Of Reading, Writing and School by Konnie Enos

In April of last year, I returned to college in the hopes of finally obtaining my bachelor's degree. That first semester I took 13 credit hours, full-time. They say it’s full-time because you should be putting in three to four hours of work for every credit. 13 times 3 is 39. I opted to not take any courses over the summer term because the summer term is a full 5 weeks shorter, but you’re still expected to cover the same material. I didn’t feel like attempting a three-credit class at this faster pace.

In September I started my second semester and again took 13 credits. I could handle doing that many credits. I probably spent about twenty to twenty-five hours a week on schoolwork and never had any last-minute rushes or panics about being able to complete everything.

In preparing for this semester, I looked at the classes I was still required to take and found that I had only 29 credits left. I did look at possibly taking less than twelve credits per semester to spread them out further, but I figured 14 wouldn’t be much different than doing 13.

I was very wrong.

Not so much because it’s fourteen credits, but because four of those classes were the weightier three-credit ones. So now I’m spending most of my days, Monday through Saturday just trying to get everything in before they are late. I’ve failed at least a couple of times.

In consideration of how swamped I’ve been this semester; I investigated my options for spreading my remaining classes out further.

Option one was taking only one class over the summer term. This class is an internship that requires me to first obtain the job I’m doing the internship in. I do not have a job and my prospects of finding an internship, especially one locally, are slim.

Option two was to postpone two or three of my remaining classes until the fall semester. I could not take them over the summer semester because exactly zero of them are offered over the summer.

Okay then.

I’d been looking forward to finishing my degree, and “walking” at the same time as my daughter, who will be getting her associate degree at the end of the spring semester. That and I did not want to take just three to six credits or wait until Christmas time to get my degree.

So, that leaves option three.

Take fifteen credits hours, a total of six classes, with four of those being again three-credit classes. Oh, and the one-credit class requires at least 10 hours of work a week. So there goes any free time I thought I had between Easter and Pioneer Day (that’s July 24^th).

If I hole up in my bedroom and ignore any responsibility that can’t be dealt with on Sunday, then I just might manage.

Oh, wait.

My posts.

I have seven posts due between the first day of the semester and the last day. Although, I do have the week before Easter off, so I can probably get that written before the semester starts.

The other holidays in that time frame are Flag Day and The Fourth. My youngest also has a birthday in there and he provides plenty of topics for a post.

I still need three topics and I’m probably going to have to spend my week break between classes pre-writing most of those, so it doesn’t end up falling on Bonnie to pick up my slack.

I'm sure she’d appreciate the effort but I was so looking forward to having a bit of breathing room so I could read my books again. Over last summer, I picked up and was re-reading some favorite books of mine. I got through my Tolkien books, and I was hoping to get through my C.S. Lewis books but didn’t even get to the Narnia books before the semester started. I did pick it up a time or two during the fall semester, but it was never enough to finish it, especially since I was also trying to keep up with my Reader’s Digests.

For me reading Reader’s Digest normally takes one blessedly sweet two- or three-hour block of time to consume it. Last semester I often ended up with two, or three, shorter reading sessions. This semester. I’m lucky if I can get one read before the next one come out. Right now, I still have one whole article in my March issue that I haven’t read yet. (Mind you it comes out in the middle of the prior month, so the April issue will be out next week.)

I suppose this means that when August comes around, I’m going to be doing a lot of reading to make up for lost time. That and writing. I haven’t been doing much of that either.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.