School Update

 I'm supposed to be studying right now, but, well...

here we are.

Let's talk about school stuff.  I'm five-ish months into going back to university for a post-degree professional certificate in publishing.  Everything about this has been a challenge, and also completely different than it was the first time I did it - single, childless, and living in a dorm I did not have to clean or cook in.  In a lot of ways this time around has been easier.  Or, maybe easier is the wrong word.  It's more like getting onto a bike again after, say, 50 years of not riding a bike.  It was, and is, not smooth riding.  BUT it isn't like starting at square one, either.

The first thing I had to learn how to do, besides the weeks it took me to figure out how to register and pay for the actual course (this was...not intuitive) was to navigate an entirely on-line learning environment.  Not fun, do not recommend.

I wouldn't have previously said I was a Luddite but this Brightspace program was a p.i.t.a.  The first course I registered for was a sort of 'grammar refresher'.  Essentially you were supposed to take an online test to figure out how advanced your grammatical skills were, and if you got below a certain amount they 'highly recommended' that you take this refresher course first.  Friends, I couldn't even finish the test.  Assuming that that likely meant I was a moron and should begin with the remedial program, I registered there.  I was a little surprised; I mean, I do have a degree in English, and English is my mother tongue, and I do homeschool my children, and I have read thousands of books, and I did go through Khan Academy's grammar course Just To Make Sure.  But alright, online test!  You're the boss!

The first class was a disaster.

I can't even tell you what went wrong, frankly.  I did all the required readings, I posted all of the required postings, I studied and made notes, I asked lots of questions, and I was certain I understood what was going on, but every test score was mediocre.  It was very disheartening!  A few times in the course I emailed my prof to ask if there was something else I could be doing, maybe some key I was missing here, but there was nothing.  So, I just stumbled along and eventually finished it and took my Christmas break.

Which was like a month long!  Holy cow, were breaks always this long???  I was bored stiff.  Man, my last class was something like the 12th of December, and then my first class in the new term was the EIGHTEENTH of January.  I'm sorry, but that's insanity.  C'mon.  No one needs over a month off when you've only been going to school for three and a half months and there was a long weekend in there aaaaaaand a reading week.  

Anyway, after all that nonsense I went ahead and registered for class #2 - which is a sort of trade publishing market overview.  I'm starting week four of that, and so far I can't tell you if I'm doing any better than I did in my previous course because again...I thought I was doing okay there, too.  But I will tentatively say I appear to not have made any glaring public errors or, like, emailed anyone a picture of my toe, so things are good!  I'll know better how well I'm doing when I take my first quiz at the end of this week.

I told myself that if I was going to pay such gaspingly large amounts of money and spend such obscenely large amounts of time working, then I was going to squeeze this certificate for every last drop.  And that I think I've succeeded with.  There's an online job/internship posting board, and if I think there's any chance at all that I could apply for something that gets posted, then I do it.  I don't even care - I'm getting my name out.  The school was offering free career counselling, so fantastic, I signed up.  Yes, I DO want to get emails about continuing education students' associations!  Thanks!

But probably the most successful venture has been joining the school magazine.  In fact, I even have an article being published, which I will talk about in a later post.  It's all been very...eye-opening.  I feel very old a lot of the time, let me tell you.  Another student writer did an article about the fall of Youtube and I was like...Youtube is uncool?  What?  Also then I went on Youtube to look up TikTok videos because I'll be d*mned if I'm signing up for TikTok, and did you know that teenagers dye their hair half one colour and half another?  And I thought the peace sign whilst sticking your tongue out looked stupid.  Man I'm old.