Hey, it isn't Harvard!

What is it with Math? They make you bring a note from the Pope to let you in, I guess!

Just finished with a very angst-ridden Fall Registration (WebReg wouldn't even let me in for 20 minutes!) and was able to add every class I wanted... except Math! And, of course, it's the ONE course I've got to get into!

Met with my advisor last week and he advised me to register for Pima math in summer school so I don't get further behind in my path to Eller professional admission (or PFAD, as he called it. We apparently LUV acronyms in the academic scene!). No problem, I came right home and looked up what Pima offered, found four classes that will meet my needs and attempted to register.

Nope. "You do not have the necessary blessing of the Pope to register for this class." (Okay, it wasn't worded quite like that!) I emailed an online Pima advisor to see what was necessary and they offered me four choices: 1) Show them a copy of my UA Math Placement Test (huh? That was before last semester and I've learned a little since then), 2) Get an unofficial transcript that says I've taken the courses equivalent to their prerequisite (Hey, I'm *IN* that course and getting a good grade. Will a note from my teacher suffice?), 3) Take *their* math placement test, or 4) petition the instructor to let me in the class.

Okay, so I'm going to visit a Pima campus next week with a printout of my grade so far in Math 109 (I'm getting a solid B) and see what else they'll take in the form of bribes or inducements - to allow me to enroll in a SUMMER MATH CLASS, for heaven's sake! What? Are too many bums off the street clamoring to get into this gem of a class?

So, I naively thought that the UA, having access to my records and grades, and knowledgable of my declared major would allow me to pre-register for Fall for the math class that comes after the one I'll take at Pima this summer. Nope.

So I probably won't get the class I need for Fall, and maybe not for Summer, either, if they make me show a final grade for my current math class which won't be posted until 2 days into the summer class. And then I suppose I have to finish the summer class before they let me register for Fall - by which time all the UA classes will be full and it's back to Pima... if they have openings. Grrrrr!

I just don't get it. How the heck do they know I'm "qualified" to take the other three courses I added to my Fall schedule less than an hour ago? What makes Math so special? How about letting students register for what they need and then UN-register them if they don't pass the prerequisite class, huh? Then maybe students wouldn't hate math so much... ya think?!

The Home Stretch!

At least for tax season, it is. This time next week I'll be winding up my last day in the tax office. It has been a fun and productive season, but it has been tough to do the juggle between evenings in the tax office and evenings to get caught up on homework.

Fortunately, being my 7th year at taxes, I was able to flex my schedule somewhat. That meant fewer days sitting around the office waiting for walk-ins, which is nice, but it also meant my repeat clients had fewer days to get on my calendar so every day I worked was booked with clients. I learned early in February to "schedule" a bogus appointment at 8pm so I don't have someone picking 8:30pm. That would mean finishing up around 9:30 after which we still have to close the register. Grrrr! It only happened ONCE!

I've heard a few preparers express disappointment in the volume of clients this year, but I've actually done a few more tax returns than I did last year, and in fewer days. So it has been a very good year for me. I really wanted to try to keep up because my client base is important to what I hope to be doing after I get my degree. School certainly would have been easier without it. Depending on my class schedule next Spring, I'll probably do a few things differently.

So it feels like school is on the "home stretch" as well. I meet with my advisor tomorrow to make sure I'm on the right track with my class schedule for summer and fall. Online registration is 1pm Sunday (I register with the Sophomores now -- yay!), so I'm already thinking about next semester. Finals for this semester are early May, so that will be here before I know it.

I'm taking one class in Summer PreSession and two in the second Summer Session. I'll have more than a month off between them so will still have plenty of time to rest up. Those three classes will more than catch me up from taking only 13 hours this semester rather than the recommended 16. I'd much rather do it this way than go nuts during Spring and Fall semesters and goof off all summer long!

Overheard

Overheard in Math class...

Female student to her girlfriend: "I've got to like get my nose pierced again because I think it like grew back together. I had a cold last week and was like sneezing and everything and had to take it out and now I can't get it back in again. Actually I was able to push like an earring through so maybe it's okay but I just need to get another nose ring like as soon as possible. Can you go with me?"

Overheard on the parking lot shuttle...

Regular all-American caucasian guy to girl who also had a non-distinctive American accent: "Hey, I haven't seen you since last spring. How are you? Are you still learning Arabic?"
Girl: "Yeah, but it's pretty difficult."
Guy: "I know. I dropped the class. I'm going to pick it up again when I get back to Cairo. It just has no relevance here. I can't wait to get back to Cairo... sit at a cafe and soak up the rhythm of the world. It just feels too weird here. There's no pulse. What did you do last summer?"
Girl: "We went to my inlaws in Amman, Jordan. It's such a beautiful city. We were there almost six weeks. We can't move until he gets his degree, but we're already looking at property there. It's really expensive but I think he can get a good job right away. I can't wait to move."

And my personal favorite - overheard in Math class last semester...

Guy student to math teacher: "I'm only going to do 75% of the homework because I only need a "C" in this class."

Time to breathe!

Ahhh, Spring Break! A chance to breathe and get caught up on a bunch of things - house-related:

- Curtains for the TV room
- Get rid of the old china hutch (finally!)
- Reorganize my desk area
- Plant new garden stuff
- Put in shrubs along back fence
- Weed our half-acre backyard! (15 minutes at a time)

...And school-related:

- Study for Map Quiz in Latin America class
- Get ahead on Math homework
- Get a better grasp on logarithms (purplemath.com is great)
- Write my Annotated Bibliography for English
- Start on my Documented Argument (English again)

Wait a minute, I don't think I have time to be writing in this blog!

If it's Tuesday, this must be English

Whose idea was this, anyway? To have students take four subjects all at once? I'm beginning to think the accelerated college my husband graduated from has the better approach. The University of Phoenix crams a whole semester of each subject into a 5-6 week period of time. You do research, write papers, take a final, and then it's on to the next subject. One at a time.

I'm keeping up pretty good and am getting the work done, but it's the lack of true focus that's bugging me this week. I'm enjoying each subject (some more than others) and want to do a "good" job with all of them. But there either isn't enough time, or maybe it's just my brain that has trouble changing focus every day...

The way it is turning out, two of my subjects are getting less of my concentration only because they don't meet every day like my Math class does. After I leave English Thursday at 2, I don't really have to think about it again for five more days. Similar scenario with Modern Latin America. I just took a mid-term exam in MLA that I felt unprepared for because I hadn't been focusing as much on that class since not much is "due" in it and it only meets Mon/Wed (with a Friday lab that seems only partially related).

I'm also a little frustrated about the method of dispensing critical information. And this might be a new-generation versus old-generation thing. Ya know, these kids with their short attention spans! But when I see something on the syllabus coming up in the next few weeks, I want to be thinking about it way ahead of time. However the outline giving the structure of the paper that's due next week was only given to us today! So I have two evenings (one of which I'm booked at H&R Block) to put together a 2-page rough draft for peer review in class on Thursday.

And I'm not quite done with Math homework that's due tomorrow plus my input for the group Math project due Thursday (which kind of changed focus once we saw the group grade we got on project 1 only TODAY!). I can be good at all these subjects, but I need to focus on them separately.

Plus the house is a little thrown and what should I do with the chicken for tonight's dinner?

I'll get it all done, of course, but I won't feel I've done my "best" job which I could do if given more time to focus on each one. I feel like I'm throwing stuff together at the last minute too much. Or is that really all they expect of us...??