Category Archives: School

Yesterday, I had an appointment with my doctor to discuss increasing the dose of my Zoloft. I have not been doing well. Rather than mince words, I’ll just say that this autumn and winter have been rough.

During the conversation, my doctor asked if there were any new small stressors in my life. I guess I ignored the word “small” and mentioned deaths, a breakup, self-image. Perhaps I should have expected the look he gave me when, those things, he said, are not small stressors.

We discussed the short timeline in which all those things happen. I left my appointment hopeful that a dosage change would help and reassured that, yes, those things I’m struggling with would make anyone struggle, and I should be kind to myself.

I’ve struggled with that. Maybe I’m in the middle of that struggle, if I’m being honest. When things are difficult, I think should take it easy on myself. I let myself sink into the couch. But, without fail, doing so only makes me feel worse. Taking it easy on myself isn’t helpful.

Sometime yesterday I realized that what I should do is to be good to myself, and that looks different. Being good to myself is pushing myself to go out for a walk, at least a little. It’s Getting up when I want to sink into the couch and bed, and putting on Real Clothes (TM) even if I’m not going somewhere. On the other hand, being good to myself means not wallowing in guilt for eating a candy bar or not going on a walk, but not letting accountability slip for too long.

Guilt is something I definitely need to work on, but I think this shift in thinking might be helpful. Knowing that being good to myself requires me to push myself will combat some of the worry of the self-sabotaging worry that I will be too easy on myself.

Anyway, I’d like to end this post with a list of things that made me feel better this week.

• Taking a walk in the warm sun and enjoying the smells and sounds of spring (not so much the dead shrubs and mud, but it’s a far cry better than a winter so slippery even looking out the window would cause you to land on your ass).
• Replacing both my lost cards.
• Realizing I have not one but two bottles of the body wash I like so much but that is sadly discontinued.
• Having a functioning phone after a frustrating week without service. Bonus points for not having to speak to customer service or wait on hold or in line.
• Finally getting some sleep. At night. Without having an appointment in the morning! And falling asleep quickly!! Sure, it was broken (thanks, cats), but it was calming nonetheless.
• Waking up to Goliath sneaking under the covers next to me.
• Catching up with work and feeling more productive and clear-minded than I have in weeks (months?).
• My clothes coming out of the dryer completely dry after only one cycle.
• Supportive friends.
• Winning a Tornadus raid and getting a snapshot to finally move forward with a quest line in Pokemon Go.
• My pretty new glow-in-the-dark phone case arriving in the mail.
• A responsive therapist.
• A new song from Adelitas Way that’s definitely a bop and makes me wanna move.
• Looking forward to spring break next week and realizing I have time for leisure reading!
• Talking to my aunt on the phone.

I guess this isn’t as short a list as I initially thought, and that makes me feel even better.

I got an acceptance letter, of sorts, from MATC today. It seems I am accepted for the funeral service program (although I don’t know how much I really want to do that so yea..) but with conditions. What the conditions are, I do not know. The letter assures me that many conditionally accepted students progress normally through out there program and I shouldn’t worry. Wait, what?! That means that some students don’t? Because that worries me. I wasn’t worried before but now I am.

I also worry about working with program and financial counselors. The FAFSA thinks we can contribute $7,000 which is much more than the courses will cost (thus no financial aid). I think not. So how many classes I take will really depend on the cost. And, of course, I still have to take the classes online and cannot possibly meet with a counselor face to face. I’m just super anxious that the school won’t work with me on these things and I should have just continued taking individual classes online like I have been doing, especially because one of the more important reasons I applied for the program at this time was to get financial aid. Bleh.

The future, it worries me.

My sister. She’s clingy and exhausting but I love her. I can’t leave the house or even stay up without her throwing a fit and it certainly takes its toll. Add into all the licking and boob grabbing attempts and she can be a handful.

I have been having a pretty laid back time without making any stressful or pressing plans. Just seeing some people here, doing lunch there and we went out for bowling last night as well.

Unfortunately, I haven’t kept track of the dates very well and I will need to do something awesome to make up for this in my classes. At least, I hope I can.

Sunday marks the first day of this semester for me. My second as a (part time) college student. I passed both Accounting and Psychology with As (96% for both). This time around is Sociology and Economics – both of which I have at least a little interest in so I hope it will be a decent semester.

Rather than buying my books ($150 total for both of them, used) I stumbled across a service which allows you to rent your books for the semester at a fraction of the price – Chegg. Very neat.

Other than that, life is quiet,

One of my worries about taking classes online was the quality of education I would be getting. Being in an actual classroom and interacting and discussing topics with other students and your teacher can lend valuable insight to a subject. It can also enable the teacher to bring in knowledge from his or her personal experiences and sources outside of the textbook.

This lack of personalization really worried me and I am sad to announce that I have experienced it and happy to announce that I also haven’t. As I have discovered, some teachers put in about as much effort into online classes as the majority or students and some don’t.

Several days before class started, my psychology teacher e-mailed everyone to let them know she was setting up the online site and how it would work. In fact, she gave us the first week entirely to familiarize ourselves with the site. Since then, she has posted an announcement at the beginning of every week including assignments and she also e-mails us these weekly announcements as well as special announcements, such as when she has completed grading an assignment.

Assignments themselves consist of textbook reading, reaction papers and discussion participation on the forums. The reaction papers, while relevant to the section of the textbook, do not follow it exactly and require a bit more thought. The same can be said for discussion questions which require each student to answer the question and then respond to others’ answers as well. The assignments also include sources and work outside from the textbook to give us a little more variety.

Overall, I have been pleased with this professor. She adds the human touch and I am getting more out of this class than if I were to just read the textbook which is absolutely necessary in my opinion; otherwise, why am I even paying for the class if I can just buy the book?

On the other hand, my accounting class is quite sterile compared to the ‘loving touch’ of my other professor. With only one announcement in over 3 weeks – and that one was after the class began, to boot- it’s increasingly obvious that this professor does not think highly of online education or wish to enhance the information in the book in any way.

The only thing he updates is the assignment list. Assignments are very cut and dry; read a chapter, do the questions and check back next week to see if your answers are correct. Each section has an online quiz and exam which is timed and because assignments are not checker or graded, these are the only scores which count.

In my experience the time alloted for the quizzes and tests is many times the time necessary and provides time for reading the text if you have not already. Combined with ungraded assignments and there is really no reason to do any of the work.

If the tests and quizzes were adequate, this might not be an issue as test grades often make up the bulk of your grade in college courses. Of course, all of the questions were true or false because they were entered into an automated system so there isn’t much room for discussion, argument or even thinking.

As someone who likes a challenging class and strives to feel as though she is actually learning something useful, I am quite disappointed with that class.

Overall, I am both relieved and disappointed with my experiences. While one professor is going beyond the bare minimum and I am getting my money’s worth, the other is barely doing that and I would be much better off if I had simply read the book.

When it comes down to it, quality of education probably has more to do with the teacher than the medium.