Surfacing...periscope up! =0]

Whew! This school thing is taking more of my time than I imagined! And I haven't worked a day at the deli for a week. (I do GET to work this weekend, though...)

I think just getting acquainted with procedures for writing papers and submitting them has been a challenge. There have been lots of chapters to read and then I wrote an 850 word paper on how taekwondo has given me more confidence. I also had to critique four other students' papers.

My biggest challenge was not having the right kind of word processor. My instructor wants us to post our documents in a .doc format, but my computer only did .docx, which some students can't open on their computers. So, yesterday I finally got my new laptop and with it a program that will allow me to do .doc papers. That's been a huge thing and I'm glad that problem is solved. I also downloaded Microsoft Office which I hope isn't going to be a waste of money. It's way more word processor than I need and it sort of takes over and tells you what to do. Sheesh!

I reached my first milestone college-wise with the submission of my final draft of my first paper for College Writing I. Today I began work on the second paper. It should be a lot of fun. It's a 750-1000 word essay in the form of a fairy tale starring one of my fellow students. We create a questionnaire for the other student to answer and we learn about each other by email, then we take the info we glean and write a story in the genre of our choice (mine was fairy tale) using some of the details we know about the other person. As with my last paper, we also critique four other students' papers. We also have to write a 150-word piece describing the genre we've chosen and we do a bibliography of our sources. I've written this short piece and I've posted my questionnaire on the class discussion board. I think I'm the only one who's done these so far, but since I have to work over the weekend, I thought I should get at least that much done.

Despite all of my talk about writing, my main goal is to become a nurse and I was really intrigued to see a Jewish Voice special on TV the other morning. They do medical missions trips all the time and take the gospel to the Jewish people as well. Medical missions is something I've been interested in for a long time, but didn't have any training. Now I can keep that goal in front of me to help me through when school gets challenging!

It's glorious outside! The sun is shining and the wind is really gusting through the trees. I think a storm is blowing in. I stopped off today at the local Fleet Supply and picked up some petunias and marigolds, but I'll wait for milder weather to repot them outside.

We have two new baby goats and a new colt named Bill. He's having a great old time running circles around his mom who is trying valiantly to keep the other mare in the pasture away from her child. It makes for great entertainment!

Well, I'll probably go outside and help Bob with some chores in a while, but first I'm going to visit a few blogs. It's been a while!

Shalom!