a rocky start
I love September. I love that blank slate, endless possibilities feeling that comes with the beginning of a new school year. I always feel nostalgic, and in recent years, pretty sad that I'm not in school.
Ironically, I really hated school in later years. In high school I managed to excel quite easily, but University was a very different story indeed. I developed a lot of bad habits. The premiere of which is simply poor organization and time management. Which is sort of silly considering that I love planning. But I love the dreamy planning, I guess, as opposed to the practical planning.
Anyway, it would have been nice to think that after a few years off and a lot of good intentions, those habits would have worn off and I'd be back to my high school ways. But habits are harder to break than that, I guess.
Long story short: I registered for distance ed in April and took my sweet ass time with it. Life came up, so to speak. And suddenly I realized I was running out of time, so I got back on the horse. But in the scheduling department, I failed. Hard.
In distance ed you have to schedule the sitting of your final exam. They warn you in the paperwork to schedule it at least a month in advance. What they don't tell you, however, is that there's only 3 consecutive days in every month that you can write a test. (edit: they do tell you, after all. Found it in fine print on a letter they sent me in April. Which of course I wasn't concerned with at the time, seeing as I had so much time! Oh, Katy...::headdesk::)
Well, my course end date is October 28th. When do you think the October exam sitting is? October 2-3-4. Yeah. So when I called to register yesterday, instead, I found out I'd missed the deadline. Which is a moot point because I wouldn't have been ready to write the test yet anyway.
All is not lost. For the low low price of $87.50 I extended my course by 18 weeks in order to be able to write the test November 6th (one week after my course actually ended.) A bit of a pain in the ass, but entirely my own fault, so whatever. I'm just considering it a lesson learned... a lesson I would far rather learn in distance ed, which is far more flexible than regular school.
The only thing making me nervous is that I'd originally wanted to finish TWO courses by Christmas. And in order to do that, I will now have to write the second final exam 5 weeks after the first. A whole course in 5 weeks... yeah. The good news, however, is that I'm allowed to take the courses concurrently, so I can start the second course, and write the first midterm for it, before I write the final exam for the first course. Which is pretty much the only way I'm going to be able to do this. All I can say is, thank God these midterms are open-book and thank God the finals are not cumulative.
Anyway, in other news, I'm actually finding the subject matter super interesting. Go science!
Ironically, I really hated school in later years. In high school I managed to excel quite easily, but University was a very different story indeed. I developed a lot of bad habits. The premiere of which is simply poor organization and time management. Which is sort of silly considering that I love planning. But I love the dreamy planning, I guess, as opposed to the practical planning.
Anyway, it would have been nice to think that after a few years off and a lot of good intentions, those habits would have worn off and I'd be back to my high school ways. But habits are harder to break than that, I guess.
Long story short: I registered for distance ed in April and took my sweet ass time with it. Life came up, so to speak. And suddenly I realized I was running out of time, so I got back on the horse. But in the scheduling department, I failed. Hard.
In distance ed you have to schedule the sitting of your final exam. They warn you in the paperwork to schedule it at least a month in advance. What they don't tell you, however, is that there's only 3 consecutive days in every month that you can write a test. (edit: they do tell you, after all. Found it in fine print on a letter they sent me in April. Which of course I wasn't concerned with at the time, seeing as I had so much time! Oh, Katy...::headdesk::)
Well, my course end date is October 28th. When do you think the October exam sitting is? October 2-3-4. Yeah. So when I called to register yesterday, instead, I found out I'd missed the deadline. Which is a moot point because I wouldn't have been ready to write the test yet anyway.
All is not lost. For the low low price of $87.50 I extended my course by 18 weeks in order to be able to write the test November 6th (one week after my course actually ended.) A bit of a pain in the ass, but entirely my own fault, so whatever. I'm just considering it a lesson learned... a lesson I would far rather learn in distance ed, which is far more flexible than regular school.
The only thing making me nervous is that I'd originally wanted to finish TWO courses by Christmas. And in order to do that, I will now have to write the second final exam 5 weeks after the first. A whole course in 5 weeks... yeah. The good news, however, is that I'm allowed to take the courses concurrently, so I can start the second course, and write the first midterm for it, before I write the final exam for the first course. Which is pretty much the only way I'm going to be able to do this. All I can say is, thank God these midterms are open-book and thank God the finals are not cumulative.
Anyway, in other news, I'm actually finding the subject matter super interesting. Go science!