Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays everyone!! And best wishes for a fantastic new year!!

Sorry, but it does seem like this blog is going nowhere fast. I've actually started a totally private journal just for me to record my thoughts. It's going quite well and I hope I keep it up.

Peace and Long Life,

PaunFarr

Out of Class

Wow, I knew it'd been a LOOOONG time since I'd updated my blog, but I really didn't know it was all the way back to the last day of last semester's classes. Strange that I'd return today, the last day of Fall classes was yesterday.

I won't go into the drama of classes, but suffice it to say this was the MOST stressful college semester I've ever had. 11 credit hours of pure hell on top of full time job and family as well as a host of personal issues I've been trying to deal with. Class is DONE now, and I can feel my stress level fading with each passing moment.

There's so much to tell, so much to talk about. Honestly I don't know where to begin. More importantly I don't know IF I should begin. I have extremely personal things that I want to write about and figure out. It's not that I have an issue with talking about my personal issues, but the things that may come up would involve other people. I owe them a trust and anonymity which I don't want to betray. So for their sake, I'm considering taking my blog underground, or offline completely.

I also just need to get back into the habit of writing, preferably fiction. I could definitely continue that here. So there's no telling what direction I'm going to go with this thing, if at all. Thanks to those that replied to me asking how things have been going. I've missed all of you and hope to spend the next month between classes reconnecting.

Peace and Long Life,

PaunFarr

Tired

Tick, tick, tick... two hours, 17 minutes until my last class of the Summer semester starts. My final, probably an essay with various questions regarding ethics. It should be easy, I've made all A's and B's the rest of this class and am not worried about this test. I'm sure I'll pass the class with an "A".

So much, compressed into such a small period of time. Three classes, four days a week, homework the other three days of each week. There has been no real "Summer" for me, just school. Not even time to blog until I took a moment now.

There are so many things I want to say, talk about my classes, my fellow students and teachers. I want to rant and weep and educate. But I'm... tired. Just so tired. So very, very ready for all this to be over.

Two weeks between classes before the Fall semester starts. Not much time to "enjoy Summer" but I'll try to do my best. Crazy as I am, I have a page full of "to-do" things I'd like to accomplish before I go back to class.

Just wanted to let anyone out there know I'm still alive and made it through more or less intact.

Peace and Long Life,

PaunFarr

Deflated

I'm still around, but feel like I'm barely hanging on today. Three classes, four nights a week, homework, change in ownership for the company I work for. It all adds up to pressure. And sex? Barely happening.

My fingers feel heavy, my spirit feels like the deflated balloon above. With new management there are rumors of imminent layoffs and major changes coming up. The new owner doesn't like me, he's homophobic and ignorant of technology. There is a very real possibility that I'll be one of the lay-offs, possibly today. I don't care. I've put 20+ years into this place and feel like my talents are wasted and under appreciated here. And how nice would it be to suck in unemployment for a while and use the time to focus better at school?

Oh well. Sorry for the bummer of an entry today. I just wanted folks to know I'm still around, sort of.

- PaunFarr

Diversity

Day two down in my first week back to school. Last night was "Intro to Internet Development". As a programmer and all around IT Geek, this class should be a cake walk. I understand from a friend that we'll barely even touch HTML and instead let the development language do all the work for us. Should be easy....

So as I waited for the teacher to arrive, I read more of my Humanities book for class tonight. When the teacher walked past and said hi, I looked up to see a familiar face! It was the same teacher that taught my Technical Writing class last semester. Arguably my favorite teacher so far, a very unique teaching approach and really teaches "outside the box".

So that was a major plus! This class should really be no trouble at all!

I went into the classroom and selected a comfy desk with a rather odd looking computer at it. Well, all the desks had odd computers, so that doesn't mean anything. Oh... my... god... These weren't just "odd". Where was the CPU tower? Where was my right mouse button? What happened to my "start" menu?? These were.... MACS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Panic mode again. Had I missed something? Was there a prerequisite for this class I didn't know about? Were we going to use some strange alien Mac-only software for web design? Was this even the right class I was in???

The closest I've ever come to a Mac had been my iPod and iTunes interface. Both very fine, both very comfy in a Windows environment. Yikes! What was I going to do??

I was in the right class, and yes we would be doing our work on these brand spanking new macs with the newest Dreamweaver software. In addition we'd be looking at other development software including some freebies we can install at home. Good thing, since there would be no other opportunity during the week for me to get to the school to use their macs to do homework.

Once the initial fright was over, I explored a bit in this strange new Mac environment. Within moments I'd changed wallpaper and was navigating Safari without troubles. Some things are still odd to me, such as multi-tasking and opening multiple tabs in the browser or choosing my familiar "open in new tab" option, which I like so well in IE7.

Our class is small, only eight people, so our teacher is customizing it to exactly what we want to learn. Very nice! I really look forward to where we go with this.

In addition he mentioned something else that perked up my ears, starting this Fall Semester the school is going to be pushing a "Diversity" program. He's responsible for the posters for this and is going to try and get permission to do a web presence, of which we may take on as part of our class. I don't have any details on what he means by "Diversity" yet, but I definitely plan on kicking sexuality in the mix! I've already told him I'd be very interested in helping with this project (oh yes, because with class four nights a week plus homework I'll be OOOOOH so bored!)

So I'm stepping into the unknown of Mac and dreamweaver. Time will tell how things go, but I'm certainly looking forward to it. If I can learn to develop well in dreamweaver I'll push for my company to buy the PC version of it (assuming there is one?) and use it for developing at work.

Peace and Long Life,

PaunFarr

l(a

l(a

le
af
fa

ll

s)
one
l

iness

-------------------
a poem by EE Cummings

I started my humanities class last night. During our reading assignment I came across the above poem. It took me a little while to make sense of it, then I had the "...oh!" factor come in. I really like it. I printed it for my son and daughter. He struggled with it for a while, but eventually figured it out (I won't say he "got" it, but he understood it). I had to explain it to my daughter, she had absolutely no clue.

Don't read beyond here if you haven't figured it out yet. Let it sink in and see what it is first.

This is an unusual type of poem because it really is only one word with an embedded action. But the form and layout of the poem makes it special. It reads:

l(a leaf falls)onely = a leaf falls, lonely = lonely, a leaf falls

The leaf begins to fall at the top and gently, slowly wafts it's way down to rest on the ground below. The use of the lowercase 'l' is no coincidence that it's the same as the number one '1'. In the original presentation it was the first poem in the book. Ones appear throughout indicating how we are all alone in the end. We are all leaves that eventually fall from the tree.

So I somehow survived the weekend and my first class. By Sunday my constant watching of the clock and counting down how many hours and minutes remained before school started back was bordering on obsessive. I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack over all of it. John and I talked about it and I confessed my fears. That school would start and that would be the end of "me" and all that would remain would be school. That any hope of he and I pursuing a sexual adventure would have to wait until school was out at the end of Summer.

He asked me "Do I need to get the flogger out of the closet and beat you with it? I will if I have to!" LOL! That was what I needed! (not the flogging, but the communication) We cuddled and talked and I felt much better.

Yesterday I avoided all clocks until it was time to go to class. And I actually enjoyed the class, in truth I knew I would. But I was up until almost midnight with my reading assignment and still have another chapter to read before Wednesday, and I have another class tonight. John and the kids all went to bed before me last night as I stayed up reading. I am in class now, but the class is not me. I'll make it through somehow. And Pride weekend is coming up and I truly intend to enjoy that!

Peace and Long Life,

PaunFarr

Countdown

3 days, 8 hours and 2 minutes remain. That's my current countdown for classes starting back up for Summer semester. I'm not worried about passing, these are not difficult subjects and I'm an excellent student. What I'm worried about is my loss of free time, break in my journey, loss of my self.

I've tried to cram so much into this break between semesters this time and feel like I've accomplished so little. I wish I'd met more people, done more things, experienced MORE.

Honestly I've met some wonderful people, and continue to chat with them in e-mail and look forward to meeting them again in the future. I've learned TONS, but unfortunately haven't been as good at conveying what I've learned to my husband.

Now I feel like my feet will be shackled with classes. Like some great weight pulling me down and making my life miserable.

Last Summer I took only one class, a statistics class. I HATED it!! The teacher (to use the term LOOSELY) was horrible and could barely figure out how to turn on the room lights, let alone had no clue how to convey complex mathematics to a room full of students. But I recognized my frustration was solely with him, not with Summer classes in general. So now I'm registered for THREE classes, Intro to Ethics, Intro to Humanities, and Intro to Internet Development. I'm interested in all three and need them for my degree, so that should be fine. But working full time, raising kids and taking THREE night classes will make my life very busy. I've never taken this many classes before at one time, but I have a real need to get my degree as quickly as possible so I'm pushing my limits.

3 days, 7 hours and fifty one minutes now. Every minute counts. Every second.

Peace and Long Life,

PaunFarr