I'm A Sophomore!

I'm proud to say...my first year of college is over...and I'm now a Sophomore!

 First semester...I got all A's.

 Second semester...I got all A's. Which was much harder to do.  Trust me. The classes were more challenging and I carried 6 more credit hours than I did the first semester.

I had a few road bumps along the way.

 Back in September, I stubbed my toe in the corridor at school and when I was stumbling along, I fell into the wall and broke my arm. It was a huge pain in my neck since 3/4 of my classes were computer heavy and involved massive amounts of typing.

Then during second semester, I broke 3 vertebrae in my back on February 22nd, then I fell down the deck steps in the rain on March 18th and broke my ankle.

I haven't had this many injuries since I was 17 and involved in a terrible car accident.

But, all that is over now and I'm on summer vacation and working at the pool once again. It's my goal to update my blog regularly until I head back to school in August once again.

Thanks for hanging in there with me everyone! :)

A Sweet Gesture

Absent from my household this school year is Ty, my nephew.

 Do you remember him?

He stopped by last night to visit and he also brought me something of his to use. My school bag is so heavy that he is loaning me his rolling backpack.

We emptied my bag and filled the rolling backpack up.  It's completely full.  If I had any more textbooks, they wouldn't fit. I tried it out, and it's much better than my tote bag was. Thanks for the loaner, Ty!!! I really appreciate it!

Back To School

Yesterday morning, bright and early, at 7:30 a.m., Big C and I were headed down the highway, back to school.

We both had classes all day long, from 9:00 to 5:00.  It was a very long day, let me tell you. Big C went straight to bed at 6:30 last night.  I wanted to, but I needed to start on my mountain of assigned homework. 

And here I am, at midnight last night, still working on my math. I managed to get one chapter done, and I still have one more to go.  It only took me 5 hours to get all those problems done for chapter 1!  Geez! I feel like it's just busy work, but I still have to do it.

So, I still have chapter 2 for math and 1 or 2 chapters to read in all the other classes along with some small (hopefully) assignments to finish up today before my classes again tomorrow. Can you guess what I'll be doing all day today?

And So It Begins

Yesterday, I figured I should check my college email and online class website. I should clarify that my classes are not online, but I do have an online class area for each of my classes. It's hard to explain but we use it for grades, assignments, tests, and several other things. Anyway, I had an email from one of my instructor's and my first 2 Monday classes have been cancelled but there is plenty of reading and homework to complete before the first actual class time.  Since I had an email, I went and checked out my classes and I have homework in 2 of them before the first class on Tuesday. So...today it's back to the grindstone. I have homework to do. I'm glad I checked these things out as I do not like being unprepared because being unprepared puts me behind.  With 6 classes I can't afford to get behind. So, I'll catch you all later! Have a great Sunday everyone!

I'm Ready To Go

Today, Big C and I made the trip to the college bookstore and bought our textbooks for the next semester.  When we got back home, I cleaned out my book bag and got it packed. Check out the photo below.

It's a very deceptive looking bag, isn't it? You probably couldn't guess what all is in it, right? And you wouldn't imagine that it is HEAVY either. I almost have to bend over double to carry it.  It's that heavy. Now I know why my left arm, even after being broken, is much stronger than my right arm.  It's because I carry this bag on my left shoulder and am constantly picking it up with my left arm. It gets a major workout for 16 weeks straight. So...what makes this bag so heavy?

It's because I have all this stuff in it. There are:

6 textbooks

6 folders and 6 notebooks

and a bag of pens, pencils, highlighters, post-it notes, a calculator, ear buds, a flash drive, and then an emergency baggie (not shown) of tissues, Tums, cough drops, nail clippers, and $2 in quarters.

I would never have thought that all of these things together would weigh so much if I hadn't already carried this same bag for the past four months.  I swear that this semester's bag feels even heavier than it did last semester. My left arm is going to be quite muscular by May.

Mississippi Here We Come

Small T will graduate from high school in May and has been applying to different colleges/universities for the 2015-2016 school year. Her first choice is Mississippi State University.  After much thought, my husband and I told her she could apply, and listed our conditions IF she would be accepted.  Well, guess what...she was accepted.  Oh boy.

After several days of sitting on the good news, she announced it to the world. She's thrilled, let me tell you.  I'm so-so with it, but it's getting easier to accept with each day that goes by.

She's going to be around a 12 hour drive from us, if anything should happen.  I'll be saving up airfare money this summer when I'm working full time again.  I'm going to miss her horribly.  :(

My First Semester

Here's a summary of my first semester back in college (after a 27 year break).

 Two weeks into the 16 week semester, I tripped and fell, TWICE, in the exact same spot.  I stubbed my toe.  Crazy, right?  The second time...

 I broke my arm.  Yeah.  I still can't believe it. The cast went from my fingers to my arm pit. Not very handy when you're taking mostly computer classes (with a LOT of typing) and needing to drive a 90 mile round trip every day.

 As for the driving, I hired a chauffeur...Medium J.  He was a huge help to me and a good sport as he would sit for 8 (boring) hours waiting on me to finish for the day so we could travel back home.

 It was also a time of great trial when it came to "getting ready" in the morning.  I had to dress up for my classes and my job at college. You see, I got an office job there to help pay for driving expenses. I utilized Small T's skills with makeup and hair to the utmost during this time.  I'm so glad she was still around and not off to college herself.

 I applied for, and received, a scholarship for non-traditional students.  Yay!  The lovely lady in the photo with me is my scholarship sponsor.

 Then it came time for FINALS. It was SCARY. I think it was the "unknown" aspect of what I would be facing, that scared me the most.

 In Presentation Skills with MS PowerPoint, you had to pass a pre-test with a score of 700 to take the final.  I passed the pretest with an 825 and the final with a 944.  At the beginning of the semester, this class was the one I was most worried about.

 After all the finals were over, this is what my grade report looked like.  I worked really hard for all those A's!

 I think I also lost my mind a bit too.  This is what I looked like on the last day of finals.  lol  I think I was just trying to hold it all together at that point.

 Because I was tired....just tired.  I love this photo.

 And I felt like celebrating because I made it through those first 16 weeks!

And celebrate, we did!  Big Daddy surprised us with a cake.  We will overlook his spelling and say how good the cake tasted!  It was a butter cake with butter cream frosting.  Yum!

And now it was vacation time.  Four whole weeks of it.  After a couple of days though, the boredom set in.  *sigh*  I have 11 more days of vacation left and then it's back to school.

I hope you enjoyed my little presentation on the first semester of college. I wonder what the second semester will bring?

The 20th

On August 20th, Small T started her Senior year in High School.

And Big C and I had our first day of college.  Together.  Sort of.  Big C changed his colleges this year and he's living at home and attending the Junior College that I'm enrolled in.  He's a Junior and I'm a Freshman (again).  We don't have any classes together and it's unlikely that we will.  We have completely different majors.  I'm enjoying my classes but it's a lot of hard work.  It's been 27 years since my last college class and things sure have changed.

Road Trip

On April 1st, we brought the new month in by taking a road trip to see Big C at college.  Actually, it was a necessary trip and not so much a "bring in the new month" trip.  You see, Big C got a ticket and had to go to court and wanted some moral support so Big Daddy and I traveled to be with him.  Anyway, it was a nice little road trip.  Sort of.  After awhile, you get tired of driving though.

 One good thing about heading that way is that we drive by our old family farm.  The one that I grew up on.  It looks nothing like it did.  Nothing.  And it shocks me every time I see it.  The building on the right, that's beige and brown, that's a church.  Yep, a church.  And it's in our pasture.  The one where we grazed the cows in the winter.  Crazy.  At least to me.  Our house was torn down and a modular home sits in it's place now.  But all the fencing and such, that's gone.  And the outbuildings and barns are gone too.  It doesn't seem the same, and it's not supposed to, but it's still shocking to see it.  Oh well.  Time goes on.

 Then we had the lovely time of following these two trucks for more than 20 miles.  The truck on the left would not or could not pass the semi.  And he never did.  He finally turned off.  Thankfully.  Big Daddy was getting mad.

 Half way there, we stopped at a Wendy's for a potty break and a quick bite to eat.  When it came time to get my drink, this is what I faced.  I've never seen one of these before.  But wow...I loved the Cherry Sprite it dispensed me.  I tell you, I must really live in BFE because everyone else seems to know what these soda machines are.  Well, everyone except the people where I live.

 I did find the poster about the drink machine and took a photo of it.  I pressed the button for Sprite and then I was asked what kind of Sprite I wanted and then I got to choose my flavors.  Love it!!!  It's a totally ingenious idea.

 Then it was back on the road.  And I started seeing the road construction crews.

 There were a lot of them.  You can tell that Spring has arrived in Missouri just by looking at the number of road repairs going on.  They are everywhere.

 About 45 miles before we were to arrive in Maryville, I started seeing these signs.  They must be new because it's the first time I've seen them.  This is where Big C goes to school....Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville.

We had a little bit of time to kill once we arrived in Maryville, so we drove by the Sig Ep frat house, to see where Big C spends a lot of his time.  He'll be residing here next year.

All in all, the trip was an expensive one for all of us ($200 ticket, $75 breathalizer payment, and court costs...not to mention our traveling fees), but I hope that Big C has learned his lesson.  I won't bet on it though as he's stubborn.  I think the penalty for getting another ticket like this though will at least make him think twice about it though.  Thirty days in jail, two years probation, and a $500 fine would certainly make me think twice!

***I think I should clarify Big C's ticket....he did not get a DWI or that sort of ticket.  He did get a Minor in Consumption ticket.  He was at a frat party, without a drink in his hand, but did admit to having drank some beer.  I'm glad he didn't try to lie.***

***At court, there were probably 40 college students there for Minor in Consumption tickets.  Wow.  I was actually shocked by the number of them.  But, I'm glad to know that campus police and the city police take underage drinking seriously.***

I Did It!

I did it!  I applied for admission to Missouri Valley College and hopefully, this August, I will be returning to college to finish my degree.  I only need a few classes to complete it.  After that, I'm changing my major and starting over to become an Art Teacher.  I hope.  I've been out of High School for 30 years as of May.

It seems a bit odd to be doing this, with Big C in college and Small T heading that way in a year, but I think it's finally time to go back and get it done.  My education has taken a back seat while I raised my family.  Now that they are all setting out on there own, it's "Shelly Time" once again.  :)

Big C is Off To College

Bright and early Thursday morning, we were on the road headed to college.

Big C started off in the lead and immediately lost his dad and I.  At the next big town, we took the lead and I swear...Big C was determined to run over us.  We must have been taking too long to get there.

 Big Daddy thought it was funny that I was taking a photo of this whole scenario.  Big C even sent me a snapshot of his speedometer which ended up in a phone call from me telling him to quit messing around with his phone...no texting, no photo taking and no facebook...he's driving, for crying out loud!

 It took about two hours, but we finally got his stuff moved in, his bed put together and his futon set up.  This is his "little side of the room".  He still had the TV, the printer, etc. to put together and his clothes to put away, but he was ready for us to leave.  Like right now.

 Here's his desk area.  Not very big.  At all.  And he's a big boy.

One final photo, for which Big C didn't care to pose...he was impatient.  This photo really took me by surprise too.  You see, at the beginning of Summer, Big C and his dad were the same height.  Looks like Big C had another growth spurt without me being aware of it.

Anyway...good luck Big C!  I miss you already!!!

College Visit

Tomorrow, Big Daddy, Big C and I are off to college.  We are headed to Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville.  https://www.nwmissouri.edu/  Big C will be attending college here this Fall.  He will be majoring in Sports Media.  Tomorrow, he will be meeting with his adviser, getting his class schedule, and a whole lot more.  It's a full day of activities starting at 8 a.m..  We have a 3 hour drive to get there, so with restroom breaks and such, we'll be leaving well before the sun is up.  I hope everyone has a great day tomorrow ... I know we will!

**Edited to add.....we had a great college visit!  Big Daddy and I learned a lot and so did Big C.  I'm really glad he's decided to go here (even though it's where I WANTED him to go).  :)