We Don't Need No Education

Good morning!

Not much new to report with HP. I did work on it this weekend and almost finished the first chapter of the "dreaded middle bit" and then my computer kind of shut itself down for no reason and refused to start. Which is almost the exact same scenario that occurs in one of my anxiety nightmares. That said, I'm amazed at how I didn't even come close to freaking out. It was like "ho, hum, I guess that gives me some time to make rice krispie treats." My calm attitude was justified by the fact that I was able to get back into the laptop later, and I carefully saved my most recent HP version. But I suppose I should figure out what's going on. I think perhaps a new battery is in order? I've had the laptop for 4 years, which I know is a long time in our twisted world of disposable electronics, but I personally don't think that's a very long time to expect a laptop to work. I have no intention of replacing it any time soon.


In one of my previous posts I complained about how little time I allow myself to actually focus on finishing HP. Well, I did take one step recently toward better balancing all that I have going on. I dropped out of my E-Learning Certificate program (for the time being). There are all kinds of reasons I did this. One reason was the nagging panic I had been ignoring. Even though my alert, ambitious self had been saying "of course you can handle working full-time, teaching college, and being a full-time graduate student! You just need to be organized and diligent," my subconscious, realistic self had tripped the emergency sirens. Plus last week I was finally able to see the syllabus for my first graduate class, and seeing the details of this class is what finally helped me realize that this was not the time to start a graduate program. Nothing looked particularly difficult, but it did involve a lot of little details and one big group paper/presentation. And I know how those horrid group projects usually go. Especially if one member of the group is an English teacher. Other considerations played into my decision as well: the strict cohort structure of the program, the fact that my husband has just started his new job and that's meant a lot of changes, the fact that we're also both still property managers and need to stay on top of all that, and the knowledge that we'll be buying a house in spring and moving. Plus, yes. There's the novel to be finished. With so much going on, it became clear to me that now was not the time to throw yet another goal onto the huge bonfire of my time. Doing the graduate program next year makes more sense.


So, that does free up more time for HP (I hope to use the time I would have been in class to work on the novel instead). And that's why I had time to work on the novel this weekend. And make rice krispie treats! Which were, by the way, delicious.


Hope you had a great weekend!