Archives for School here I come

Yeehah, I’m done with school for the semester.  Eight weeks went by very quickly.  Last class was last night.  We had our final test and sorta got the final result from the instructor.  He said my final grade would be between an A or B.  I will find out when I log in to my student account this evening.  YES!!  That means I can claim tuition and text book reimbursements from the company. 

Did I retain anything from the previous eight weeks?  Honestly, not much, not much of the specifics.  I think I have more gray now than when I started this class.  Stressful because it was an accelerated course, but I throughly enjoyed it.  The instructor was good – good sense of humor he has which made it a very pleasant experience learning Physical Geology. 

Now, what am I going to do with the free time I have in my hands?  I know for sure I can spend more time on my walks; watch my movies from Blockbuster (there are 3 movies that have been sitting on the DVD player since January); Scrabulous on Facebook, and read the books I have bought months ago.

The following might happen and it only depends on my mood:  work on my scrapbook which I started a year ago, and maybe learn some tricks on trading on FOREX. 

Or, if I don’t feel like doing anything, I will just look for Nicole and we can go have dim sum!  Right, Nicole?

I survived the class last night.  I got home from work, did my usual stuff but had my dinner 45 minutes earlier than my usual time of 5:30 p.m.  I left the house at 5:20 and drove to my company in heavy traffic.  Crazy, but at least I got a front door parking, sorta.   I’m so glad this class is held at my company instead of some other big corporations in St Paul or, Woodbury coz they will be a long, long drive for me. 

Very frankly, this class has kept my interest.  The instructor, Mr Hickey teaches Geography and Geology, and he does have a great sense of humor.  I like teachers with good sense of humor, they crack us up, and keep the class alive.  What we learned on the first day?  Plate tectonic, the rock cycle and topographic maps.  There were all kinds of terminology that we had never heard of; what are the earth materials – rocks and minerals; and the major groups of rocks – igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic.  I read the first part of the introduction which didn’t really makes sense until the instructor put on a video for us in class and it better illustrated the rock formation, cycle, how the earth’s lithosphere (the solid part of the earth) is divided into rigid plates of various sizes that move over the asthenosphere (the part of the earth).  It took me a while to get these few terminology phrases into my old rusty brain, and watching the video defnitely helps.  Yeah, I’m more of a visual kinda person when it comes to learning. 

There are 28 students in our class, four from my company and the rest are “outsiders”.  The four of us coworkers taking this class are students of Inver Hill Community College ASAP students.  ASAP stands for Adult Success through Accelerated Program.  The first thing when we ASAP students hang around is “how far out are you?” or “did you take any of the competency tests?”  Competencies are earning credits from prior learning or experiences instead of enrolling for that course.  I quite like the accelerated 8-week courses but they can be very tedious and stressful, but that way I can get my credits in sooner. 

The time has come for me to get back to school life.  I still wish I can go full time in school and work part time.  Well, that’s a wish.  Maybe in the next few years I might be able to.  

Did I complete reading Chapter 1 of my text book, The Essential of Physical Geology?  Nope, I didn’t.  One more page and I would have made it, but instead I was watching CBS Comanche Moon, the pre-queal to the Lonesome Dove.   Ahhh, but then, Facebook kept whispering to me telling me I need to respond to all those requests and messages that are sitting in my notification box and inbox.   That was what I did, abandoned the show but left the TV on in the living room and visited Facebook.  I tell ya, this Facebook can be addictive.  After 1.5 hours jacking around with it, I called it a night.  The Essential of Physical Geology is still sitting pretty on the dining table with the piece of paper still sticking out from where I left off.  Oh, the PC doctor fixed my PC so I didn’t have to use DB’s laptop.

Class starts tonight at 6 p.m.  I will leave office at my regular time, 2:30, rush home, walk the boys for about 45 minutes, shower, dinner and go.  Hopefully I can get out the house by 5:15-ish the latest.  This time around classes will be held at my company.  I know I could have stayed back after work, take my shower in the shower room and have my dinner and do my internet stuff in the cafeteria, but I want to get home and do all the rushing and stressing myself.  I have done the staying back and showering crap for 2 months a year ago and I hated it.  Very “mar fan” (troublesome), plus I don’t get to walk the boys.  Looks like I cannot break away from a routine, or should I say an addiction!  Nothing beats being home where I’m comfortable.  Anyway, classes commence at 6 p.m. and runs till 9:30 p.m.   I’m hoping the instructor will keep us awake and make the class time go by quick.

Yeah, I told myself I will try to get my 2-year degree in as quickly as possible.  But after my recent vacation, I sure feel like a bum.  Working around the house on snail mode.  My luggages are still not put away with all the stuff in them all over the guest bed.  I’m a total BUM!!  However, after looking at my degree timeline, I didn’t flipped, but reality sunk in.  So, I registered for a class for spring 2008.  The class I registered for is the accelerated course of Physical Geology – study rocks!!!  I talked to my coworker who took the same class this fall which she said there is a lot of reading but not writing.  Yeehah!!  No writing, just use my brain buckets to memorize the rocks!

Spring break ended on March 24, which means back to grind the books and assignments again. I was supposed to read some chapters of my textbook, heck, I didn’t do it. Instead, I was watching all the recorded NCIS shows DB recorded for me.

Things sure didn’t change for me. When there is a break from school, the books are thrown aside and I will just relax. I spent every night of last week watching my fav evening shows. I didn’t even bother to prep for my assignment for today. I wanted to watch “Remember the Titans”, I didn’t get to it. This movie is part of the competency “Small Group Discussion & Leadership” I have to take. I put this competency for this summer, but I am not sure if it will happen. I’m planning on taking “Principals of Management” because a buddy from work suggested we should take this class together. This class is an accelerated course just like the HR class I took last fall. With a buddy system, it’s always easier should I have questions with assignments.

School tonight and that means it will be a late night for me. I am always wired when I come home from class. Wish I have another week off…….

School started last week Tuesday, 23rd. I’m trying to keep up with blogging and my school reading and assignments. Pretty hard to do. By the time I’m done reading blogs, which I have to say it’s a must for me now. Addicted?? I think so.

School starts at 6 p.m. and ends at 9:50 p.m. It’s a long ass-class. I was surprised to hear from the instructor:

“I won’t be doing much talking in class. You guys will be doing the talking in this class. This class is four-frigging hours, don’t expect me to do all the talking.”

Four-friggin hours of class and only one break. Alamak, die of sitting, man. Can just imagine my ass growing wider every hour!

Thought I would be able to catch up with my blogging and reading my blogroll, nope didn’t happen. Gotta clean the house coz DB volunteered me to cook for his buddy who is coming over for dinner tomorrow night. As usual, kelam kabut, vacumn, dusting the 1 inch thick dust of the piano, pictures, etc and clean the bathrooms. Good thing it was -25F windchill this morning and early afternoon. I didn’t go for my run, the boys were super antsy. Bugging the shit outta me. Too bad.

Got done with cleaning and prep up the Monte – gotta put sheets and towels on the back seat so the boys won’t leave their fur behind. DB had to check over the car…put Heet however that’s spelt, checked the oil and added windshield fluid……gotta check them since it’s really cold out.

Put the boys in and off I the gas station. Was very glad to see the price of gas dropped to $1.95/gallon. Then we went to the dog park. Boys were like running everywhere. Really crazy. It’s as if they have not gone for a run or walk for ages. I suppose all the cooped up energy from yesterday evening and this morning. I didn’t run them yesterday evening as I cut Ranger’s nail too deep – onto the quick. Damn…..there was blood all over the cement. Super thick too.

Anyways, the boys are now all pooped out from all the running they did. I’m listening to my Chopin’s Nocturnes and blogging; instead of reading my text book. I still have one more day to finish my reading.

DB is busy completing his application for his job interview at Seagate for Tuesday. I’m glad to hear that, but both of us are trying not to be too happy about it yet. It’s a whole day interview with the engineering directors and senior directors. No interviews with managers. We thought it was strange. All the directors DB is interviewing with are Chinese (except for one Caucasian), those with mandarin pronounciation type of names….eg Song Xue. Is this is female or male?? That’s why his buddy is coming tomorrow night to give DB some interview testing skills. His buddy is the former VP of Contamination (ESD) at Seagate.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this interview will work out. DB needs a different job – a more brain challenging job, not a mind numbing job like his current job. We shall see.

Woohoo, I passed my HRM class with an A. Three more credits added on to my total credits. 11 credits out of 60…whew, long ways to go to achieve the 60-credit goal, but 11 credits is 11 credits. My next class starts January 23 for spring semester is an evening class to be held at the college. I have yet to figure out a schedule how I should do this – go to work, come home, get my running in, shower, dinner and zoom over to school, which is about 15 miles (30 minutes) from my home. If not, I will have to bring my backpack to work, get my run in, and then head to school from work (10 minutes).

Keeping my fingers crossed that this class will be as smooth as the previous one and teams are more cooperative. During the last day of my HRM class, I had to complete a peer review of one of my team member. Good thing the instructor picked that person. I really “hantam” the lack of support from this team member. In addition, there were several questions I have answer how the team was. Again, I poured my disgusted feelings out. To me was so unfair I have to get the ball rolling and kept asking the team for their opinion. KNB, no response from them till the last two weeks all of them were panicking coz we had to finish our final paper plus the presentation and our team paper. Igiots!!! Anyway, guess I’m done ranting. Let bygones be bygones. Let’s look toward the future. What the heck 2007 is just round the corner.

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

Yes, at last, school is over for this semester. I completed my final paper and team project last Saturday. The team project was OK. It was nothing spectacular about it compared to the other teams. If my team had got together 4 weeks ago, the presentation would have been better and we would have more ideas for the entire project. Well, it’s done, can’t cry over spilt milk. Waiting for the results is the worse. Our instructor it will be end of month or early January. Man, what a long wait.

Anyway, today the weather feels like spring….42F degrees. It felt good running. The boys were warm coz their tongues were hanging to the side. I didn’t run far either, approx 2 miles coz I was tired from lack of sleep. Too stressed out from school work. Now, since the weather is so nice today, it’s going to be crappy by tomorrow night….freezing rain according to the local forecast guys, which half the time they were wrong. Maybe some snow during the weekend. It’s December in Minnesota and no snow? It’s almost 10 years I have lived here and this is the first time there’s no snow on the ground the week before Christmas. Let it snow but no freezing rain, please!!!