Tuesday, March 24, 2009

JSRCC: Episode II... or is that Episode V?

Community College part Deux:  The Western Campus

When we last saw our college student she was burned out on Karate and Morte D'Arthur, stressing over final exams and an 18 page paper on the Black Plague.  We pick up her story in Goochland County at the Western Campus of JSR, in the middle of no where.  Thank Goddess she drove the JEEP last night, the entire parking lot was one big gun rack consisting of about 50 beat up mud encrusted FORD pickup trucks, 4 JEEP Wranglers, and some more SUVs of various AMERICAN MADE variety.  Yee Haw! 

Last night I had class.  Annoyingly, it's a class I do not need to take, but I have to take in order to fill some stupid requirement for the college.  The class is "how to succeed in college".  I have a 4.0 GPA.  I don't think this class applies to me.  Now that I've run a half marathon in 2:06:38, *note how I snuck that in there, I don't know that I need advice on how to succeed at anything.  If I want to know how to do something, I use this really crazy technique to find out about it.  I (and this is the important word) read about it.  Yea.  I know, crazy talk.  Shhh.

On any given day I'm reading psychology books about raising 2 year olds, boosting the self esteem of a bullied middle aged child (6-11), Spider Man comic (so I can hold an "intelligent" conversation with my son), a novel of either no value or excellent caliber, a book club book, and at least one text book on something.  *no wonder I don't get anything done around here! 

After attending class last night though, I've concluded that the problem is the all the college students I know at "my school", except a few fellow adult - middle aged nursing student cohorts, are all out to do ONE thing.  They are ALL out to get an A, and they are all out to do it without reading a word.  Yea, so really, those two things go together like.... Lemon and Milk.  Oil and Water.  Ginny and Diets.

But, one thing I will say is that, this promises to be an, er, interesting semester.  Last night I  was in class with about 9 auto mechanic students in the tech division, 2 Gen Ed students, 1 dental student, 1 L.P.N. and 3 fellow nursing students.  There are supposedly 29 students in the class.  But, obviously some people signed up for the class and either forgot we had class starting mid way through the semester, or, signed up for the class and decided not to bother with it.

I didn't meet one of the nursing students though, because he was caught on a runway in Chicago O'Hare and so... his Mom came to class for him to take notes.  I'm going to miss her.  She's a nurse at Henrico Dr's, and very sensible, and I was relieved to hear some of the things that came out of her mouth.  For one thing, after speaking to her, I feel a lot more secure in the choices I am making.  A perfect stranger put me at ease.  I bet she's great at her job.  We exchanged information about the classes that her son has already taken and the classes I've already taken.  *I did not recommend British Lit as a great Lit Class, but did point out that Brit Lit is a decent class to take online.  And I highly recommend my Psy Prof, online, etc. because that is the easiest class in the history of college the way this prof presents it.

Well, except for the class I'm taking now.
Oh, and except for Karate....

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