First Week of School
So, Tom started class last Wednesday and is now officially 1 1/2 weeks into school, but I started classes on Monday.
Tom is taking math, history, and his first education class. For his education class (study of disabilities) he had to do a 48 hour disability simulation. He chose to be blind for his simulation. That meant that last weekend we put bandages over his eyes and he went "blind" for 48 hours. His simulation started Friday night before a ward party and ended Sunday night right before dinner. The weekend was hard, I'm going to be perfectly honest about that. We managed the getting around, getting clothes, eating and all with minimal issues, but the emotional tole was surprising high. It was so mentally exhausting to try and keep him engaged in what was going on and to feel like we were actually living in the same house and participating in the same events. I have a much higher appreciation for my brother's sweet gal, now then I have ever had before. And I have so much more respect for my brother too. I'm sure that the frustration that we were feeling has all been felt and dealt with from time to time by him and her. I think that Tom was glad to go through this task to try and understand, in some small way, how students in class might be feeling if they have some sort of physical short-coming. But we are both so glad that this is not one of the challenges that we are currently tasked with dealing with, because it was hard.
But one of the end results of this weekend experiment was Tom's inability to do homework for his other classes (no way I can help with Math for instance). So he has been hunkered down all weekend, trying desperately to catch up on the Math and the History. Here is to hoping that he can get caught up before class next Tuesday so that we don't have to have too many more weekends like this one.
Also, I started my GIS Certificate program on Monday. I am taking two classes this semester, Cartography and Visualization and Introduction to Geospatial Technologies. The intro class seems like it will be pretty good this semester. There seems to be a good schedule and I'll have lab time during class to work on the practicals. So, I'm hoping that one will go okay. The Cartography class however, is already off to a less-than awesome start. First, the college messed up my schedule (and several others in the class) and the computer system thinks that it is only a 3 credit class when in fact it is a 4 credit class. This will minimally mess around with my tuition, but could have larger more far-reaching consequences as well. My instructor has been actively trying to get some information from the college on how to fix the problem, but has as of yet received no answer. This is great since tuition is due Wednesday and no one will be working on it Monday because of the holiday. Second, we are supposed to be able to access the ESRI virtual campus to work on some certifications for the course, but ESRI has not released the appropriate codes to allow us to do so. So, we are all waiting for the ability to do the homework. So, here is to hopefully not getting messed by powers beyond my control.
Either way, this semester is exciting. If Tom feels like he can keep up he will be taking care of 10 credits this semester, which will feel great to be chipping away a little faster at the total number of classes and credits he needs. And, I'm just glad to be working on something that will hopefully allow me to move into a more family friendly career path and do something that is intellectually challenging, because to be honest archaeology has gotten boring. Probably because I'm doing CRM stuff, but wow, really not that interesting.
Tom is taking math, history, and his first education class. For his education class (study of disabilities) he had to do a 48 hour disability simulation. He chose to be blind for his simulation. That meant that last weekend we put bandages over his eyes and he went "blind" for 48 hours. His simulation started Friday night before a ward party and ended Sunday night right before dinner. The weekend was hard, I'm going to be perfectly honest about that. We managed the getting around, getting clothes, eating and all with minimal issues, but the emotional tole was surprising high. It was so mentally exhausting to try and keep him engaged in what was going on and to feel like we were actually living in the same house and participating in the same events. I have a much higher appreciation for my brother's sweet gal, now then I have ever had before. And I have so much more respect for my brother too. I'm sure that the frustration that we were feeling has all been felt and dealt with from time to time by him and her. I think that Tom was glad to go through this task to try and understand, in some small way, how students in class might be feeling if they have some sort of physical short-coming. But we are both so glad that this is not one of the challenges that we are currently tasked with dealing with, because it was hard.
But one of the end results of this weekend experiment was Tom's inability to do homework for his other classes (no way I can help with Math for instance). So he has been hunkered down all weekend, trying desperately to catch up on the Math and the History. Here is to hoping that he can get caught up before class next Tuesday so that we don't have to have too many more weekends like this one.
Also, I started my GIS Certificate program on Monday. I am taking two classes this semester, Cartography and Visualization and Introduction to Geospatial Technologies. The intro class seems like it will be pretty good this semester. There seems to be a good schedule and I'll have lab time during class to work on the practicals. So, I'm hoping that one will go okay. The Cartography class however, is already off to a less-than awesome start. First, the college messed up my schedule (and several others in the class) and the computer system thinks that it is only a 3 credit class when in fact it is a 4 credit class. This will minimally mess around with my tuition, but could have larger more far-reaching consequences as well. My instructor has been actively trying to get some information from the college on how to fix the problem, but has as of yet received no answer. This is great since tuition is due Wednesday and no one will be working on it Monday because of the holiday. Second, we are supposed to be able to access the ESRI virtual campus to work on some certifications for the course, but ESRI has not released the appropriate codes to allow us to do so. So, we are all waiting for the ability to do the homework. So, here is to hopefully not getting messed by powers beyond my control.
Either way, this semester is exciting. If Tom feels like he can keep up he will be taking care of 10 credits this semester, which will feel great to be chipping away a little faster at the total number of classes and credits he needs. And, I'm just glad to be working on something that will hopefully allow me to move into a more family friendly career path and do something that is intellectually challenging, because to be honest archaeology has gotten boring. Probably because I'm doing CRM stuff, but wow, really not that interesting.
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