today i finally made it up to the campus with my grade check form and $15 to refile. once the grad check makes it through, my diploma will be on its way here. at first the girl behind the counter tries telling me i couldn't file for fall of last year since fall of 2002 is over, but i informed her i had called an evaluator and got the go ahead. she checked it out and came back and signed everything off. now, as long as the whole thing says that i graduated with honors, we're finally getting this done and over with.
it was odd being back on campus. i remember going back the last time i was all excited and nervous about it. of course, i was going back after an 18 month loa and getting back into classes. maybe that made all the difference because today i just wanted to get the paperwork turned in and to get the heck out of there. no nostalgia, no nothing. it's still a pretty campus, but i'm no longer all that impressed. a few bad teachers and more than a few overloaded quarters took care of any warm and fuzzy feelings i may have once had for the place.
which probably translates to either still being pretty much totally burned out or having been made to absolutely despise the place and i just can't find the energy to show it.
regardless, this apathy for the only university in the area has me in a bit of a quandary for the future. the smart thing would be to start working on my teaching certificate. problem is i really do not want to go back to that campus again. not any time soon, at least. from what i've heard even worse experiences await me in the school of ed. no thanks. a person should appreciate their education and enjoy what they've been trained to do, not come to hate it because the place that trained him or her has managed to beat any appreciation out of a person. my alma mater seems determined to beat the joy of education out of people. it's amazing they have any graduates at all.
maybe they're all stuck because they're broke like me.
now, i am looking into a couple of online programs for the teaching certificate, but some classes must be taken at a university campus. and that, of course, leads me to the university i'd really rather not be around at the moment.
and then there's the other side of the equation: i really want the master of fine arts in creative writing.
i don't know why i keep beating myself up over this. i know what my dream is, my husband supports my dream, so why do i feel guilty pursuing it? part of it, i'm sure, is confidence. i already know that my university did not prepare me well enough for a writing program. i'd say they almost went out of their way to make sure i wasn't, but i think it was just an oversight in their attitude of being a "teaching" university. still, to have a concentration in creative writing that has more of a focus on literature than writing and classes in writing so vague that they are next to useless (only 2 of my writing classes proved to be true learning experiences for me, the others were vague workshops with next to no real teaching being done at all) is almost pointless. i've had to educate myself, far more cheaply than the university did i might add, and have learned more since my graduation than i did at the school. so preparedness is an issue. combine this with already feeling like i'm nowhere good enough in terms of actual writing, and you can see why confidence is a big problem. it's far easier to go do what you hate than to try to do what you're almost sure you can't.
professors who made the experience miserable, not really being prepared for what i wanted to do, constantly having to go and fix the newest issue with my classes or grades or whatever. no wonder i looked at that campus and just wanted to get the paperwork in and me out of there.
having its original qualities unimpaired as (1) full of or renewed in vigor, (2) not stale, sour, or decayed, (3) not faded, (4) not worn or rumpled; not altered by processing; not salt; free (1) from taint (pure), (2) of wind; experienced, made, or received newly or anew; additional, another; original, vivid; lacking experience, raw; newly or just come or arrived; having the milk flow recently established <a fresh cow>