First Week of School

Remember when you were a kid and the first week of school was exciting fun, colorful, and easy-going?  At what point did it switch to a week of fear, panic, and overwhelming workloads?!  Ha!

Last week marked the beginning of another semester of graduate school for me at good ol' WMU.

Having done my undergraduate work as well as my master's classes at WMU, I do love it.  What I don't love about this semester is that both of my classes are held at the Battle Creek Campus.  That's a good hour and a half drive from my house.  Yowser!

The good thing about this semester though, is that it's sort of my final semester taking classes.  You see, during the summer all my classes are online, and then in the fall I write my thesis.  If all goes to plan, I will graduate next December.  Woohoo!

I have a class this semester that meets every other Saturday from 9-4, a total of 6 times.  It's a budgeting and accounting class, and I'm actually kind of liking it.  My professor is fun and very down to earth and I think I'll learn a lot.

My Wednesday night class is another story.  It's going to be HARD.  Hundreds of pages of reading each week, three to four page papers per week, and I have to declare my THESIS TOPIC two weeks from now!  Yikes!  I know I bitched about my statistics class last semester, but this very well may be WORSE!  Wish me luck!

Procrastination, Exhaustion, and Overwhelmed-ness-tion... : )

Woweeeeeeee!

Don't get me wrong - I'm not naive enough to not realize that this is a BUSY time of year, but man, I am SWAMPED!

I hopped on here to let you all know that I'll be mostly M.I.A. until mid-week next week... and then realized that by doing so I'm only procrastinating reading ANOTHER Performance Management case study this afternoon... : )

I am completely overwhelmed by the amount of school work that needs to get completed in the next six days. I haven't had a semester like this since undergrad and the panicked and rushed feelings of end-of-semester-finals-week madness are all creeping back!

Only problem is -- back then I could stay up most of the night and still make it through most of the week -- and I only had a dorm room or apartment to worry about keeping up -- and no husbands or pets to be concerned with caring for (for those of you know me well and have done since undergrad - insert bad jokes about failed all my college boyfriends and "relationship" drama here!) These days - if I don't get a good 7-8 hours of sleep I am TOAST! (reason number 489 why I don't have kids yet...!)

So... I'm plowing through it all - with my computer streaming the Christmas music radio station to keep my spirits up. Visions of sugar plums dancing in my head and all that...

I can do this... I can do this... I can do this...

See you on the flip side, folks! : )

Midterm Miracles

Two days ago I was losing my mind when it came to school. I was CONVINCED I'd failed my Statistics midterm, and actually FORGOT to do my take-home midterm for my other class. For real. I was trying to figure out how I could withdraw from classes and just write this semester off as a wash.

Yikes!

Well, by some miracle, I survived midterms unscathed. I pulled off a B on my Statistics midterm (I was beyond thrilled!) and have a solid B in the class thus far, and I aced my other midterm keeping my A in the course in tact.

Phew!

I feel re-energized and ready to conquer the second half of the semester! Maybe I need to have more confidence in myself?

It's go time!

The semester has begun!

Classes started this week and I'm already looking forward to having a bit more routine in my life. I will have two classes a week this semester, one each on Monday and Tuesday nights from 6-9pm. I started my Tuesday night class this week and will start the Monday one next week (no classes on Monday of this week due to Labor Day)

Only trouble is... my Tuesday night class is a STATISTICS class. It's official title is Analytical Methods, but here's the book... YIKES! It's a core class for my program, so there's no getting out of it!


I should explain that I am not a math person in any way, shape, or form. I struggled with math in high school and the (very) little I had to take in my undergrad. I DID take AP Statistics in high school, you know, ten years ago. I think I scraped by with a B. I remember nothing.

Now my professor seems very nice. He says he understands that we're not mathematicians and that we're not all going to apply this to our jobs. He claims that the emphasis will be on the process and application rather than the numbers themselves. We'll see!

Wish me luck! My first semester back just may be my toughest one yet!

PS) You'll be proud to hear that I'm heading to a coffee shop sans computer later this afternoon to get a couple hours of un-distracted studying in. How's that for focus? Oh, and I bought my calculator yesterday so I'm all ready to get started! I think the truth of it that my love of shopping motivated me to buy the calculator rather than my willingness to get studying - but let's keep that between you and I! : )

PPS) Happy Thursday! Hurrah for short weeks!

WMU Adventures...

Did you miss me?

I can't believe it's been a week since I posted! I've been so on the ball in recent weeks/months about posting regularly. To be honest... there just hasn't been much going on lately!

Anyhoo - I am back now, and that's all that matters!

Yesterday I headed off to Kalamazoo to do some running around on campus and get set for the start of my grad classes next week. My niece and nephew Mariah and Anthony wanted to come for a tour of campus, so I brought them along with me. We had a great time!

Here they are at the fountain by Miller Auditorium... what a great shot of them!

We wandered around my old "home away from home" - the Dalton Center

Checked out all the WMU merchandise in the bookstore...

I got a student ID (I can get free drinks at QDOBA with this!) and was excited about it!

The kids posed by the WMU seal...

We took a look at Waldo Stadium...

And wrapped up our trip with lunch (at Bilbos Pizza - a Kalamazoo staple) , and some photos by the big WMU sign...

(check out all those brown eyed Susans - they're the official WMU flower you know!)

It was a super fun morning - and I'm more energized than ever to get back to classes!