Yay! I made it!

Today was our final orientation into the nursing program. There has been much printing of pages and other preparations going on at my house. We were instructed to print and bring both the student handbook and clinical handbooks, to the tune of 70 pages each. The classroom was a-buzz with excitement. People introducing themselves, comparing stories and wondering about just what kind of adventure we had signed ourselves up for.

We were scheduled for 2 hours, but ended up finishing in just over an hour. It was really nice to reconnect with classmates, and my work study people. We also managed to spend some time with the year two nursing students and let them reassure us that we would survive this.

My husband has noticed that now that we are nursing students instead of general students, we all kind of group together and almost seem not to notice the non-nursing students anymore. I know this is more obvious for him than it is for me, as my work study position doesn't have me interacting with the students a whole lot anyway, and his is very student oriented. I think, for the most part, this banding together is normal. For over a year we have all been competing for slots in the nursing program. Now, we have made it, the competition is over. Now, we can focus on working together to get through these next 18 months. The last 2 graduating classes haven't lost a single student. I hope our class can achieve the same.

Today was not done with the completion of orientation. Next was the long wait in the Financial Aid line, all of us hoping that this quarter our grants and scholarships and loans had been processed correctly and there would be a check waiting. My luck was better than my husbands. I'm not sure we would know what to do if both of our checks was correct on the first day of class, how could we miss out on our quarterly visit with our favorite Financial Aid person?

The next order of business was finishing up getting the kids paperwork for their before and after school care program filled out and turned in. Another 30 pages from the printer, and one hand cramp later; I can't help but think there has to be a more efficient way to do this? Why do we need paperwork in triplicate for each of my 3 children?

Paperwork complete, I headed in to visit my doctor and rolled up my sleeve for my third, and last!, Hepatitis vaccine. I'm so glad to have that over with! Now, with luck, I can stay out of the doctors office long enough for people to not know my name and birthday by heart.

Upon arriving home I found e-mails from my instructors, providing syllabuses for our classes... Again, please print out and bring to the next class. Another 50 pages each, for myself and hubby puked forth from the tired printer. the printer had now informed me that I need new ink.

At least I have my financial aid check so I can afford printer ink!

There are days that I believe the Financial Aid department is on a mission to make my head explode in frustration. Yesterday was one of those days.

I was happy as a clam as I walked out to check the mail. Then nervous when I saw the letter from Pierce College. We are still waiting to hear if we have made it to the second step in the nursing application process, so there was a quick hope that the letter had finally come. Then I saw that the return address was actually from the Pierce College Financial Aid department. Hmm, ok. I opened it and was shocked to see a letter stating that after review they had determined I was no longer eligible for financial aid.

WHAT???

So I grabbed the phone and dialed the number for the Puyallup office. Despite being well within the regular business hours, by call went straight to voice mail. I pondered leaving a message so they could call me back as their message promised. Except, I spent nearly a month calling and leaving message on that system and have yet to receive one call back. Instead I opted to call the sometimes less friendly Ft. Steilacom office.

After waiting on hold I was connected with a nice gentleman and we got down to work to try to figure out why my account had this suspension placed on it. I attempted 12 credits last quarter. I did not pass Sociology. To be fair, this was a somewhat planned failing of Sociology. But to go from having straight 4.0's to not passing one class and being removed from financial aid? That wasn't right.

The long and short of it was that someone had gone into my file and manually placed a suspension on my financial aid. I met none of the requirements for the computer system to automatically suspend my aid, and he could see where someone had gone in and placed the suspension. What he could not say (and may or may not have been able to see) was who had done this. I have my suspicions, based on a bitter battle with one person in financial aid over my husbands financial aid that I have been attempting to straighten out. The timing is nearly perfect and she has the access to do so. But, I'll never know, so I'll just be relieved that I was able to get it quickly straightened out.

My school week was only 2 days long this week and I am exhausted! Unfortunately, instead of going back to bed after dropping the kids off at school this morning I have to head out to take care of some things. I picked up my financial aid check today and there seems to be a huge error. I'm not pleased. I'm not sure that I can cash this check and still expect them to fix it so first priority today will be to figure out where the other $1100 of my financial aid is. I also need to hit the grocery store for coffee. I can't believe I let us run out of coffee. Then I'm going to hit the thrift store to see if I can find a lab coat. It is required for A&P and we get extra credit if we have it in Chemistry. I know there is more, but it's slipping my mind at the moment.

Cameron has started preschool. So far he loves it. I was worried about how he would adjust, but it looks like the fast pace the keep there works really well for him. He has already made some friends and tells us all about them when he gets home. He's off at class today so that means I have the whole school day alone!

Grey's Anatomy returned last night! It was great having Lynessa over to watch with me. We were both disappointed at the end of the show to hear that the next episode isn't for 2 weeks!

First day of school update...

I think the world was against me today. First my caregiver showed up an hour late, putting me in a tizzy about getting to class. This also caused me to get out the door late, by about 13 minutes. Apparently 13 minutes at the beginning of the day is what it takes to throw off the whole rest of the day.

I arrived on campus only 5 minutes late to find that there was no parking to be had anywhere. After circling the lot a couple times I called my friend who I knew had just gotten out of class and asked where she was parked. And then I waited... she pulled out, I pulled in. Made it to my first class, found my husband had saved me a seat and started trying to figure out what the instructor was saying. It seems my college has decided to employ Robin Williams to teach A&P. Fabulous. He finds himself quite humorous, I assure you. Seems like a nice enough guy. Lecture was over and then it was on to lab. 2 hours later and it was time to run to the cashiers office to grab my financial aid check. The school seems to have lost 1/2 of the transfer forms that move our checks from the campus 25 miles away to the local campus. There were lots and lots of us not so happy. No big deal I figured, since my next class was at the other campus, I would just pick up my check while I was there. I had an hour to get to the other campus, and decided not to stop to check on Cameron and instead head over and make sure I could find my next class.

Once back in the truck heading to the other campus I realized that I had forgotten my map to the other campus at home, and that piece of paper also had my class room number written on it. Did I mention that I'd never been to the other campus before? I get out the the general area that the college is supposed to be in and get horribly lost. After driving in circles getting directions from anyone I can think of, I finally get to the campus only 4 minutes late. Still no idea where my class is, and lucky me... the college is under major construction. After wandering around, and asking for help, I find my class about 13 minutes late. All eyes on me as I slink into the back of the room.

This class goes well other than this is the first instructor I've had that not only lectures up until the very last second... he also held us over. Now I don't have time to pick up my financial aid check and still pick Cameron up on time. Of course, since I was so hopelessly lost getting to the school, getting back to the highway was also a bit of a guessing game. After several wrong turns I make it back to the highway and manage not to be late to pick up Cameron... this is great news as I need every last possible second on Mondays when I will also need to pick up the older kids from school.

Bad news, I wake Cam from his rest and discover that he has wet himself in his sleep. *sigh* It takes us about 20 minutes to get out of there, pack up his blanket and get into clean clothing. Look at the clock as I get back into the truck and realize that if I had had to pick up the other kids I would already be late. Lucky for me I don't have to pick them up today. Cam and I head over to the cashiers office and fill out the form again that will transfer the check to the local office... check should be there for me to pick up tomorrow.

Now we are finally home, I have a headache and do not have the energy for dinner. I think Friday will be spent putting a bunch of meals in the freezer for next week.

I didn't get into the biology class I needed. I'm so frustrated, I thought about crying, but quite frankly I'm just a bit burnt out on the whole thing. Here is my screwed up way of thinking... There is a nursing shortage. There are a ton of people trying to get into nursing school. Wouldn't you think the schools would make an effort to have a more apropiate number of the pre-req classes available? There just seems to be this bottleneck built into the system. So what are my options now? I can take 2 classes instead of 3, kissing a portion of my financial aid goodbye and pushing the oportunity to apply to nursing school back at least a year. I can take one of my other prereqs, pulling it from later in my academic plan and still pushing nursing school back a year. Anyone else have any bright ideas?

I've signed up for my statistics class in place of the biology so I can still take a full load of classes, but the plan is to continue to try to find a way into the biology class. I've already sent an email off to the instructor asking if he would consider overloading the class. I'm sure he probably wont, but it's at least worth the effort of trying. I'm also refreshing the add/drop a class section of the web site in hopes that someone will drop their spot and I can snatch it up. I really really don't want to take the math class this quarter. Please don't make me.

There is a slim chance that biology may be offered for summer quarter, but it wasn't last year. If I don't get in this quarter summer quarter would be the only way to be able to apply to nursing in the spring of 2009.

Mike and I went to the college on Wednesday, I met with the Financial Aid adviser as well as a lady who is in charge of the schools opportunity grant. So far it looks good for both of us to receive a grant, and since they have money they need to use up they are going to try to back award Mike for his winter quarter also. I'm so excited!

Since I took the placement exam at a different local college I need to go take it again at Pierce. Not a big deal... hopefully I'll get to it next week. Registration for spring quarter is March 5th!

I finally finished up my financial aid stuff for spring quarter! Assuming all goes well, oh please oh please, I will be taking psych 110, English 111, and Math 281. I'm hoping to get them all online also.

Next up is completing my paperwork for financial aid for fall 08. I think I have most everything done for it. Rough numbers have been entered for taxes so hopefully by friday I'll have the taxes filed and can put those numbers into my financial aid packet.

I'm still plugging away at the online math, averaging about a chapter a day. Really, most of this is review from middle school for me, but it makes me feel good to accomplish something anyway. A side note about math... Mike is in Math 281 Statistics right now and really struggling. Really really struggling. Last night he came up to me and wanted to drop the class, insisting that it's just too hard. Yeah, I probably should have been more supportive, I know this is supposed to be a really hard class. I offered to see if I could help him make heads or tails of it and he basically tossed the books in my lap and told me to go ahead and take the quiz he took and see if I was really that much better at it than he. I didn't think this was fair since I had never peeked in the book before but ok, whatever. I got a 100%. Ooops. I have again offered to help him along in the class. Heck, if I'm going to be taking it next quarter some advanced studying can't hurt...

I submitted applications for 5 different hospice positions last night. Mostly just office type stuff, but at least it's getting my foot in the door. Hopefully hubbys company will get our tax forms to us quickly so I can get my financial aid done and ready for spring. Hurry up and wait.... ugh.