The Longest, Hardest Semester Is Over

I wrapped up my 17-hour semester and the grades have been rolling in for the courses lately. To my amazement, I landed a 79.99% “B” in Spanish I and was registered for Spanish II for Spring. While I didn’t manage to get a 4.0 (or even a single “A”) this semester, I’m more than happy with my grades considering running my business for countless hours and working on homework every weekend.

I can tell how busy I was by how much “free time” I seem to have now – it’s ridiculous, really. When Kristin goes to bed, I don’t have to work because I was at school during the day. When the weekend rolls around, we can go shopping or just lay around watching TV and deciding what to eat next without working on Spanish or some other online deadline.

I’m on my way to the advisor today to see what I can do for my final elective. The exit requirement sheets are so darn confusing, it’s better to go see an advisor and get into the right class without any surprises when I apply to graduate in a few weeks.

Did I just say “apply to graduate!?” It’s been a long road since this high school graduation pic was taken in 1997: in the last decade/century/millennium. The road started out promising: full-ride scholarship plus books to any state school and got accepted both to USF and the Honors College. Something just wasn’t clicking right in my brain and it took too long to realize that college students actually have to study to get good grades (at least when they’re 18). I quickly lost my scholarship and had to get a job, and another, and another. Going back to school wasn’t really an option when I needed to provide my own health insurance and things just seemed too busy to go to school and work. I had no idea how anyone could do both.

A few years later, some friends of the family made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I was pretty close to having my A.A. and the offer was for a 50% scholarship to finish my 2yr degree at community college. I finished in 3 or 4 semesters while working during the day after all.

Love and marriage kept things going pretty easy in my life by having a partner to share the load of day to day living and I kept plugging away at my 4yr degree with the school assistance program at work. I got something like 7 out of 8 classes with an “A” and got those all reimbursed. When I left that job, I was on my own for school again and had to take the summer off. We hit classes hard this semester with the goal of walking in May 2010.

After meeting with my advisor, it was going to take 17 hours (including Spanish I) for the Fall and 14 hours (including Spanish II) in the Spring. No slips. No D’s. No vacations. No hospitalizations. Hardcore school all the way for the next 30 weeks with 4 relaxing weeks in the middle. Time to get my USF diploma on the wall next to Kristin’s to make for 2 HCC diplomas and 2 USF diplomas in the house.

Here we are in the middle – to be continued…