Of Midnight Hours and Lights at the End of the Tunnel by Konnie Enos

 

It’s late, I’m yawning and I’m fighting sleep as I attempt, yet again to write a cohesive, intelligent, and most importantly comprehensible blog post.

Why am I doing this, yet again as the clock slowly counts down the minutes left until midnight? Yes, we’re talking minutes, though by the time I’m done, it’ll probably be well after the hour.

As I’m thinking about all the reasons that I have so little free time right now, I am repeatedly asking myself why I choose to do this.

I’m the one that committed to contributing to this blog every other week.

I’m the one who willingly took on handling our family’s finances.

I’m the one who committed to doing my share of the cooking and cleaning.

But mostly I’m the one who committed to finally getting my bachelor's degree.

Now the idea of going back to school wasn’t daunting to me. It’s not the first time I’ve attempted to get my degree as a mother. The first time I tried Royce was barely in pre-K.

I should have realized when both of my most recent attempts had me dropping out mid-term at least partially due to the stress. I look back at these semesters and wonder how I thought 12 credits was so stressful.

To help anyone who doesn’t understand the college system of credits. Each credit is supposed to align with 1 hour of classroom instruction. And for each credit hour, you should engage in 3 to 4 hours of study time. That means 12 credits would equal between 36 to 48 hours of study time. That’s a full-time job.

When you’re trying to do that on top of taking care of your family and running the household it can be very stressful. Now imagine having a job, even just a part-time one, on top of that.

Now, as you can imagine, each credit hour also indicates how much material there is to learn and how much effort you’ll have to put into it. Therefore a 1-credit class wouldn’t be that much work, whereas a 2 or 3-credit class would require more effort. For me this generally means I can do that 1-credit class in under 3 hours a week while the 2-credit class is going to take at least 6 hours and the 3-credit classes will require at least 12 hours of work, sometimes more.

While some people may take 12 to 14 credits, they are taking some easier classes mixed in with the difficult ones. For instance, in the past, I have taken as many as 13 credits in a semester and I’ve done so without taking more than three 3-credit classes.

Last semester I took four 3-credit classes, then added a 2-credit class. One would think earning a couple of B’s would be indication enough to reconsider taking that many 3-credit classes at one time.

It wasn’t enough warning for me.

I did look at not taking so many classes this semester. My idea was to take twelve credits and the remaining three over the summer. The problem was not one of the classes I still needed was offered over the summer. My only other choice would be to take some of the courses in the fall semester.

I rejected that idea and right now I’m not even sure why I decided I’d rather take 15 credits this semester. I suppose so I can get it over with. I certainly didn’t consider how much work it would be.

Not only do I have 15 credits, but four of my classes are the harder 3-credit ones. But it’s even worse than that. I’m doing my internship too. Internships require that you put in 10 hours of work per week. So, on top of the nearly 60 hours a week in homework that I have, I also need to put time into doing my projects for my internship. That’s well over 60 hours a week. AND I still need to do my share of the posts here, and then there is my share of the household chores.

Is it any wonder that I’m often still up at midnight trying to get one last assignment or task done?

Then, after staying up so late, I still need to get up at least no later than 7 am because fur babies want their breakfast. Of course, I also have a full slate of things to get done each day so sleeping in is never an option. I also always hope I can finish enough tasks and assignments so that I can get to bed at a reasonable hour. For me, that means before midnight.

Thankfully I can see the end of all this effort. Today there are officially only three weeks left. Then I can get back to having more time available for other things, like writing.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.