Proceed further? That is the question!

I am a serious student, I am dedicated, study hard, and want to truly learn. I think when you put lots of effort into whatever you do, people around you go out of their way to encourage you, and people in position of authority try to show you the right way and guide you, so you get to your goal successfully. I have been getting encouragement, to continue my studies, from not only my family and friends, and of course my professors, but also from total strangers, who saw my excitement and dedication within the first few minutes of our meeting.

One Friday night as I was about to leave the library, I decided to check out the text I was reading, so that I could continue reading it overnight. I don't like to check out books from the library if I am not going to read it cover to cover! Reading a chapter here, another one there, and taking notes, doesn't take that long, and I rather read and take notes in the library, let the book stay in the library, so when another student like me just wants to read a few chapters, don't get disappointed that the book is not available.

Anyhow, that Friday night, just before the closing time, as I walked toward the circulation desk to check out the book, I saw a line in front of the librarian! I was so not ready to wait in line, that late in the evening, but I wanted to read that book, so I stood!

The student librarian, looked like he was a freshman, who just started, and was probably over his head trying to deal with all of us in a short period of time before closing. I was thinking to myself why a more capable fulltime librarian is not there to help this poor guy who obviously was not very comfortable behind that desk.

Suddenly the women in front of me turned to me and said, "I had been librarian for over 15 years, without the capability of computers of today, and I never allowed anyone wait in line, I was efficient and speedy!" I decided to be polite and show that I was interested in conversing with her, but in reality I just wanted to get home and continue studying/taking note from the book I was reading! So I asked her if she was a librarian here or in another school. She told me that she worked in another school, first as a librarian, and then when her marriage dissolved, she decided to go back to school, got her master's and then a Ph.D., and was hired as a professor at once.

Suddenly not only I was interested in her story, in a split second, I also became an admirer! She continued that, she had two teenage girls at that time and she felt that she needed to excel in her career. I can't image how she did it, going through a divorce, taking care of two teenage girls, holding a fulltime job, and then if her life was not full enough, starting graduate studies. I told her that I was very impressed, and continued that, after my divorce I was such a mess, I couldn't even do my job as efficiently as I had done before, and here she was not only she took care of her kids and did her job well probably, she also went to school.

She asked me about my story and I told her that I was back at school after almost 20 years for a master's degree. She told me now that I was there, why stop at masters; why not go for a Ph.D. She said that she can see my dedication, being there on a Friday night, and added that these days it is essential to have a Ph.D. if you want to go further in your career.

I told her that I thought I was too old to continue! She asked me how old was I? When I told her, she said she was about 6 years my senior when she started her master's degree and  continued that she had a great lengthy second career as a professor, and now she is into her third career, a researcher in Women's studies, and that is why she was at the library.

So, yes, the thought of continuing to a Ph.D. program has been in back of my mind! I so would have gone after it if I was a bit younger, or if I didn't want to have kids. Both my older sisters had their youngest kids when they were 41, so that is the absolute latest for me to consider getting pregnant and have a kid too. I have a window of three years maximum to have a kid, preferably two, lol, and that is a tight window, lol. My plan, all along, had been to finish school, at the latest, at the end of 2011, and right away start concentrating on starting a family. But I can't help it not wanting to continue, now that I know I can be a success at school , plus I know where I like to advance in my career, I think requires having a Ph.D!

I got another A-!

My other professor just sends us an email that the grades have been posted on the class webpage and I could not breathe to go there and find out my grade! Of course the grades were posted with our student identification number. Gone are the days that the grades were posted on the professors' door with our social security numbers. Of course I was  grateful that I could check my grade from here and I didn't have to beg my dad to go see my grade and call me. Anyhow, I jumped to fetch my purse and got my id out, and off I went in search of my grade. I am so memorizing my student id number, lol.

Of course I did not expect to get an A-, I thought more like B+. I did lousy on my midterm, and even thought I studied very hard for the final and I thought I had done well, I could not be sure. But I GOT AN A-, lol.

I can't begin to say how ecstatic I am at the moment. I did well this semester. I wish that I had not dropped the other class and had gotten another A- in that too. But hopefully I can do better next semester and pass all three of my classes with grades A as base! lol.

Baking cookies right now, the smell has saturated the apartment, and waiting for my sister to get home.

Happy times.

One successfully done, one to go ...

I got an email from my professor with comments on my final paper and my grade for the course. I GOT AN A-. Even thought I am very happy and excited, but I cannot shake the feeling of wanting an A! I really worked hard and did well, or so I thought, but maybe not perfect. Beside the two papers, we had 10 quizzes, each with 10 points; I accumulated 91 out of 100. We had homework almost every week, 2 to 3 challenging questions per homework, accumulated to 75 questions. I got 69 of them correct. And on the two papers I got a "great job" comment. So yes, I was hoping for an A. I suppose the people who got an A got perfect scores on their quizzes and homework. Oh well!

A few weeks ago when I was trying to decide if I wanted to take a third course next semester, I came across a new special topic class. It is being taught by the same professor that I dropped his class this semester. I went to talk to him to find out more about the course. After he explained in details what he was going to cover, he summarized that it was the continuation of the course I dropped but was sitting in. Suddenly I got very mad and was about to kick myself for another round, when he told me that even thought the prerequisite was the course I dropped but he would sign for me to be admitted to the next semester's  class. He told me that he was very impressed by my dedication and I would have gotten an A in his class if I hadn't dropped it. So yes, I ended up kicking myself for a bit, but then I reasoned that I was at school for the learning, I learned the martial of one class for free, and now I could take another class for credit! Of course I would be at school a bit longer, but my goal is learning. You see, when I dropped that class, I continued to attend it with the professor's permission of course. The first couple of weeks I didn't do the homework, but then I decided to keep up. So I first turned in the couple of homework that I missed turning in on time, and after that I turned my homework on time. The professor was great and he did take time to grade my homework and write comments. Anyhow, the grade was based on the homework only. They were challenging and I spend a good 2 or 3 hours per question, in excess of 20 hours per homework. But I kept up, learned a lot, allowed myself to be able to take the next semester's course, and now I even feel real good that I could have gotten an A in it. But the little fact that it was not for credit is still bothersome to me, lol.

So next semester I shall be taking three classes. I have figured I can handle it, and since there is no prospect of employment, I have not heard from any of my friends and former colleagues who told me that they shall get back to be with good news and soon, so I figured I might as well not waste my time.

I have been at my sister's for five days now and all five days I have gone to gym. I weight myself today and I am down one pound since Saturday. If this gym's scale is as accurate as my old gym's scale I have lost over 10 pounds since September. As soon as I get to my parents I shall weight myself; I know the difference between that scale and my old gym's scale for accurate comparison. Anyhow, I have gone to gym everyday and have done cardio for 2 and half hours; 45 minutes on stationary bike, followed by another 45minutes on elliptical, and finally one hour on the treadmill. I did not push myself to go hard and at high level; I started at the lower levels than I was used to and I am building my stamina back. Even thought I have felt tired afterword, I am not in pain, and the reward is that I lost one pound; considering that I had eaten out every single day, I am very satisfied with this lost pound.

We went out to dinner Friday night, with my sister's boyfriend, and hopefully to be my brother-in-law soon. I had stake and cream brulee, amazing. Saturday we went to one of my sister's good friend for dinner. I didn't know her and if she had not emailed me earlier to invite me personally when she found out that I was going to be at my sister's, I would have not gone. But I am glad I went, she and her husband are great people. I had a great time and eat lots of delicious food. Sunday was Christmas shopping at the mall and we had pizza. I am proud to report that I did all my Christmas shopping in one day, lol, considering that I had to buy gifts for 20+ people.

Every year I put a lot of effort into Christmas gifts, but this year I didn't have that much time, so I decided either I was not going to give gifts to anyone, or just give gift cards. When my place got rented, and one month ahead of time, I decided to consider that I was still paying the mortgage and spend the rent, well maybe a good portion of it, on gifts. However, I decided to go with gift cards, for one there was no time to pick gifts for 20+ people and for another when I see something for someone and feel that it could be perfect for them, my budget for the gift for them goes out of the window; I couldn't do that this year. So I decided on the value of the gift cards for grownups, and then doubled it for the kids. Got gift cards from Apple store for my two brothers-in-law, one soon to be brother-in-law hopefully, three adopted brothers-in-law, lol (my best friends' husbands are truly like brothers-in-law) and their kids, except for my oldest niece who is no longer a kid! For my oldest niece, my sisters, and my two best friends who live here, I got gift cards from their favorite stores. For my best friend who lives oversee, I got a gift card from her local Amazon. I could have gotten her a gift card from her favorite store too, and I knew she might be here in the summer, but I wanted her to be able to spend it as soon as she wants. Thus I was only left to get gifts for my parents, which was fun to just concentrate on them.

Monday night my sister was going to dinner with four of her former classmates and their families, so I tagged along, and last night we went to her neighbor's apartment to celebrate the longest night of the year. It is a Persian celebration. I am familiar with this celebration since one of my college roommates was Persian and she had told me about it. So more eating was done and this morning I am still one pound lighter than the day I got here.

The plan for today is to bake cookies to take with us tomorrow to our parents. I have done the shopping and going to start soon, but shall wait to make couple of batches with my sister tonight. And tomorrow I shall use my last gym pass and then in the early afternoon we are headed to our parents for Christmas.

I have been thinking that since I am not that poor anymore, lol, maybe I could either join my old gym, or join my school gym, which is as good, but cheaper, or go the cheapest way and take up running. All I know is that I have been enjoying working out, and I want to lose weight without developing lose skin, so I have to exercise. I shall think about it some more and make my final decision by the new year, lol.

Right now, I feel so happy and excited. I wish that I knew how I have done on my other class, and if that grade is good also, I would be on the top of the world! I feel that I am finally guiding my future to where I would have wanted to go, happy and successful. There have been lots of uncertainly in the past few months, but I am so glad I took a chance, and when given the opportunity, I used it well. I am hoping that next year at this time, I would be even happier, thinner, and more satisfied with my decisions and where I am.

MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Done with my first semester ...

I had my only final yesterday. I think I did OK, but then I could be wrong! I wish I was given the right answers, so I would know for sure, right now, if I had done OK or not. My niece tells me that some of her professors post the answers of an exam right away on their class website, and she always knows right after the exam how she has done. Unfortunately, my professor is not of this school of thought!

Anyhow, I also handed in my second and final paper for my other class on Monday. I think I did OK on that too. I put a lot of time and effort into it, and I learned a lot. That is all I can expect of myself.

So now I am going to my younger sister until Christmas. She lives a few hours drive away from us, in the neighboring state, and she asked me to go stay with her and then drive back with her on Thursday. I jumped at her offer because for one, her condo has cable, lol, so I can watch movies during the day that she goes to work. Of course she also has internet. Plus there is a gym in her building and she said she can get me passes. I have seen her gym, it is pretty good. And lastly, I would be in approximately of an oven so I can bake cookies. In my tiny basement area I don't have an oven, and I love baking Christmas cookies so here is my chance.

I am at my parents right now to do laundry and then I shall take the train in the early afternoon to get to my sister's by the time she gets off work. We are going out to dinner. I can't wait. I have been such a student, lol, for 3 and half months that going out to dinner is such a huge deal to me right now.

So now that I shall be connected to internet all day, I hope to be able to post more and read much more. Have a great weekend.

My place is rented!

At the beginning of October, knowing that I had to rent my place, and being OK with that, I still had not done anything to make that a reality. You see, I am not like any normal human being, lol, that when she decides to do something, and she knows she should do it, she proceeds to do it! I need some time to wrap my brain around any changes I have to make in my life, and most of the times the "some time" that I need, is a lot of time! lol. So I was kicking myself for not making the going back to school a reality sooner, so that I had decided to rent my place by the end of the summer, and had found a good tenant all before school started. But at the beginning of this year, I was busy trying to find another job.

My new year's resolution was to put my career right back on track, so I modified my resume again, made three versions of it; one for the industry that I was in, one for other industries, and one for academia. I searched the job posting and noted the jobs that matched my qualification at least 75%. I don't like to just submit my resume; some of my former coworkers do that! Anyhow, I wrote cover letters, for some jobs I even elaborated on the problem that I had solved at my previous jobs that was pertaining to the job I was applying for. I explained my thought process of how I solved the problem, I stated the specifications that I had and the assumptions that I made. So yes, I put a lot of effort into applying to each and every job, hoping that I would hear back from them. But I didn't. Not even to tell me they were not interested!

In the middle of February when I realized there was no hope of me getting an interview on my own, I send my resume to my former coworkers, and within a week, I heard back from managers wanting to talk to me, and not a phone screening first, they were inviting me in for a personal interview. They treated me very well. Dealt with me as someone they like to work with. All in all, I went to four interviews and I think I could have gotten offers from all of them. But none of the jobs were what I was looking for. I felt that if I pursue these jobs, I was just changing my environment, without accomplishing my goal.

At the beginning of April I decided that the job route is a dead end, and I should seriously plan for going back to school. I started studying for the GRE, I took the exam in the middle of June, to my surprise, lol, I did well, and by the end of June I had applied to the school I wanted to attend. I applied for the fall of 2011, because there was no choice of fall of 2010, but in my statement of purpose I wrote that I was willing to start earlier. When I got called for an interview with the admission committee again that subject was brought up, and again I said that I wouldn't mind starting this year. It turned out that a few of the students who had said in April that they were going to attend the school there, decided otherwise, and so the space had opened up for the few of us that were still in the waiting list, and I was informed in late July that I was accepted to start fall of 2010.

So the month of August, I was in a panic mode of reducing my expenses, and see if I can hold to my job part time. There was no time to think about renting my place, even though I suppose that falls under the reducing my expenses category!

So here I was, at the beginning of October, wanting to rent my place for the January of 2011, and I was not ready. I was also thinking nobody was going to rent in the middle of the winter. But then I got a call from a friend, telling me that she had heard through the grapevine that I was renting my place, and was asking how much the rent was since someone she knew was looking for a place to rent. Suddenly I realized that I have to get ready!

I contacted the realtor that sold me the house and asked for the rent range in my area. I also searched a few databases and found couple of properties in my area for rent, and so got some idea. The realtor also told me about the forms I needed to have my tent sign and where I could get them. I had not even thought about that!

Then it was time to get the home ready. I started from the smelly basement. Yes, the same basement that I was going to leave in! I went through everything that I had stored there, some I was able to sell with the help of my friend and her coworker's sister! She had a store on eBay and apparently has a good reputation, meaning paying customers, so she posted my stuff in her store, and they got sold right away! I was amazed. The rest of my stuff in the basement, I either donated, or recycled, and the rest I just throw out.

When the basement was empty I started the cleaning phase. I scrubbed and then scrubbed some more, the floor, and half of the walls. I was told that the smell could be mildew, even though when I was washing I didn't see much, but I hoped that was the cause, and I was cleaning it and removing it for good. The week that I was washing the basement was warm enough that I was able to leave the windows open. Also I love buying scented candles that I don't use much. But I decided to start using them, lol. The washing, opening windows, and scented candles I guess did their job; I don't think my basement is smelly anymore!

Next I had to have a door build at the top of the stairs to the basement to make the basement separate from the rest of the house. I called my parents' contractor, and he completely took over, and did a great job with a reasonable price. He had to build a wall on the left side of the stairs and I thought it was going to be ugly and out of place, but now I feel that no one can tell that it was just built.

Two weeks ago my sisters and two best friends and their families came over to paint. We painted the basement area and the level where the door was built. And tomorrow my two brother-in-laws are helping me move the stuff that I want to the basement and store the rest in the car garage that I am not renting. I have been packing my stuff little by little since October, so tomorrow we only need to pack the big furniture. Also since I packed slowly, I have taken inventory, in the form of Excel worksheet, lol, so I know exactly where everything is.

The best news is that I found a great tenant. Through another friend I was introduced to a young couple that moved to US for the husband to start training and for the wife to attempt to go to school. She is actually a US citizen; well actually she has double citizenship. She and her siblings were born here when her parents were going to school. After the parents completed their studying they returned home and since then they have been spending their summers here. It must be so much fun being able to call two countries home! How I would have loved to have two counties of citizenship too, lol.

Anyhow I met them this week, liked them a lot, they liked my place too, and yesterday they signed the agreement. I like it very much that they are going to be students and have no kids so far.

So yes, I was worried that I would not be able to rent my place by January 1, and now it is rented a month early. The burden of money has been lifted big time. I am much relived, even though I don't think I have done that poorly financially so far, but renting my place is going to make a huge difference in my mental well being, lol.

Selling my stuff helped some too, and lately I was not as strict as I was back in September. The girl who sold my stuff for me on her eBay store took only 10% for herself. I am told by my sisters that the consignment shops take as much as 50% for themselves and give sellers so much grief. So I am very glad that I was lucky this way, and grateful for just an amazing old and new friends.

Hopefully I shall be lucky in finding a part-time job and soon. The few former coworkers that I have contacted all told me that they shall get back to me with good news. If I can earn some money, especially during the break, I would be so happy.

So this was the long story of renting my place, I am going in the right direction financially, so that I am not going to be homeless by the time I finish school.

So much to say ...

I didn't mean to abandon this place. My goal was to post here, my triumph and tribulation at school, when it happened, not even few days later. But I haven't been to my parents for any extended period of time lately to be able to write a post. I still don't have internet at home, and at school I only do school work, lol, no playing around. Anyhow, in some aspects a lot has happened, in others not a whole lot.

I mentioned that through a Ph.D. student I found out that there is a professor who belongs to both the department of my undergraduate and my current department. I wanted so much to research with someone who would allow me take advantage of my industry experience along with my current discipline. So I was very excited at the possibilities of working with this professor.

I made an appointment with him in mid October and went to see him. It was a good meeting. The professor was full of great project ideas that I would LOVE to work on. However, his personality needed a bit of getting used to! First of all he was jumping from one topic to another, and I was lost at times. Plus he was dispensing public service announcement, lol, in the middle of project conversation. For example, he said several times that he does not have much time to allocate to me, I have to work independently, and that there is no money!

I had mentioned to him that I have almost 20 years of work experience, so I don't know if he was saying that I needed to work independently remembering the fact that I just did not come from an undergraduate degree to graduate school or not! But even some undergraduate students are very much independent and quick and there is no need for repetition! I supervised many summer interns and they only needed my attention the first two weeks, seriously, once I put them in the right path they run with their projects and very successfully completed it before going back to school. So the professor repeating several times, in the middle of a project discussion, that he just does not have time to spend with me, guiding me, was very annoying.

The fact that the professor thought I was there to be hired surprised me the most, lol. I actually had not considered that at all! I rather work for one of my former bosses/colleagues, earn much more per hour than any job at school, lol, doing the job that I had done for many years, the job that I could probably do in my sleep, lol, without much effort, instead of working for the professor at school. I seriously don't want to be employed at school, since I want to easily say which project I like to spend my time on, and which one I like to pass on! I don't think if I get paid I would have the luxury of being in charge of how I want to spend my time. Plus I have already emailed several of my former colleagues/bosses for a possibility of contract job between the two semesters and beyond, I am pretty certain that someone would come through for me and I shall find some kind of employment.

Anyhow, I left that meeting hoping that something positive was going to come out of it, but about a month later, still nothing! I have emailed the professor couple of times, and both times he had responded and quickly, telling me that he shall get back to me to setup another meeting and get going, but still noting.

I also mentioned that for one of my classes I had to write two papers. One was done at the end of October, I got it back, and I did excellent according to my professor, padding myself on the back, lol. The other is due in couple of weeks, I am half way through it, and I feel good about it. This was actually the course that I enjoyed very much and I feel I am learning a lot. So I talked to the professor to see if I can define an independent study with him for next semester and he said of course. He asked me to find a more advanced textbook to follow, but the two that I have found and suggested to him turn out to be at the level of text we are following now. So I am still looking! But I am going to talk to him next week and propose another approach. Instead of finding one advance text book, I thought maybe I could define 6 topics I like to study, pretty much like the two I picked this semester and wrote papers on, then for each topic find a specialized text/paper to be my guide.  Hopefully, he would accept this approach. I already know two of the six topics I like to concentrate on, so maybe I should find the book for each of these two before going to talk to him.

The course offering for the next semester is out, and I am certain about only one class I like to take. The second class hopefully shall be the independent study I just mentioned, and I am trying to decide if I want to go for the third class or not. As I have mentioned in several posts, I was so mad for kindof sortof being forced to/talked into dropping the third course I had taken this semester, and I was so glad that I continue attending the class and doing the work, since I learned quite a bit. Anyhow, I have to decide what I want to do next semester; should I take a third course, or should I go with two courses per semester? I have to do a bit more research on the class offerings. I guess if a course sounded like I would learn on topics that I like to learn, it is a no brainer, and I shall go for it, but if not, I guess I should be content with taking two classes for next semester as well.

At the beginning of this semester I wanted to finish school and go back to work as soon as I could, for one because of financial situation, for another because I felt so out of place at school. Well my financial situation is a bit better now. I shall write about it later. But there are still many days when I feel so out of place at school and ask myself was is worth it coming back to school. Most of the times I answer myself yes, it is so worth it, since I am learning a lot. I tell myself that I am going to be done with school before I know it, and my career shall benefit from this until I retire. But there have been some occasions when I feel that I don't want to connect much with my classmates and I feel lonely. I guess saying hi and occasional conversations are OK, but I don't want to become friends with them. I don't know why? It is not that I don't want to make new friends, because I really do, but I feel that I am on a different wavelength, lol, than some of my classmates. I don't think it is the age thing, since when I was working I never had any problem becoming friends with my coworker, who were younger or older than me, by as much as a decade, maybe even more. But at school, some of the students are in the same age group as my former colleagues and I don't want to befriend them and sometimes that bothers me. It is still a mystery to me why I have suddenly become antisocial at school and I don't have any explanation for it! So I still like to finish school and go back to work as soon as possible.

Anyhow, in my other class I had a midterm couple of weeks ago and I did not do as well as I wanted to. I have a final coming up in a few weeks, so I am hoping to study harder for it and do much better.

And back to financial situation, yes, I rented my place! The tenant signed the papers yesterday and they are moving in on Thursday. I am moving to my basement. That is another long post that I shall write later.

I am just so glad to be back here again.

In case you are wondering ...

why I quit my job to go to school fulltime, instead of having a fulltime job, take one class per semester, and also let the company pay for it! Here are my reasons in no particular order:

1. My school's classes are during the day. The school is about half an hour driving from work. The parking is not that easy around school. So to make sure I could find a parking space and make it to class on time, I had to leave work at least 45 minutes before my classes. So I estimated overall, I could have been away from work, in the middle of a day, almost four hours, two days a week! My boss would have never gone for that. My previous to last boss would have, I think, but not my last boss!
2. It is stated on the department's website that most of the graduate students there are fulltime and that it is encouraged that students attend fulltime! When I read that my impression was that they did not want to say part-time students do not have much chance of getting in and finishing successfully! Just my impression, I could be wrong! Anyhow, I reasoned that most probably the professors' expectations are based on the fact that the main responsibility of students is their course work, and so the assignments, the exams, and basically the work expected, shall be based on that assumption. I thought if I wanted to do well in my classes, I needed to allocate enough time for school. Again, my boss was not very good at scheduling and staying true to his scheduled task; he reprioritized on a whim, and expected everyone to adjust accordingly! I knew myself that work always came first. I thought if something unexpected came up at work, I would put school second, and thus my school work would suffer; I did not want that.
3. In the past few years I had seen coworkers and friends taking classes while working fulltime and being miserable! They had mentioned on numerous occasions that they are not getting as much as they want out their classes. That they are not paying as much attention as it was required of them to their classes. That they are just getting by, and hoping for a B. My goal to go to school was learning. I wanted to take on the projects that needed new knowledge, the knowledge that I was not able to acquire on my own. So I needed to go to school and be taught. I wanted to take advantage of being taught. Just passing the courses was not acceptable to me.
4. Going to school part-time would have taken me at least three years to complete my degree. Three years that I had to put up with my then current boss. He was a micromanager, and for someone who was not micromanaged, not even during her first years after college, was not an easy thing to handle! Plus if he knew what he was doing, I would have respected it, but he did not! He made mistakes left and right, and instead of trying to fix them and move on, he would point fingers at anyone that the pointing would have sticked! The only reason he became a boss and not a more qualified person, with many more years of experience in our industry, was that he was hired there first, and the more qualified people where brought in during the merger. So I suppose it was like the difference between one's biological child and one's adopted child to people that distinguish them apart! I thought since he was not very kin in me going to school, I could become an easy target to point at if he needed to point at someone! And probably I had to fix the problem, and fast, and of course again school would have suffered while I was paying extra attention to work.

I could have handled being a fulltime student and work part-time. I actually preferred that arrangement. But my boss did not go for it. I believe my previous to last boss would have! So it all came down to my last boss did not support me being both an employee and a student!

I am starting to feel that I belong!

When I first started school, I had this pre-conceived notion that I didn't belong, since I was older than everyone else! I guess I felt embarrassed to a large extend for going to school this late in life.  My former colleagues, who had attempted school after working for a while, and part-time of course, were in their early 30s when they had first started school, and by the time they were about my current age, they were all done. Also the negative comments I heard from some of my colleagues when I quit my job, could have attributed to making me even more conscious that maybe it was too late for me to go back to school after all. In any case when I first started school, I felt very strongly, that I could never belong there, and I thought I better finish up as soon as I can and leave.

There was a department welcome party the first Friday after the school started. I forced myself to go. I am not a joiner! I don't do well in a social gathering if I don't go with someone that I have known for a long time! I suppose I never learned that social skill! I don't have any difficulty going to a conference or a training, by my lonesome! I can easily introduce myself to the person sitting next to me, and usually by the end of the day, we have exchanged cards, and would stay in touch by email! I don't have any problem entering the meeting room full of strangers, and introducing myself, or standing up to introduce myself to the new person when he/she walks in, but social meetings is another story all together!

It could be that I never had to be a joiner as I was growing up! Yeah, let me blame it on that! lol. I met my three best friends, for life, in kindergarten! Seriously! And we were inseparable all through school. We never went anywhere without each other. Yes, there were times when one was mad at another, but the other two usually fixed that situation, and we were back to our usual inseparable selves soon. In high school we even made a pact to attempt to attend the same college together! So when the time came to apply to schools, we all applied to the same schools. Thankfully, we got accepted to most of the schools we applied to, and had choices. One of my best friends and I ended up attending the same college, and our other two best friends went to another school together, only three-hour drive away from us. So even in college we were together, we majored in different disciplines, but we still hangout and studied together. We even requested, and were granted, to be roommates! My best friend and I got two other roommates and become good friends with them, but the bound between the four of us that were made back in the kindergarten, comes nowhere close to any friendship we have made later in life. I am still very close to all three, even thought one currently, because of her husband's work, lives on the other side of the world.

You know, my social skills are pretty much useless! It is really embarrassing to admit this, but I am almost 40 years old, and I was never a purser in a relationship! There have been guys that I liked a lot, but since I did not pursue them, nothing ever came out of it! That is how pathetic I feel my social skills are! Almost all my boyfriends were introduced to me and they all showed interest in me first, before I got the nerve to show them how much I liked them too! My ex-husband and I started our first job, on the same day, and a bound was formed then! I am sure that if one of us had started a week earlier, or a week later, we would have never gotten together, even though the company was small, there were only 40+ of us at the beginning, but he was very outgoing and I was not, so somehow I believe that we would have stayed just good colleagues!

Anyhow, as pathetic as I feel to admit this, I don't know any women in real life that can say, they never asked a man out, in this day and age! Even my mom asked my dad out! Seriously. My dad had some business in the place that my mom used to work. It was close to lunch time and not many were at their desks. My dad had been waiting for someone to answer his questions and help him out for a while, and he was getting very impatient! My mom saw that my dad was getting frustrated, went up to him, told him that there were many good restaurants in the area, asked him if he wanted to go grab something to eat, told him hopefully by the time they get back everyone had gotten back from lunch too, and would be able to take care of his requests promptly! So that was their first date, sort of. lol! My mom says that she only asked my dad out to lunch, just because he was so damn good looking, lol! And that was back in the mid 60s! 

Wow, what a tangent I went on! What was I saying? Yes, so I went to the department's beginning of the school year party early to feel comfortable before the majority of the students and professors were to arrive. I started talking to the few students that were there, but I never felt comfortable with anyone. Well, almost everyone I talked to were foreigners who had just come to the states, and I guess they were very conscious of their English, so they did not talk much, other than saying yes, or no. I talked to the organizers a bit, but they were still running around getting ready. So I was not able to make a connection and feel comfortable. Of course, there was my state of mind, I had just dropped one of my classes and I was very mad that I had to stay in school longer. Anyhow, more students started to arrive and I was still standing at the corner by myself. I couldn't even take one step to maybe join the group standing not too far from me, and no one made an effort to come talk to me either, so when I couldn't take it anymore, I left feeling even more out of place as when I got there!

So the first 5 weeks of the semester, I have gone to my classes without talking much to anyone. After my classes I promptly left for the library and have spend most of my days at the library, sort of isolated. My only contact had been that one time homework partner that did not end up pretty! I even communicated with my professors through email mostly. Then something wonderful happened Wednesday night!

I have been looking carefully at the personal pages of the professors in the department, checking their publications to see whose research interest comes close to the area I like to pursue. I have even pulled out a few publications and attempted to read them, but of course I haven't gotten too far! This past week, as I was looking at the menu bar to click on the faculty link, suddenly I noticed that under the faculty link there was the link to the visiting faculty page, and that under that, there were links to the staff and post-docs pages, and under them, the link to the graduate students page! I don't remember ever seeing these links before, but I am sure they were there all along! Funny thing is that I have been to that page, looking at that menu bar, at least 3 times that I can remember! lol.

So I clicked on the link to go to the graduate student's page, and to my surprise, I saw that I was listed there, with my picture; it was the ugly picture of my id! I noticed some of the other pictures were not id pictures, so hopefully I can have my picture changed too and soon! Anyhow, I clicked on my picture and it took me to my page! On my personal page, there was my info, including the undergrad school I attended, my undergraduate major, and the year I graduated. Also listed was my campus email, a room number and a phone number! I was about to panic, thinking they had published my cell number, when I saw that the phone number was not familiar! I had no idea what the room and phone number listed there were all about! So I made a mental note of the room number to check out later.

On Thursdays I have a class in the building that "my room" is supposedly located in, two floors above the floor of my class. So before going to class I made a detour to that floor, found the room, and beside it, to my surprise, I read the sign, "Graduate Student Lounge"! I had no idea that we had our own lounge! That is how isolated I had made myself!

Anyhow, I went in, it is a big room, with 7 computers, 2 laser printers, a copy machine, a couple of couches, a few tables and chairs around them, a refrigerator, a coffee machine, and two microwaves! Three students were behind the computers. One of them, when he saw me standing there, said hi and asked if he could help me! I introduced myself, and continued that I had no idea about this room! He looked at me with surprise, and asked if I was from that department, and so I said yes. Then he asked, didn't I attend the beginning of the year party? I said I did, but I had to leave early! He said it was announced there that this room was for the first year students, and that the second year students and beyond have their own offices, shared of course, 3 to 4 student to an office.

As I was about to leave, he asked me if I knew about the Friday pizza! I said no! He said that the department orders pizza on Fridays and it gets here between 11:30 and 11:45! He told me that I should come! He also told me to check my mailbox! Mailbox? I asked very surprised and said that was so 90s! lol. So, yes, we have a mailbox in the department office, which I have never been to, and we get notices, on paper, put in our boxes! I have no idea why! That is what email is for, right?

Anyhow, I went to my class and afterword I promptly returned to "my office"! Library has gotten very busy lately, especially in the early afternoons, between 1 and 5; some are very inconsiderate of the others and talk very loudly. It is very distracting. So I have been annoyed there lately. In my office, lol, it was very quiet and nice. When someone comes in, they say hi, socialize a bit, and then go to work on one of the computers, or sit to do their work. It had been a very pleasant few days. I have made a few acquaintances; we have discussed professors, our classes, our plans and so forth.

Another pleasant event happened Friday afternoon! As I was talking to one of the students telling her about my background, that my BS is from another department, and telling her that I am hoping that one of the professors would be willing to supervise me on a project that would hopefully be between our current department and my previous one, she said that I should to talk to Prof. T! Checking professors' backgrounds, I had not gotten that far down yet! Apparently this professor has completed his education in our department, but somehow his research has taken him to my undergrad department, and now he is part of both departments. I promptly checked his personal page to study his publications. Now I am very excited to go talk to him, and am very hopeful and excited at the possibilities of researching with him.

Yes, I have started to feel that I do belong at school and I shall be very successful too!

Beating the odds.

What an amazing feeling the Chilean miners must be experiencing tonight? What a sense of relief their families and friends are undergoing tonight? How satisfied their rescuers sentiments are tonight? Everyone who did not give up on the Chilean miners, who did not believe in the statistics, who kept going and had faith on the outcome, must be padding themselves on the back, for a amazing job done. CONGRATULATIONS. WAY TO GO.

Unfortunately I can't count myself among the hopefuls! I did hear the news about the miner accident back in the early August, and I did follow the story, hoping that it would have a happy ending, but around the 10th day I think, I gave up! I gave up looking for, and expecting to hear, any good news from them. I accepted the statistics that stated there could no way be any survives after all this time! However, they survived. They survived 7 times that length of time and beat the odds. CONGRATULATIONS. WAY TO GO.

I couldn't sleep last night, even though I was very tried; I had the TV on all through the night (good thing my parents are on vacation, lol), slept on the sofa, and saw the rescue in progress. I kept falling asleep, but every time I woke up and saw a larger number, I was overjoyed. The commentators kept repeating that they are worried that the miners might get dizzy while in the capsule and faint. They might get claustrophobia during the ride up. They might get nauseous and vomit, and since there was not enough room in the capsule to bend, the vomit might block their airwaves. They speculated that as soon as the minors breath the fresh air, their lung might collapse. More speculation followed that the minors might have lost muscle, and might not be able to stand on their feet. It was said that their kidneys were destroyed for sure, since they did not drink much liquid in the first 17 days of being trapped.

But one by one they came up, full of good spirit, even if they were in pain, even if they were uncomfortable, they did not show it. They are all out now and they have set precedence for the future disasters to happen NOT anytime soon. Their survivals are going to push the statistics in favor of positive thinking, happy ending, and beating the odds. CONGRATULATIONS. WAY TO GO.

I so want to beat the odds myself. I want to pass my courses one by one successfully, learn as much as I can, finish school triumphantly, find a job quickly, a satisfying-challenging-exciting job, and in the process I am hoping that I don't lose my house, and don't empty my savings account completely.

Right Decision!

There have been many occasions, in the past few weeks, when I questioned my decision of quitting a semi-secured job, and embarking on a journey into an unknown future. I just came across the following story, and I thought I should compile stories like this here, so that when I feel conflicted, I can come here, read them again, and realize for the millionth time that I made the right decision.

Bob Brown, 49, of Dayton, Ohio, has felt the demand for broader skills firsthand. After working for 30 years in manufacturing, including 20 as a plant supervisor, Brown was laid off in July 2009.

He spent a year looking for a new job. His efforts yielded only three calls from employers in the first four months.

But once things began to pick up, Brown noticed something else: The plant management jobs he used to have, and that he was aiming for again, all required certifications in productivity-boosting management practices.

So Brown paid for courses at a community college to learn a management strategy known as "six sigma." It's an approach to cutting waste and raising efficiency popularized by General Electric. The courses allowed him to obtain his certification. In August, he was hired by an electrical product assembly plant near Williamsport, Penn.

"That's the way the industry's going," Brown said. "Everybody wanted certifications."

Source:  http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Unemployed-find-old-jobs-now-apf-3115608895.html?x=0&.v=7

I think I have been proactive; before getting to the point that my skills would have become outdated, I am updating them. I think in a few years, hopefully I am going to look back at this year, and say it with confidence, that I made the right and smart decision. I hope so!

I am staying at school until I reach my goal!

Weight loss goal that is! lol.

I saw my two best friends after about a month, couple of weeks ago, and they told me that they can see that I have lost major weight! We are very intone with each other and since they both told me, and separately, I knew that it must be true. I don't own a scale, for one I was driving myself insane by weighing several times a day while at home, and for another it became a motivation for me to go to gym on the weekends to weigh, so I throw my scale out when it broke and never replaced it.

For some reason there was no drama to go to gym after work on the week days, but I just didn't want to leave home on the weekends. After I became scale less the temptation of wanting to know if I had lost weight that week was enough to get me out of the door, without any drama, to the gym, first thing in the morning, on a weekend, to weigh myself.

Anyhow, when my best friends told me that they think I had lost weight, it was Sunday and I was staying at my parents that night. So promptly the next morning I weight myself on my mom's scale and was surprised beyond belief with the number I was seeing! I truly had lost a lot of weight! Of course right away my mom told me that her scale was not very accurate and there was a few pound difference between hers and the one at her doctor's office; hers give a couple of pounds lighter number. So I was very tempted to just go to my old gym one early morning and weigh myself! lol.

Thankfully, last week I got an email from them inviting me to go back, and they sent me a courtesy pass to be used in the month of October, for three consecutive days. I took advantage of that this weekend and made it to gym from Saturday to today. I do miss my gym, but I don't miss their membership fee. Anyhow, when I weigh myself first thing Saturday morning, I saw that I had lost 6.5 pounds since August 31. I am very pleased with this loss and very hopeful that I might be able to get back to my comfortable weight.

Something happened after I turned 30; I started gaining weight annually, at the rate of 5-7 pounds. I was never an athletic person, yes, I run, biked, swim, played volleyball and tennis, but only occasionally, and for recreation only, not as a sport, or to keep fit. And I was able to comfortably keep my weight at 107 pounds, plus and minus 2. I am 5"4' and small boned, so that was a very good number for me.

Anyhow, today was my last day at the gym and I am up about 2 pounds since Saturday. I am not sure if it is because of multiple exercise days and I have retained some water, or it is because I have been raiding my parents' fridge, while house sitting for them. My parents are on vacation, my mom did her weekly grocery shopping before they left, and she told me not to let anything go bad! lol. Needless to say, I have been eating a lot!

I have been thinking if I continue my new eating routine until the end of the spring semester, I might hopefully be able to lose all my weight gains since I turned 30! What I have been doing differently since I became a student is that I gave up 2-3 times a day coffee, or coffee drinks with cream and splenda, instead I have been drinking water. I don't eat out anymore, I used to, at least twice a week. Now since I am spending most of my day at the library, I have been living on 2-3 Atkins bar during the day. I eat one with my morning coffee, and take 3 with me to school, but I try to eat only 2. At night, I am so tired that I don't feel like eating, but since I have readymade food, I try to eat it. I have been cooking every couple of weeks. When I cook I make a few dishes and then I divide them into servings before freezing them. Every morning I put what I want to eat in the fridge and it is almost unfrozen by the time I get home at night.

Anyhow, I am very excited at this consequence of being a student!

1988-2008

I love listening to audio books, makes my commute on public transportation bearable; dare I say pleasant! I so miss my car! Anyhow, the one luxury I did not give up when I became a student, is my membership to audible.com. I know it was the right decision.

My current listen is One Day by David Nicholls. It is the story of Emma and Dexter from the year they graduated from college in 1988, and follows them for twenty years. The book is written in 20 chapters and each chapter tells the story of the same day, July 15, of each year. As I have been listening to the story, I have been trying to remember what I was doing that particular year.

July 4th is my favorite holiday, how could it not be? I mean there is  music and fireworks, and great weather, well most of the years any way, the days are long, and warm, and the sun shines, well most of the years any way, there is BBQ and ice cream, and there is Frisbee and volleyball and the beach!  What other holiday has all these combined, you tell me? So I thought since I remember where I was and what I was doing at July 4th, most of the years any way, why not try to remember what was occupying my mind that particular July 4th, and here is what I have come up with!

July 4th 1988: excited and happy that in September I shall be a senior in high school

July 4th 1989: excited and happy that in September I shall be a freshman in college

July 4th 1990: working with my dad for the summer, very interesting to see another side of my dad, at the office persona

July 4th 1991: in a serious relationship, my very first real relationship, introduced my boyfriend to my parents today, and they liked him a lot

July 4th 1992: going to have my own apartment in August, with 3 roommates and my parents are paying portion of the rent, but my very first apartment nonetheless

July 4th 1993: a college graduate, with a great new job and a possible new romance

July 4th 1994: I think I found the man I want to marry and grow old with, had been dating for a few months

July 4th 1995: thinking of moving in with my boyfriend of over one year

July 4th 1996: newlywed, while on vacation celebrating our two year anniversary of being together, in a whim he proposed, I accepted, and so unlike me, we got married the next day

July 4th 1997: quarter of century old and couldn't be happier

July 4th 1998: very happy, started a new job with lots of challenging and exciting projects in the horizon

July 4th 1999: 10 year high school reunion coming up, I love my life

July 4th 2000: I want to buy a home, but we are spending everything we earn and then some, we have to start saving somehow

July 4th 2001: working too much, tired all the time

July 4th 2002: divorced, everyone is trying to set me up with someone they know who is unattached

July 4th 2003: didn't go to my 10 year college reunion, not a very pleasant person at the moment

July 4th 2004: finally paid off all my credit cards, I am debt free for the first time in a very long time

July 4th 2005: I want to buy a home, seen my dream house, but haven't had the nerve to make an offer, talked to my dad about it

July 4th 2006: now that I am a homeowner, I want to have a family, I want to get married again, and have kids before I am too old

July 4th 2007: have updated my resume and looking for a new job, our company is being sold, and there is no guarantee that everyone is going to be retained by the new company

July 4th 2008: everyone was retained by the company that bought us, but I don't like my new projects and I don't see much advancement in my future at this place

I have to add that this past July, I was thinking the same thing I was thinking back in 2006 and the latter part in 2008. This was of course after I had applied, but prior to being accepted to school.

Blackjack!

Let me give you a hypothetical!

Imagine that you are moving to a new state and that you don't know anyone there. A good-considerate-friend offers to introduce you to someone he knows from while back. You are grateful. You move to the new town and are lonely, so one day you call your friend's friend to see if you could get together. You find your friend's friend a bit unfriendly! She tells you that she has plans that afternoon, but you could tagalong if you want to. You graciously accept and tagalong.

She goes to a casino in the neighboring state! Let's assume that you have never heard of the casino! lol! Well I said it was hypothetical! So bare with me a bit! lol. Let's say that the card game had been popular a while back, but it went out of style very soon. Now there are new video games, and hardly anyone plays with actual cards! So you enter the casino, and sit at a table to play a game. Your new-not-so-friendly-buddy starts to play. You see that she is good at it. The game seems very exciting to you. Let's say it is blackjack, and so you ask your "buddy" what are the rules. She tells you to watch her, and challenges you to figure it on your own! So you watch the game for a little while, and you see that whenever someone gets both an Ace and a Jack that person is very happy and excited and some money is transferred to his/her hands. You promptly convey your new found knowledge to your afternoon-buddy. She is surprised that you figure it out so soon, but tells you good, that was the easy part, now see if you can figure out the rest. You are very excited and continue to watch the game. However, very soon, she gets up, leaves the table, and exits the casino. But the bug of the game has gone into your head and you want the opportunity to learn and play that game.

A few days later you contact your casino-buddy hopeful to see if you can accompany her to the casino again soon. She is not friendly, and informs you that she is not going there any time soon! You ask the name of the game and she tells you the general name of "the card game"! You try to remember where the casino was, but it was in the neighboring state, and you are not familiar with the area. You get some books on card games to see if you can find the game you watched played in the casino, but to no avail. You call your friend from the old state and ask him if he could find either more information about the card game, or put a good word for you so his acquaintance would take you to the casino again. But nothing pans out! So you give up and move on, even though that game is still in the back of your mind.

One day, by chance, you see an ad for a nearby club's open house. You consider checking it out thinking maybe it would be a good place to meet new friends. You go there and as you are walking by, you see some people playing cards in the next rooms! You get closer and to your surprise, you realize that it is the same game you have been trying to find more information about for the past couple of weeks. Casually you ask what the name of the game is, and you are told. Next you ask what the rules are, and in couple of sentences you are told promptly. You watch the game some more, and you can see and understand it clearly. You are amazed at how easy it was to be told/figure out the rules of the game and yet you were never told nor could figure it out on your own before that day!

OK, enough of hypothetical! If you think this situation could not happen in real life, think again, since apprently I have been in a similar suitation! lol.

I was working at a small startup company, when the higher-ups were approached for a possible merger! They accepted and the huge-older company bought us! At first there were some concern that some of us were being let go. Never happened! All of us were retained by the huge-old company. Next we thought the exciting projects that we were working on, and were responsible for, were going to be taken away from us after the merger. Never happened! We all continued to be responsible for our projects from the small-young company. Some of us also were concern that our group was going to be broken down, and each of us were being send to a different department, with new bosses. Never happened! We were all kept together with our boss from the small-young company. Of course the boss left a year later for a better opportunity, and we got another boss, but that is another story. Anyhow, all the horror stories that I had heard about the merger and acquisition thankfully never happened to us, and we all only have great things to say about the huge-old company.

The higher-ups from both small-new company and huge-old company tried to make our merger as seamless as possible. So that there would be no "us" vs. "them" thing, once everyone was situated in the same building, they assigned the people from the small-new company minor responsibilities to the ongoing projects of the huge-old company, and vice versa. I am so grateful that they did that. For one I was assigned to a project that I don't think I would have ever considered being part of. It was an old technology. But it was an old technology that new technology could be built on it.

The person in charge of the project I was assigned to was an older person, who was not very forthcoming with her knowledge. She told me as little as she could and before I knew it the project was finished. But I was hooked, and I tried to continue collaborating with her on her future projects, but she wouldn't have it. When my yearly review came up I asked that I'll be given minor responsibilities on those kinds of projects, but when my boss tried to arrange that she protested strongly and so it never happened. I never wanted to take her projects away from her. I just wanted to learn new things; new to me. I didn't want to be doing the same old things, old to me, over and over again. So I bought some general books on the subject, and tried to learn the technology on my own, but I never got anywhere! I applied for jobs that would require knowledge of that old technology, and tried to interest hiring managers to give me opportunity to become expert in that area as we go, while being productive in the area of my expertise, but hiring managers never went for it!

Anyhow, in that process I also learned that I never want to become like my older colleague once I got to her age; to be good at one thing, and only one thing, and be afraid everyday, that a younger coworker is going to learn my skill, and take my job away. I learned that I want to learn new skills as they are discovered, and I want to be a good mentor to my younger colleagues, to teach them all they want to learn from me, since there is always something new for me to learn, and I am sure, at some later point, they want to learn that too, so I would teach them while learning something even newer! That is why I am back at school after all this time.

So now I am at school, and I have mentioned before that prior to the beginning of the semester I had taken three classes. But when school started my academic advisor, "advised" me to drop one of my classes, which I did, and I am regretting it every day, but that is another story! Anyhow, at least I continued to attend the class I dropped. The first couple of weeks I just went to class, but once I got comfortable with my other two classes that I am taking for credit, I decided to keep up with the reading and homework of the dropped class, and to get myself into shape of being ready for the next semester, when I am considering maybe taking four classes! lol.

Anyhow, something interesting happened this week in that class! In less than 4 hours I was thought everything I always wanted/needed to know to work on the kind of projects I worked with my not-so-friendly-coworker. Seriously, it only took 4 hours and lots of my questions were answered! Now, do I want to work in that small area exclusively? Of course not, that is just part of much larger area that I am trying to learn, and become expert in, so that I would be able to work on those types of projects once finished with school.

So at the end, maybe I am grateful for my uncooperative-ex-coworker not being forthcoming. Maybe if she had let me work with her, I would have learned the little that she knew and would have stopped there. But she refusing to work with me, made me want to learn. Now I am learning the old stuff only to be able to build on top of it the knowledge of the new technology. I want to learn the new materials to get the kind of jobs that I want to get and to be able to comfortably be employed for a few more decades to come!

Incompatible study partners!

For one of my classes, we were given our third homework assignment yesterday! I think this assignment is more challenging and compared to the last two assignments this one is longer, but with shorter due date.

As we were walking out of the class, the girl who sits next to me asked, if I had a study partner! As I was saying no, I felt that I didn't like where this was going! She then asked, if I wanted to get together with her to work on the homework? I so wanted to say no, but I felt that it would be rude, and so I said sure! I really wanted to tell her that I have been taking my time doing my other assignments, and that I am slow and I might waste her time! But then I thought I should convince myself to give a study partner thing a try at least once, maybe she too takes her time, and we could learn from each other. I thought it could be just like a group project at work. I thought working on the same project with my coworkers were fun at times. Anyhow, I was not completely sold on the idea of partnership, but we decided on the time and the place and said goodbye.

We were to meet at 10 am this morning in a coffee place nearby. I went to the library at 8 am, as my per usual. Studied my notes and started to work on the first problem. Before I knew it, it was 5 minutes to 10. So I hurried out and run to get here on time, all the while thinking I am going to damage my computer if I don't slow down! I arrived right at 10 sharp, got an expensive, not particularly wanted cup of coffee, found a table in the corner, sit, and continued my work on the first problem. 20 minutes later my homework partner showed up! No apologies for being late!

I started telling her that I had been working on problem 1 and I think I got it. As I tried to explain to her, she cut me off to complain that the lectures/materials are getting more and more abstract and that she has a hard time following them. I did not agree with her, so I just listened, thinking that true that we were talking more on the abstract side, but the professor throws in an applicability examples here and there, and is making it real enough I guess. And yes, the materials are not easy to follow, but then this is graduate school, plus learning new stuff is never easy, it requires spending time reading, studying, and doing lots of thinking, until you get it. As it was said in one of my favorite episodes of Mad Men few weeks ago: Don: You keep banging your head against the wall… then it happens. Peggy: and, then it's done. Don: Yes, Ma'am. Need I say more! lol.

Anyhow, I cut her complains, explained what the first problem is asking, as far as I understood, and then I explained how I have proceeded to answer the question. As I was explaining, she was making faces at me, while not making eye contact, kind of weird I thought!  I lost my train of thoughts a couple of times and had to pause to remember what I was saying! She probably thought that I had senior moments!

Anyhow, she said that she thought "we" were on the right track! I am not kidding she said we!  Anyhow she copied what I had written, and so we proceeded to problem 2, which by the way was related to problem 1, and since I had read my notes a bit, I had some idea what the question was asking. Again, my study partner started complaining that this stuff is too abstract, and why do we need it to be this abstract. I guess I have lucked out this time, since I am familiar with the application example that the professor mentioned yesterday in class, so maybe that is why it is easier for me to follow the materials. And so I started explaining to her the application, in details. She continued to make faces again and no eye contact as I was explaining; it was very distracting!

Anyhow, we discussed the problem some more, while she continued to complain here and there, and I think "we" finally got it. We wrote it down, well more like I wrote and she copied from me, and then she said that she had a lunch date. It was little after 11:30. She left promptly.

So we worked for about one hour, I am not sure if she understood anything or not, but she copied two of the problems!

I never thought that I was going to say this, but I think it is "being young" behavior! I was told to wait couple of years after my bachelor's degree before considering graduate school, to become mature for the graduate school, to understand what I want, and what I need to learn. OK, so I got my years and decades mixed up, and waited couple of decades to come back to school! But I think it is a great advice. I think I am mature for school now! I appreciate the learning process. I don't think my study partner appreciates where she is. She told me that she graduated in May. She said her main goal is to get a master's degree so she can find a job! I don't think she realizes that working requires knowledge, and that she has to acquire this knowledge here and now. I don't think she knows how grueling the hiring managers could be during the interview, they don't go easy on the candidates, and they want to make sure that they are getting people who know their stuff. I don't think she knows that degree doesn't guarantee getting a job! But I wasn't going to get into the dissuasions of this sort! Am I being too judgmental?

OK, enough of judging the poor young kid who likes to have fun! I so should trust my instinct and speak my mind next time! I didn't want to do my homework with a partner and I should have said so. I wasted couple of hours. I wasted money on a not so great coffee. I have to get out of here and go back to the library to continue my usual routine, but I just wanted to get this off my chest, right now!

Not that it matters!

But apparently I am not older than my professors! And the funny thing is that I have been going to class for over 2 weeks, I have been coming here and posting often, but up to just an hour ago, it never occurred to me to think if I actually am the oldest person in the class!

One of my professors announced last week that he is giving a talk about his research this week. He said that even though his talk has nothing to do with the course he is teaching us, but we are welcome to go to his talk. I decided to go; one never knows what an import thing she is going to learn in these talks!

So since I had internet connection and noting pressing to do, I decided to check out the professor's page to see if there is an abstract of his talk, or summary of his research, available on his site, so that I could familiarized myself with it before going to his talk. Once there I saw his bio, including the institution and the year of his graduation, and suddenly I realized he is about 12 years older than me. Well, assuming everyone is around 22, plus and minus 1 or 2 years, when they graduate from college. So if he was about 22, then he is about 12 years older than me!

Then I decided to checkout my other professors' pages and realized that they too are 8, and 11 years older than me! As it turns out actually my department is on the older side! It is a big department, but not many, or should I say any, junior faculties. I find that strange!

I am defining junior faculties to be in their early 30s. Assuming they got their PhDs when they were in their late 20s, and couple of years of post docs, I suppose then they could be an assistant professor as early as their early 30s. However the youngest faculty in our department is 36, again assuming he got his bachelor's when he was around 22! And actually he is the only one younger than me. The rest are older from 2 years to over 25 years!

Not that it matters, but I guess I am not yet the oldest one in the class! lol. Actually I think in one of my classes there is another student who might be older than me! I overheard her telling another student that she has been out of school for 20 years. Now if that is exact than she could be older than me. I too tell everyone one I have been out of school for almost 20 years, but to be exact, it is 17 years!

Anyhow, I guess when I wrote my first entry here my insecurity had gotten the best of me!

It only took two weeks ...

and I am all cutup on materials I needed to remember to be able to understand/follow comfortably the lectures from my current classes. And I have proof to backup my claim too! lol.

For one of my classes, our first homework assignment was on prerequisite materials.  It was due last Wednesday, we got it back Monday, and I got a perfect score. There was not even one little mistake in the 10 problems I solved. Just perfect assignment I handed in.

For my other class we had a quick quiz on Tuesday. Again it was going to be on the prerequisite materials. The professor said that it was good for him to know if he needed to emphasize an area more, if he saw no one has answered a particular question correctly, and also good for us to know which area we need to work on more. Well I got back the quiz yesterday and again a perfect score.

I am happy, relaxed, proud, and confident.

I am just kicking myself for not believing in myself more, for not trusting my capabilities that I can handle 3 classes, and dropped one of my classes as soon as my academic advisor told me to. Dropping that one class made a chaos in my emotions for a while!

You see, I am a planner. I don't make emotional or a spur of the moment decision. I think, plan, evaluate, and then execute. The thinking stage could be as long as a year before I get the nerve to plan it. But then when I plan, I evaluate all the things that could go wrong and I find solutions or backup plans for anything that might not go as planned. So when I get to the executing stage, maybe a couple of years later, I want everything to go as smoothly as planned. If it doesn't then I could fall apart, practically!

Anyhow, now that I am more relaxed, I have gone into the recovery stage; how can I fix the consequences of dropping this one class? One option is to continue my plan, take classes as scheduled, apply for jobs at the time I had planned, hopefully finding and accepting a fulltime job in the time frame that I have hoped for, and then take the class I dropped, either while I am in the searching stage or working stage.

Another option is to take 4 classes next semester, which I don't think would be practical! But a revision to this option could be to talk to my current professors and see if I can define a research/independent study type class to take under their supervision next semester. I could sort of define it, do some research work on it now, and during the Christmas break, so that my load would not be as heavy as 4 classes but still would be able to take 4 courses! I am going to think about this some more and then go talk to my professors in a week or two.

But for now, I am excited and happy and just asked my parents if they would come over to my place on Sunday for a cookout and they said yes. Hopefully my sisters and my best friends could come over too in such a short notice. But I wanted to celebrate my happiness this weekend. I might have tons to do next weekend that is why I don't want to plan it for then or later.

Anyhow, have a great weekend.

Researching term paper!

For one of my classes we have to write two review papers. I am not good at writing technical papers so I decided to jump on this quickly since it is going to be 50% of my grade.

I knew more or less the area I wanted to concentrate on, but because we had to select a paper and explain in details the methods used, the results and conclusions, and basically our understanding of the whole research, I decided to find the paper before telling the professor what area I shall be concentrating on.

I looked at my text to see if I can find any references but no luck! So I went to the library to search the databases of articles. I put in my search terms and there popped out 1000s references. I ordered them by the date and started reading the titles from the most recent ones. If I liked a title, then I read an abstract. And if the abstract sounded what I wanted to study I proceeded to download the article to read.

Unfortunately, I was never able to go pass the introduction. I could not follow the articles once it got technical! I could not understand, for example, where they got certain formula and how they manipulate it to get to the next one. Basically I could not understand a thing!

Discouraged, after wasting almost two full days, I proceeded to search the web, hoping to find some else's work, in a similar class, in the area that I like to study. After couple of hours of not getting anywhere I saw a reference to a book chapter and went to Google books preview and started reading. Before I knew it, I had read about 15 pages and Google told me that I had reached my preview quota! Panicked I check the sidebar, find in a library, to see if the book was available in any of the local libraries, and to my delight I found that my library, the one that I was currently in, had it, and even more delightful, it was available! So I run upstairs, quickly located the book, and started reading. Read a few chapters and I knew I was on the right track.

This past weekend, I mostly studied the three chapters that are related to what I want to do, from this precious book that I luckily located!

I am amazed why I was stupid enough to think that I could understand the articles that have been written by and for the people who have been studying the field for a while. I should have searched other similar textbooks of the class and try to find something written for novices to the field. Anyhow, I am grateful that I found my reference after two days of searching!

So since the weekend I have located a handful of articles that I might be able to understand and write about. Yesterday I sent an email to my professor to tell him of my area of interest and I also send him the list of my references. He wrote back today and told me that if I had given him just the area of my interest he would have discouraged me of pursuing it, reasoning that it might be advanced for me! But since I had spent time locating some good references he is looking forward to seeing my progress.

I feel good!

On second thought ...

A few weeks ago I was at my oldest sister, it was a cool rainy day, and we were all inside. Suddenly a disagreement broke down between my sisters youngest three that who is going to get on one of the computers next. There are two computers for the kids, and three kids! So I told my sister that I had an old desktop, circa 2002, that I don't use anymore, and she can have it for the kids, if she wanted it. She said yes.

A few nights later, when I didn't have anything to do, I decided to clean the computer, take anything I might need, and get it ready for my niece and nephews. It turned out that I didn't need anything, but I had the computer partitioned and so I decided to reformat the hard disk, and install a fresh OS on it. I installed XP, then downloaded all the updates and patches, and installed the latest version of the browsers on it. And finally I got the subscription to Norton Antivirus for them, since if the computer breaks, I know that it shall come back to me for fix, and I needed to make sure it doesn't break!

Anyhow, the computer was sitting in my study for a good month, and then my sister called this past Sunday to ask if she could stop by to collect the computer later that evening. At first I wanted to say no, I was embarrassed to let her see the state of my living room, but I thought I wasn't going to ask her in, so it should be OK!

She got me from the library, we drove to my place, and she came in! When she saw all the clothes all over, she asked what was going on. I told her that I had considered selling some stuff that I don't use any more since I was running out of space. She said that it was a great idea and maybe she should look to see if she has anything that she could sell too.  My sister has lost a lot of weight in the past year.

Anyhow, my sister complemented me on my fashion sense and said that she could see why I wouldn't want to sell my stuff. She told me that a few years back, when I got that beautiful dress for my Christmas party, she was so envious of me! For one that I had picked that dress, two that I could afford it, which in truth I didn't, I used to put a lot of things on my credit cards back then, and maxed all of them out, then a few years later came to my senses, planned and was finally able to pay off all my dept, anyhow, and three that I was able to fit into a size 6, at that point she was very pregnant with her youngest.

I looked at her and told her that I think she could fit in that dress now and asked if she wanted to give it a try. Enthusiastically, she said yes. So I looked around and spotted that dress. She tried it on and looked amazing in it. So I told her it was hers. She wrote me a check for the dress and the computer, and when I refused, she said let me do this thing for you! She said that she wanted to get a dress as a reward to herself for losing weight and she had been looking online but really couldn't find anything she liked or in her budget. She said she is giving me what she wanted to spend on a dress, but she knows I could sell this dress for more on the eBay. I told her that I rather *she* gets it for free than to sell it on eBay and earn some money!

Then she gave me a pep talk that at the beginning of her marriage money was tight but they survived and became wise and strong. My sister and brother in-law got married right after college. My sister was in her last term in a graduate school when she got pregnant, and after she had my oldest niece, she went to work fulltime right away. At that point my brother in-law was still in school. Being only 25, with a full time job, a baby, and a husband that was busy with school, I have no idea how she managed, but she did. So I told her that I have always been envious of her strength, and that I thought she has it together all the time.

She laughed and said, good we sisters have to be envious of each other, all the time, otherwise it wouldn't be fun being sisters! Anyhow, she said that she never says no to the kindness of our family. My youngest sister and I were still in high school when we became aunt for the first time, and we always offered to babysit my niece for free, so that my sister could rest. When she came over, our mom always send her away with containers of food, saying that it was leftover, but it was very much made for her. My sister said that when we do things for our family we feel good and said that I have never let her do anything for me! That could be true! She asked me to accept the check so she could feel good! So I did accept her kindness.

On the car ride to our parents she offered that if I decided to sell my stuff again, she could organize it. She could price them, even throw a backyard party one Sunday in October, invite all our family and friends and let them checkout the goods! I thought about it for a bit, and decided to take her on the offer. I remained myself that one can't accomplish her goals with stubbornness, and that some sacrifices have to be made!

So I am back on track of selling *some* of my clothes with the help and kindness of my oldest sister!

NO!

NO, I don't want to sell my cloths, and NO, I don't want to move to my parents' house!

I have changed my life so much in the past month that I don't want any more changes. I suppose one can handle so many changes at one time before going totally nuts that what happened to my life! I am at that point right now!

Friday night I got all my clothes from numerous boxes, couple of suitcases, and all of the closets and brought them all into the living room! Yes, I have too many cloths, but no I don't want to part from them. They are still very stylish and I paid a fortune for them.

If I say so myself, I am a very neat person! All the pieces in the storage, probably for couple of years or even more had been put away so neatly that they don't look old. When I want to put my cloths away, for a season for example, I send the ones that need to be dry-cleaned out, and the rest I wash and iron before wrapping each in a plastic wrap to put away.

The two reasons my cloths stay in the storage are: 1- I feel that I have worn them too many times last season, or 2- I feel that they felt snug to begin with last season and now that I have gained couple of more pounds they wouldn't be comfortable.

Yes, even though I watch what I eat, and go to the gym regularly (or should I say went to the gym regularly, another thing I gave up last month, my gym membership) I still managed to gain couple of pounds here, couple of pounds there, and before I knew it, some of my clothes wouldn't fit, and I had to get new pieces, while warning myself that I should diet to be able to wear the old pieces again and soon, which of course never happened!

Anyhow, I believe that I have a good taste! Well, I know that I have a good taste! If I could fit into some of these pieces, some that I got probably five years ago or even more, I would definitely wear them; they are still very stylish and I don't want to sell them! I am going to fit into them and soon!

So anyway, I went through each pile, put the ones that still fit and I could wear to school, regardless of the season in one pile, and the rest in another. Then I hanged all the ones that I am comfortable to wear to school in my closet and left the rest in the living room. I could do that because it is *my* house and if I don't touch them for a month they are going to stay like this. That is the way I like it; that is the way I know my life to be!

My parents' house is *their* home, and even though I love my parents to death, I don't want to live at their house unless I absolutely have to!

Thus this morning I thought enough of a change, enough of being worried about money every second of the day. I treated myself to my usual Starbucks drink and now I am waiting for the library to open so I can head there and torture myself some more!

Finally I am getting somewhere with selecting a topic/paper for one of my term papers/projects. I shall write about that tonight. And oh yes, tonight of course is Mad Men night! Can you tell I am very obsessed with this show? I shall write about that too, at some later point.

Have a great day!

Considering a new living arrangement!

For one of my classes we have to write two review research papers. This week the professor said that we should start thinking about what we want to work on. I thought this was very exciting and promptly started my research, which requires internet of course!

As part of me saving money, along with my landline phone and cable/TV, I gave up my internet connection. Maybe it was too extreme, but saving a bit more than $200 a month was very appealing to me at that point. So I don't have an internet to do my research at home and thus I have to do all my research at school. Two nights this week I was in the library until 10:30 reading papers.

Also as part of my saving money, I gave up my car. The lease was conveniently up in the middle of August and I did not get another car! Obviously, I couldn't afford the lease, or insurance, or taxes. But also when I found out how much I have to pay for the parking at school, suddenly public transportation became very appealing! I live 15 minutes walk away from the bus stop, and the bus ride, depending on the time of the day, is somewhere between 40 minutes to an hour and the bus runs regularly throughout the day. So I thought student life is probably more on a par with taking a bus than having a car!

Going home late at night is tough only because my street is very steep; it truly is a hike to get home. Half of my 15 minute walk is in my street! I have been trying to get home early, because by 10 pm I am so beat that I just want to go to bed!

Because of my research I wanted to stay late at school and so I called my mom and asked if I could stay with them for the night. For one, my parents live very close to the bus stop, just two minutes walk on the level street, and for another they live half way between school and my place, which reduces a good half an hour from my commute. My mom said yes, and then my dad called to tell me do I even have to ask! My parents are the sweetest people I know.

Basically I have stayed at my parents three nights since Sunday night, including last night. This morning at breakfast my mom sweetly said, this school arrangement is very nice; we get to see you more often. Jokingly I told her, please don't be this nice to me, I might move in! To which she responded that it was a smart thing to do! She said that she and my dad had talked about it when I first told them I was giving up my job, but they had decided to let me consider it on my own!

Thus all day today I have been entertaining the idea of renting my place.

The pros are that I don't have to worry about the mortgage; I am guessing the rent is going to take care of that. Plus I don't have to worry about the utilities. So basically I am not going to deplete all my savings! I have reasoned that I haven't been home much since the school started a week and half ago; I have gone home just to sleep. I have been leaving around 7 am and the earliest that I returned has been after 8 pm, and that includes the weekend. So I am thinking maybe while I am at school, I don't need my home! Maybe I could move all my stuff to the basement and rent the upstairs.

On the other hand, I don't want to give up my privacy! I am thinking maybe I don't need to be at school this much in a few weeks. But then being home, I don't have my usual entertainment of the internet and cable TV. Plus I don't want to watch DVD or listen to music, because that means TV/DVD player/radio/CD player, which means higher electricity bill! Not to mention that when I am home, now that is getting cold, I have to turn on the heat higher, which means higher gas bill! So being home more is not that appealing! Also I don't have any extra money to entertain, having friends and family over, cooking or even baking. I don't have a boyfriend at the moment so I truly don't need that much privacy, do I!

But again on the other hand, I don't want to move in with my parents and inconvenient them. They have their own schedule and they might start going out of their ways to accommodate me. At the top of my head I cannot come up with one situation that this could happen, but I just don't want to take advantage of their kindness.

There is one more possibility, that I move to the basement and still rent my place. My basement is finished and I have two small rooms and a full bath there. I don't like the smell of my basement, but short-term, I think I can handle it! The structure of the house is that the garage and the backdoor are on the ground level; then there are stairs to go upstairs and stairs to go downstairs. At the top of upstairs' stairs there is a door. I am thinking maybe I could put a door at the top of downstairs' stairs and then the two levels are going to be completely separated. I wonder how much that is going to cost! Anyhow, the garage and obviously the front door could be for the tenant, and I could come and go from the backdoor. It might work; the only complication might be the shared utility bill. How I am going to figure that one out fairly!

In any case if I want to rent my place and move my stuff downstairs I have to start getting rid of some of the stuff I don't need. During the weeks that I was brainstorming how I could reduce my living expenses, one of my coworkers suggested selling stuff I don't need on the eBay and earn some money that way! I have never used eBay and so I checked the site briefly today to see if people are selling the kind of stuff that I might want to sell, mostly cloths, and was pleasantly surprised that yes, they do. So this weekend I am going to start thinking what I can sell on the eBay, take pictures, and then Sunday night when I am at my parents again, yes I did invite myself again to watch Mad Men there, only 5 more episodes left, I will figure out eBay and post my stuff for sell! I don't think I am going to make much money this way, but at least I am getting rid of some clutter.

Once I got rid of some clutter, I am going to move the stuff I don't use these days to the basement, systematically, so that if I need them I don't have to look for them; how I hate looking for things!

Hopefully, I have some time to think this over and make my final decision. If I decide to rent my place, it is going to be from this January to the next. I think I can bear to be without my home for only a year. I know one thing for sure; if I rent my place the burden of not having an income is going to be so much less!

If anyone is reading this, have a great weekend.

Change of plans!

I got assigned an academic advisor and I got an email from him last Tuesday asking me to go see him and so just before classes on Wednesday I went. I never thought that he actually had an advice for me, but he did! He advised me to drop one of my classes.

When I decided to go back to school, I decided to go full time and complete the program as soon as possible. I did my math and figured that I could be without a job and still pay my bills for the maximum of 16 months. So I quit my job.

At first I was too scared to quit. I asked my supervisor if I could work part-time and he said no! He said that he needs someone full-time and if he makes me part-time HR is not going to open another full-time position for him to hire someone else.

Thus I trimmed my expenses, and gave up what I thought was luxury. I took a loan for school tuition, and took the minimum of the full-time load. Still scared quit my job, and got ready to go to school as a full-time student. Now my advisor wants me to drop one of the 3 classes that I registered for, and basically become part-time!

His reasoning was that I have been out of school for a long time and even though I have all the prerequisite for my classes, most probably I do not remember all the materials and I need to reacquaint myself with all those theories. He mentioned that school is more intense! Really, I thought to myself. I bet he has never worked at a startup! Yes, he pissed me off and I didn't think that it could happen this early in the semester!

I tried to explain that most of my career I worked for startups and 12-productive-hour days were the norm for us. I tried to explain that I am a good learner! I don't go to school to get a degree, I learn. I tried to explain that I can remember all the things that I need to know for these classes in the matter of few weeks. But he was not hearing it. At the end he told me that the decision was mine! But he had to tell me!

I attended all 3 classes last week, and on Friday I dropped one of them against my better judgment. I talked to the professor and asked him if I could just sit in his class without being registered and he said it was OK.

Now I have to rework my financial situation. Taking only two classes this semester is going to make me stay student longer than anticipated, and I can't be without a job for longer than 16 months. I have to find a part-time job sometimes soon. I wish that my old supervisor had agreed to have me part-time. On my last day I did mentioned to him that if he wanted me as a contractor I would go back. I am thinking in a few weeks I should email him and see if he wants me back for a few hours a week! I gave him 4 weeks notice and the ad for my replacement went up last Tuesday, more than a month after I notified him officially that I was leaving!

Anyhow, I have spent most of the past three days in the library. Overall I think I spend more than 30 hours studying; real concentrated studying. I have remembered a lot and I think if I go at this pace I am going to do well.

I am at my parents tonight. First because I needed a good hot meal! And secondly, since I don't have cable anymore, I thought it was a luxury, I needed to be somewhere with a TV to be able to watch Mad Men, which just started!

Bye for now.