Recently in School Category

I have some friends who occasionally still read this. Thanks for sticking with me, folks! I don't seem to ever have the time/motivation/whatever it is to update, though I think of it often. I love being able to read back on entries from years ago, and would like to do the same for this period in my life.

But so, yes. Been ridiculously busy. Why so busy?

As posted about a month ago, I am back in school. I love it. I mean, love love love love LOVE LOVE LOOOOOVE it.

It's a mixture between a calm, rational interest in the topic I'm studying and a psychotic burning need to know more. I have repeatedly left my classes high on knowledge. This is one of my favorite feelings in the world. I am pretty sure my man is sick of me talking about my classes, but my excitement is boiling over and I can't contain it. Have to give him credit though: he listens. Yep, I found me a winner.

Taking these classes has been very difficult, however. I go to class before work on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I leave late those nights to attend another class in the evenings. I don't get to see Mateo much at all those days; if I am lucky, I sneak in five or ten minutes before he falls asleep. I miss him enough that I have to call home and talk to him on the phone. They are silly conversations, but I need to hear his little voice tell me about the noodles he is eating.

Plus, I have constant homework, no time to do it. Most of it, I do during nap time on the weekends, or occasionally some time after 9:00 pm on weekdays. Mondays, in particular, I stay up late. J is gone and T is asleep, and I just power through until midnight or so.

My goal was to continue at this rate for the next 1.5 years, finishing the pre-requisites and then applying to the graduate program. I believed that I still had another required class to take next fall, thus pushing my application date out to 2010 at a minimum.

However, I discovered last week that I was wrong. The fall class is not required at all, and, exceptionally, they are offering it during winter quarter this year. Once I learned that, I quickly calculated that if I were to go to classes full-time, I could apply as early as this year.

I talked it over with my little family, and we decided this was the best course of action. So many factors went into consideration, and I won't lay them all out here, but we weighed the pros and cons. I had already been looking for another job because I wasn't particularly thriving in my current one. Knowing I needed to work somewhere flexible enough to let me keep taking classes was becoming a problem. The class schedule for winter quarter has classes primarily in the middle of the day, too, making schedule arranging difficult.

As a result, two Tuesdays ago, we decided I would quit my job and go to school full-time for the next six months. Doing so would allow me to apply this February for grad school. In the highly likely event that I don't get in (acceptance rate: 18%), I could at least take some graduate credits next year, know the faculty better, and have an additional year's worth of coursework for the admissions board to base their decision on. If I get in, great. If not, I will look for work come June and take one graduate class per quarter, if I choose.

This revelation -- the realization that I could do this and it wouldn't mean we would have to starve for the next few months -- that was a great feeling. I have a work from home opportunity lined up, possibly two. Money will be coming in the door, though obviously I will be spending more than I am making. Still, we can afford the six month gap, and it's so so worth it.

I told my boss about my intention to leave our company on Thursday. I had been having some nervousness about it, but he was incredibly supportive. He and I both recognized that my enthusiasm for my job had been slumping, and we knew it was not a career path I intended to stick with forever. Still, he said he would like to keep me on part-time, doing some writing as a contractor. Sounds fantastic to me, as that is the part of my job where I felt I worked best.

HR made the announcement on Friday, even though I will still be there for another month or so. We need to work on finding a replacement, and people needed to know. When everything was said and done, I felt great.

I am really thankful to my current employer for a lot of things. Mainly, I got to get my feet wet in the corporate world and experience a true desk job. I was given a fair amount of autonomy and learned a boat load about marketing and the software business. My coworkers are almost universally cool people; it is a little bittersweet to leave them so suddenly.

However. However, however, however. I am THRILLED with the occasion to finish up these classes. I am excited to be able to manage my own time, to determine when I do my work from home stuff, when I do my school stuff, and when I go to the grocery -- these are luxuries that I cannot wait to experience again.

I am going to take a lot of classes (five). However, the schedule is bearable, I will be able to pick up and drop off Mateo daily, and Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoons are completely free. Yes, I will need to study my ass off, especially since I know "they" will be watching me. But I will be able to do so in a coffee shop, at the library, or at home, if I so choose. This is amazing freedom to me. I might even be able to take yoga again.

So. My job ends the first week of December. The following week is exams. Then I have one week of kid-free open time (hallelujah!), and then it's Christmas and Mateo's school is closed.

And then? Head-first into school.

I can't wait.

It's Sunday morning. T is playing his drums and singing the ABC's. This is a regular gig for him, one he did with much fanfare at the Oregon State Fair a few weeks back. An entire tent of people applauded his performance, while I laughed so hard I cried. I really think this kid has a rock star streak. Look out, Mama.

So much is going on right now that it's hard to keep up. Still, at the end of the day it boils down to the basics: getting T in his jam jams, reading some bedtime stories, putting the little man to bed. He is loud and crazy and difficult at times, but he is a treasure all the same. I am so proud of the boy he is becoming, and sometimes I can't help but wonder where the time has gone.

In other news, I recently made the decision to start going back to school. I love school and honestly don't feel totally well if not pursuing something academic. My last few years of classes were sort of random (linguistics), but now I aim to do something concrete that leads to an actual career path. I am very much blessed in that my employer has agreed to be flexible with me, and we have worked out an arrangement where I will continue to work full-time. Twice per week, I will have class in the morning. The other three mornings, I am required to get in by 7:30. All days of the week, I am to work through lunch, with a hard stop at 5 to get Mr. T.

The timing is intense, but it will cut back to something a little more reasonable in January. School is on a quarter system, so I need to make it through three months of crazy. I know I can do it. I am a little nervous, but it will go fine. I got my textbooks the other day. One class is Neurology, the other is Anatomy and Physiology. The combination means I suddenly have many atlases of the human body in my possession.

A huge part of being able to do this is having someone supporting me in my endeavors. I never realized how little support I received from Teo's dad, both emotionally and just in the daily things. It makes such a difference to have someone who is not only behind me but also excited for me, and who is willing to help out with basics like cooking dinner and taking out the trash. It really is amazing what a difference that makes -- not feeling like you're going into something completely alone.

Anyway, I am both excited and nervous. For now, T and I are going to spend Sunday in the park with a new friend. School starts in a week. Wish me luck.

I've taken enough Arabic to pretty much cruise through this first semester. I got an 18 and a 19 on my first round of exams, which are practically unheard-of scores in the French public education system. After those exams, we had one additional week of classes, and now we are in the middle of our second round of exams.

On Monday, I took the Round 2 exam that corresponded to the exam that I got an 18 on. Keep in mind, we have only had ONE class since our last exam (stupid, disorganized system... what a surprise), so we didn't cover all that much new material between exams. Yet, oddly enough, there were things on that second exam that I had never even seen before. And there were a few other things that I recognized from previous years of Arabic study, but absolutely and without a doubt NOT from this current year.

And I'm thinking: what kind of teacher just throws new vocabularly at students during a translation exam when they aren't authorized the use of a dictionary? She even added in conjunctions and the subjonctive, and we have DEFINETLY not covered those topics yet. I was maybe third or fourth to finish the exam (out of about 100), but I am willing to bet that at least 75% of the people in that room failed. And unfairly, at that.

I just think it's wrong. I know I passed the test just fine because I knew most of the words/terms she asked for, if not all of them. But I knew them because I learned them elsewhere, not because they had been taught to me by my current professor. And not surprisingly, the only people who finished before me were all arabophones and so they clearly have an advantage over the rest of us.

This is why the success rate at my school is under 10%. But that doesn't mean it's right.

Tomorrow I have another exam - an oral - at 9:45 am. I have been having a hard time getting up in the morning, mainly because I have been so active during the days that my body is demanding at least 10 hours of sleep. As I don't usually get to bed until midnight, you can see how this is a dangerous pattern.

At any rate, I am hardly preparing for the exam tomorrow, just keeping my fingers crossed. I'm counting on this professor being more reasonable than the other, which it isn't hard to be.

It's kind of painful to go through 6.5 hours of exams only to walk out and be sure you failed.

And for those who know me, don't do that thing where you go, "Oh, no... I'm sure you did fine, you probably just didn't get a great grade, but surely you passed." Because, really? No. No, I did not.

As a matter of fact, most likely, 92% of my comrades did not pass either. My school has an 8% - yes 8% - success rate. Which means two things: 1) it's not easy and 2) I really can say with certitude that I failed.

In France, luckily, this is not a problem. The glory of the French system is that you can take the exams - again - come September. So I'll be reviewing Arabic over the summer in an attempt to NOT blank on three words necessary for my translation today. Walking out, I realized I made at least 15 stupid, stupid errors. On a test out of 20, that's just not good.

Anyway, tomorrow is the oral exam. I was going to prepare for it rather intensively, but I have decided that if I'm going to have to go through this whole process again anyway, there's not much point. I'll review some more this evening, but I'm pretty much just counting down the hours until 10.30 am tomorrow when this whole business will be over and done with.

Until September, that is.

Twenty years down the road, I might look back on today and remember it as the day the universe smiled at me. A bright, beaming, teethy smile -- so sunny and warm and unrestricted in its friendliness that I couldn't help but finally realize that yes, somebody's looking out for me.

Today, I found all of the notes for all of my classes - online.

Somebody - God bless his/her soul - scanned a year's worth of weekly grammar lectures and then uploaded them onto a web site. Another person, God bless his/her soul even more, went through all of his/her Islamology lectures and TYPED THEM up into a 125-page document.

This is the kind of thing that makes me remember why we consider technology progress.

I will admit to having skipped a few grammar lectures. Ok, I skipped all but six. I was working my way up to asking a classmate - none of whom I am particularly close to - about possibly borrowing all of his notes. No need! I've got them all!! All!! And in really good writing.

Now all I have to do is learn everything. Seriously, yo, my workload has been cut in half. I felt like, by comparison, the learning was the easy part. If these anonymous uploaders had a tip jar, I would pay them.

Lordy, Lordy. This is insane.

My thesis director loved my paper. I mean, he really, really liked it, and gave me a good grade (that I was completely not expecting). He may use part of it for some sort of publication he's working on, but I'm not exactly sure what he means by all that (I started zoning when he was talking about it because it involved some sort of dialogue-reading software...?).

Then he even went so far as to say that he really couldn't think of any criticism whatsoever, which I believe is the first and last time I will ever believe a Frenchie when they say that.

So he almost freakishly praised it, and then asked me if I would consider continuing working on the same topic at the doctorate level. I bathed in the praise so much that I almost forgot how much I hated the researching/writing of the damn thing, and I found myself thinking, "Hey, a doctorate could be good..."

But Christ, I think if there is one thing I have learned in this experience, it would be: think before you go for the doctorate, yo.

The other thing I learned is: less work + less stress = better outcome in less time. It's a curious equation, I know, but I found it to be true in this case.

Regardless, this was my favorite thing, of all things my professor said: "This is so well-written, so clear, precise, and scientific, that it's obvious whoever wrote it did not go through French schooling."

So in the end, I have a fancy diploma from a fancy school (perhaps even with some fancy honors?) that I won't do much of anything with. But still. I can actually say that I'm proud of this. I'm sort of uncomfortable with the feeling, but there you have it.

My paper is printed and sitting next to me. I hesitate to say I'm done until the damn thing is copied, bound, and plopped into my professor's box, but I'm coming closer and closer.

Considering I didn't start writing until three weeks ago, I think I've done pretty damn well. This is my first real exercise in working slowly and steadily. It's an interesting technique. I like it.

The Boy and I have spent over seven hours correcting my thesis. We got in two arguments in the process. He has nonetheless agreed to help me for another three or four hours tomorrow.

That's love. Right there.

I would be shitting my pants if he hadn't just dropped everything to help me. It's incredible. What do you think I can do (when all this madness is over) to show him what that means to me? Don't forget - I currently have a negative bank account.

The paper is not going to be turned in tomorrow, as I had hoped. I am shooting for Thursday now, with Friday looking more realistic. Still, Friday is fine by me. Just get the damn thing out of my hands, really.

Oh - and one more thing: my French? Very embarrassing. Academic writing in a second language? Apparently not my forte. That's a bit of a tough pill to swallow, but there you have it. Luckily, I only have to write one (really bad) paper in French per lifetime.

The end is in sight. That's all I can say. It's the only thing giving me the strength to go forward. That, and my man.