So this is college? Oh.

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I'm in my second year at a local community college, studying god knows what but my personal indecisiveness isn't what should be in question here. I'm disappointed by, and unclear of where, the future of higher education is going. I'm so upset by my course load this semester, and technically I'm not even a full-time student. Instead of trying to dance around details, I'm going to jump into this in a sporadic way, as the thoughts come - I share.

I'm taking 10 credit hours this semester, if you have no idea what that means, I'm basically one class short of being a full-time student. I'm taking three classes this semester - Psychology, Math, and a Spanish class. My Math class is considered 4 credit hours due to the fact I am in the classroom almost 7 hours a week. But personally, my math class? Easy fucking Peasy compared to the rest of my course load. I actually have not a single complaint about that class. My teacher is great, understanding, and doesn't over teach or stress the students out. We have a manageable load to carry this semester.

Spanish, I don't even have a course outline for this class. I received an email from my teacher on Sunday night at 11pm telling me that we could start our assignments for Chapter 3. There were 18 assignments, due by Wednesday. I feel overwhelmed by not knowing anything until he decides to send out an email sharing with us what were doing then rushing around doing all of these assignments as well as the ones that I already have assigned from other classes, and working two jobs. I'm going to explode. Do I blame them for giving out too much work? No. I blame the method the teacher has towards this course. A crazy expectation of what students of a community college can handle.

But Spanish, yeah, that's the least of my rants.

My psychology teacher floors me. She assigns a chapter a week. We must read the chapter and be prepared to take a test on it that weekend. Mind you, I am in a strict classroom class and have yet to do one assignment in a classroom. I have only done assignments online. Every quiz, assignment, and even my mid-term next week will be online. Is this wrong? I'm thinking fucking so. What the fuck did I sign up for a classroom class for when the only thing the woman ever talks about is how much she hates living in the South. Okay, well move back home then and let them hire a teacher that wants to teach us? Pretty simple concept.

I missed the first quiz due to over volume on Blackboard, and sent her an email, she refused to let me make it up, so for the rest of this semester I have been scrambling trying to save my grade, and this week is supposed to be our Spring Break, wanna guess what I am doing? I'm going to be doing two mid - terms, one for Spanish, and one for Psychology and I also have to do my quiz on Chapter 9, and all my written assignments for Psych.

Neither one of those teachers have even remotely taught me anything. I'm over learning, I memorize information and write it down, and that's all. I want a teacher who engages me, who tries to teach, who wants to teach me something. Instead I get these hag who think she's so hard for assigning a chapter a week, and whines about her personal life, and a guy who can't even be bothered to provide us with our grades.

Where the fuck did all the good teachers go? How are they getting away with this at a college level. For those who don't understand the difference between community college and a university, try to brush up. Community college is much like high school and should flow about the same pace. Psychology requires 12-15 hours outside of the 3 classroom hours a week for study time, so between just math and psych I am up to about 25 hours after at-home assignments. I work 35 hours a week currently, and still have to manage my spanish class. So tack on another 5 hours for that. If you can't do the math that's roughly 65 hours a week I am spent shoving my head up someone's ass. AND I'M NOT EVEN GOING TO GET A FANCY DEGREE.

I'm going to die from this. Everyone pray that I can survive the remainder of this semester and give these shitheads the worst evaluation they've ever had and never look back.

How one tiny decision can effect it all.

I bet you're looking for a post about how I'm thankful for this or that since it's Thanksgiving. But you're not going to find it on this blog, this year's Thanksgiving was a bit underwhelming - minus the food, that was still there to make me fat and sassy as usual. Instead, you'll find what I think was something I did without prior knowledge to how it would effect my entire life and goals.

Before I had Offspring, I'm not going to pretend I wasn't someone who had absolutely no direction in life. I was wild, crazy, and free. Sounds cliche? Yeah it is. I was pretty much insane in the membrane and what some people would call a giant piece of shit. I was 21 years old and had not done anything with my life besides get drunk and travel. I never really had a job. I worked as a freelance graphic design artist and basically had no real money to do anything. But, getting pregnant changed all that. I needed a job, and I needed to get an education so that job would be awesome enough to supplement two incomes since being a single parent was the next stop on this one way street to parenthood.

I'm super stoked to start classes, right?!

I went to the local community college and decided to take some continuing education courses they offered. I took a math class, it was awesome for preparing me for my skills test for NA I and it was free. I originally wanted to do EMT training but for some reason that isn't held in my memory I decided to get my NA I certification. It was quick and fairly easy to obtain. It only took me two months to complete the training and it was "Jobs Now" guaranteed. I thought for sure that I would be able get a job outside of a nursing home, but I wasn't. I thought I would be able to find a full-time position making at least $9 an hour after this no problem. I was wrong. This would be the first time in the in a long line of realizations that not everything is as easy as they appear.

After completing this certification, I went on to "big girl" college. I figured I already had my NA I, why not just go with nursing? Except there's a couple problems with this theory...
1) I was already beginning to work as an NA I - I accepted a job at a hospital an hour away...making $8 an hour and part-time. I realize after accepting the job that it was mainly old people aka a nursing home setting and the pay/hours are not what I was looking for. Old people give me the creeps, is that normal? Probably not. I don't get any "aw, she reminds me of my grandma" feelings. I just stand there like a deer in headlights as they try to maul me due to insanity of being old. Point being: I'm already dissatisfied in my choice.
2) I am a sick, twisted individual. Let's face it, my sadistic sense of humor and love for making inappropriate jokes does not put me on the personality list of "nurse". I enjoy annoying people, I enjoy being my socially awkward self. I enjoy being annoyingly awkward. But do you want a nurse who will crack a joke about your recent cancer discovery? Probably not. What I am trying to say is I am not overwhelmed with the feelings of compassion normal people who choose the career as a glorified waitress have.

Those are only two of the many reasons why after starting school, I have switched my major to Latent Evidence and am currently working as a receptionist. It's nuts to think I make more money not cleaning up poo than when I did. No one tries to hit me, no one expects me to feel sorry for them and hold their hand. I probably wouldn't mind nursing that much but nurses have this whole "I touch lives" thing and their entire "my job is better than everyone else's" makes me laugh.

Moral of this post: Think about what you're signing yourself up for, before you wind up hating the rest of your life.

I'll keep you posted on what happens as far as the rest of my life goes.