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With the click of a button last Thursday I finished my last final of the semester, an online dazzler that took WAY too long but I was simply happy to finish it. It was for my junior college lit class. This was a bizarre class in that the teacher graded assignments once, just before mid-term. Basically, she graded a paper we wrote and gave us credit for submitting assignments due up to that point. That was all, so headed into the final I had very little idea of where I stood. I logged in today and found high A's on everything so good to go there. I also checked over the weekend and nailed a 94% on my stats final to secure the A, was right on the border of A/B headed in. I didn't feel great going into the final but felt pretty good afterwards. So, 2 A's in the book.

This left my only grad level class, a course on research. It was actually a valuable class and pretty enjoyable. The teacher's grading scale seemed to go only from B+++ to A---. Since all my scores were in that range and there was a large factor set aside for class participation (which I was very active in), I expected to get an A. Bummed to find a B when I logged in and checked today. Not earth shattering but since I'm required to have a B average to get into the program I want, I was hoping to give myself a little wiggle room. Not to mention keep alive the possibility of a 4.0 in the program. Oh well, I'll survive I suppose.

I was also dismayed to learn that my break from class is only 2 weeks long! For some reason, in my head I thought there was a 3 - 4 week break. Oh well.

All in all, taking stock of where I am 10 weeks after re-entering school with mixed feelings of excitement and trepidation, I'm pretty happy with where I am. Undoubtedly the semester I just experienced is going to be one of the most hectic given my schedule of full time work, class 4 nights a week plus another one. Plus it was my first one back in a long time, which was a little nerve-wracking as well. Thankfully it was a short semester which made it a little more bearable.

On the negative side, I'm one semester closer to the point in time where I'm going to have to quit my job and live off savings and whatever other income we've got coming in at the time. That is really starting to weigh much more heavily on me. Efforts to get the better half's gig going have not been very fruitful to this point. And of course, there's just the "Oh my God what am I doing?" factor. But I'm trying to stay on an even keel with these things.

As for next semester, looks like 3 classes, 2 of which are clinicals, where I will be in the classroom for a few days at a high school and a few at junior high. On top of that there are various seminars from current teachers to attend. The third is a course about teaching English, which I'm pretty interested to get into as these will be good glimpses into the profession ahead of me.

Heading to San Francisco for work tomorrow to visit a client. SF (actually just north of there) may be my favorite place on Earth. Unfortunately, I won't really have much time to enjoy it as I'm in Wednesday and back out first thing Thursday am. At the very least I'll get a nice (and free!) meal out of the deal and may head to a casino afterwards. Work is starting to enter busy season so I'm a little nervous about how that is going to play out. But, I think I'll have much less classroom time so hopefully it'll be manageable.

Not the most fun post in the world but some thoughts I've been wanting to distill out into a posting.

One little bit of fun - went with a few others to see Bourne Ultimatum Friday night. It was similar to the other 2 Bourne movies in that it was action packed, fairly realistic (as compared to any Bruckheimer or Bond flick) and just a helluva lot of fun. I'm told they may do another one but that Damon may not be interested. I'm glad to hear that, I like him in general and don't really want to see him get too tied to a single role. This weekend I may get to see the newest Die Hard, which I've really been wanting to check out. I'll report back my results!

Until next time.

Ace