared.  It’s only going to Grand Rapids, so they definitely should have gotten and cleared it by now.  WHen I called, the rep said they showed a payment of five hundred and some dollars posted for the july payment.  Well, that’s about 200 bucks more than my payment.  There was no record of the payment I sent in.  SHe said it’s possible that the payment got mixed up with somebody who’s account number is similar to ours since it’s all done by computer and that she’ll have the accounting department look into it and call me back later today.  I hope they can get it figured out, because I made the flippin payment!   Grrr.

4.0 for the semester, baby!  For my Info Tech class, an A is 940-1000.  I got 947.25.  Just barely an A, but an A is an A and I’ll take it!  What a nice way to end my first semester.  Hopefully, I can keep it up!

I got my score back on my final.  81/100.  Not terrific, but not terrible.  Now I am just waiting for the grad assistant to update the last two grades.  One is for an Access assignment worth 50 points and the other is for participation worth 100 points.  Out of the 150 points left, I need to get 137 to get an A in the class.  It’s definitely doable.  But all I can do is sit and wait to find out.  I’m not good at sitting and waiting.  I wish she’d hurry the heck up!

Last night, I was talking to the hubby, trying to figure out exactly what I needed to get on the final in order to get an A in my Intro to Technology class.  I already have an A in my Intro to the Information Profession (Woohoo!!!!).  Yes, I would love to have a nice 4.0 for my semester.  Yes, I would love to graduate next year with a 4.0.  That would be fantabulous.  Does that really make me a nerd, or just ambitious?

I took my final this morning, and it wasn’t too bad.  I highly doubt I will get anything less than a 75/100 on it, and that’s being pessimistic.  I would be happy with a 90 like I got on my midterm.  There were a few question I was kind of iffy on, so I know I didn’t get a perfect score, but I think I did well.  It’s waiting to be graded, so of course I’m on pins and needles.  And I can’t remember how long it took for the midterm to be graded.  Which means I’ll be checking in every half hour or so to see if the stupid thing has been graded yet.  Okay, maybe that makes me a nerd.

I submitted my portfolio (after some trial and error) for my LIS 6010 class.  I am officially done with that one.  I have to take my final for my 6080 class by Thursday night, so I am currently going through 6 chapters of my computer concepts book, studying and making a cheat sheet (It’s allowed!  I swear!).  I should have started this last week, but there was just too much other junk going on.  Once I take the final, I have a little over a month off before the fall semester starts up.  Woohoo!  Can’t wait!  I’ll actually have time to crochet and read for pleasure again!

For one of my assignments in my Information Technology class, we had to create a webpage, hand coding the entire thing from Notepad.  No shortcuts!  I was dreading it at first, but actually ended up kind of enjoying the whole thing.  It was easy to get sucked in with all the experimentation with fonts and colors and effects and getting everything just so.  It’s pretty much just assignments and a resume for that class, but you can check it out Here

Then I could transport myself three weeks into the future and be done with this stupid semester.  I have to do a web page for one of my classes, complete with links to all our assignments.  I added everything to my assingments folder, transferred it over and now my stupid links don’t work!  They work from my index page, but not online.  ARRRRRRGGGGHHH!  Of  course this all comes after what should have been a relatively easy group assignment turned into frustration-fest 2008.  We did finally get it all figured out, but damn, it was a major pain in the ass!

In three little old weeks, I’ll be done with the semester and have a month off before I have to go back for the fall semester.  Yes, the fall semester that I was insane enough to sign up for three classes, just so that I can try and be done with all my classes by August 2009.  Who knows, by then, I might be comfortably residing in the looney bin.  It’s sounding good right about now.