Due to a long series of events at work, I find myself seriously contemplating a career change. So, this weekend, I did some research on online courses, college courses, and paths that I might take to get me on the track of life I should have been smart enough was mine years ago.
I found a bunch of classes on writing that I wanted to take, and did a mild sticker shock reflex when I realized that the one creative writing class I wanted to take the most would be $364. So, then I started looking at others and found that I can become a Technical Writer for about $1600. I was really happy when I found that one, since it's writing and it pays well.
THEN, I got even happier when I found a college that offers liberal arts courses-- Marylhurst. I'd remembered from years ago a friend mentioning that they offered writing classes and went to take a look. They have a program for obtaining your BA in English Literature, which is my ultimate dream, with the availability of emphasis on Creative Writing.
Today, I took a look at their page once again and realized how much it would cost and went into serious sticker shock.
Where the previous class I wanted was $364 total, EACH CREDIT at Marylhurst is that amount. Which means, that for a 4 credit class, not including books, I'm looking at about $1500 PER CLASS!!
For a BA, it would take about 180 credits, which roughly translates to $75,000 with books.
Okay, so goodbye BA in English Lit, lol. But, technical writing certificate is still available for $1600.
That meant that I needed to figure out how I was going to pay for it, which is why, at 7pm this evening, my husband was choking on his beer as I explained that I was going to sell his sperm for $100 per shot. No sex for the next 16 months.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
Please Explain This to Me (A Rant)
switched pages on Myspace and as usual there was an ad at the top of the page I went to. This one was an advertisement to go and take a quiz and see if I'm "hotter than Miley Cyrus".
What I don't understand is... if you were in the real world, walking around, and you are a 40-year-old guy looking at a 14-year-old girl and calling her "Hot", you are a sicko-perv. I'd have to agree there is something wrong with you.
BUT... take a CELEBRITY 14-year-old girl and the world turns her into a sex-symbol. It is OKAY for that 40-year-old guy to put pics of her up and drool over her and the press will feed that until no one is hungry anymore.
WHY is it OKAY for the PRESS to play up the sexuality of an underage girl? WHY is it OKAY for the PRESS to call those girls "SEXY" and "HOT" and post pictures of them, making them out to be sexually-oriented, and the world turns a blind eye?
Isn't this somewhat two-faced of our society? Aren't we TEACHING people that this perversion is acceptable?! And then, after we've taught that to all the young men growing into older men that it is okay to view a underage girl in a sexual manner, we punish them for doing it later in life.
I don't think it's okay, but it makes me angry that we feed it and then expect that it won't eat.
Just a humble observation from someone that wonders if her daughter will be "symbolized" at 14.
*sigh*
What I don't understand is... if you were in the real world, walking around, and you are a 40-year-old guy looking at a 14-year-old girl and calling her "Hot", you are a sicko-perv. I'd have to agree there is something wrong with you.
BUT... take a CELEBRITY 14-year-old girl and the world turns her into a sex-symbol. It is OKAY for that 40-year-old guy to put pics of her up and drool over her and the press will feed that until no one is hungry anymore.
WHY is it OKAY for the PRESS to play up the sexuality of an underage girl? WHY is it OKAY for the PRESS to call those girls "SEXY" and "HOT" and post pictures of them, making them out to be sexually-oriented, and the world turns a blind eye?
Isn't this somewhat two-faced of our society? Aren't we TEACHING people that this perversion is acceptable?! And then, after we've taught that to all the young men growing into older men that it is okay to view a underage girl in a sexual manner, we punish them for doing it later in life.
I don't think it's okay, but it makes me angry that we feed it and then expect that it won't eat.
Just a humble observation from someone that wonders if her daughter will be "symbolized" at 14.
*sigh*
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
I'm Feeling Rather... Bereft
I finished a new book tonight. It's amazing what I can do when Short Person is away for just one night at a sleepover. I can read! Yea!
Now, if I would just write something, we'd be hoppin'.
The book I just finished was called "Night Echoes" by Holly Lisle. It's a paranormal romance about a young woman who moves to a house that she's been dreaming about since she was five-years-old.
I don't want to give away spoilers, so I'm not going to go into much detail, but I just want to say... I love books where the author has done such a good job establishing characters that when the last page is turned and read, a piece of you dies inside because the story is over. You miss them.
I miss them. In this book not so much the main characters, I mourn the ones that haunted. It leaves me feeling bereft. Sad.
But WOW the book was good. Had quite a few twists I was not expecting.
Oscar Wilde once said that a book that wasn't worth reading over and over wasn't worth reading at all.
Going by those standards, in my opinion, this book was worth reading.
Now, if I would just write something, we'd be hoppin'.
The book I just finished was called "Night Echoes" by Holly Lisle. It's a paranormal romance about a young woman who moves to a house that she's been dreaming about since she was five-years-old.
I don't want to give away spoilers, so I'm not going to go into much detail, but I just want to say... I love books where the author has done such a good job establishing characters that when the last page is turned and read, a piece of you dies inside because the story is over. You miss them.
I miss them. In this book not so much the main characters, I mourn the ones that haunted. It leaves me feeling bereft. Sad.
But WOW the book was good. Had quite a few twists I was not expecting.
Oscar Wilde once said that a book that wasn't worth reading over and over wasn't worth reading at all.
Going by those standards, in my opinion, this book was worth reading.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
The Best Thing
Short Person hates vegetables. With a passion. So much so that LJS and I have been told time and again that we are loved for the sole fact that we don't make her eat them.
Given that, it still surprised me when...
Short Person and I were cuddling on the couch for a few minutes before bedtime. Hugging her, I asked, "Did you have a good day today?"
"Yep!" She replied with a smile.
"That's good. What was the best thing that happened today?"
She paused for a moment, lips pursed, thinking. "I didn't have to eat any vegetables!"
In a good day, you can gauge how much your daughter hates vegetables by the fact that not eating them won over everything else.
Given that, it still surprised me when...
Short Person and I were cuddling on the couch for a few minutes before bedtime. Hugging her, I asked, "Did you have a good day today?"
"Yep!" She replied with a smile.
"That's good. What was the best thing that happened today?"
She paused for a moment, lips pursed, thinking. "I didn't have to eat any vegetables!"
In a good day, you can gauge how much your daughter hates vegetables by the fact that not eating them won over everything else.
Monday, June 2, 2008
The Skunk
LJS and I decided to stimulate the economy with our economy stimulus check and bought a new television. I was very happy about this because it meant that I got to move the big screen into my office-- whereby making it almost like a theatre room-- and get rid of the 5-ton console television we've had for awhile.
We pulled the 5-ton tv out and loaded it into the truck to take to Goodwill. To make a long story short, I had called TWICE that day to make sure there would be someone there to unload it. The woman on the other end of the phone assured me that there would be. I drove to the Goodwill to drop it off, only to be told that they did not take them.
Oooo... I was mad. Two phone calls, $15.00 in gas, and they don't take them. I grumbled to LJS via cell phone all the way home!
Anyway, he needed the truck to go fishing the next day, so we had to unload it from the back of the truck. We've made a decision to stick it on the front of our driveway with a "FREE" sign on it. (Worked too! Someone took it home Sunday, thank goodness!)
Given my not so happy status and the fact that I'm dreading hauling this heavy-ass tv anywhere, we procrastinated until about 9:30pm. Well after dark. But we knew we couldn't put it off forever and therefore went trudging out the front door.
LJS was in the lead and he basically barrelled through the door, I was a bit slower, as I was pouting. Anyway, I go out the screen door after him and notice something rustling in the bushes to my left. It struck me as odd because the cat doesn't normally move like this did... and besides, the cat is white. I didn't see anything white.
I stood there for a second, thinking that the movement was just a figment of my imagination. It wasn't. Exactly 2-feet away was a full grown skunk... and he was walking my way!
I jumped off the porch step, gave a little yelp, while attempting to put as much space between me and IT as possible. LJS, hearing the yelp, turned and looked at me.
"What?!" he said in a voice reeking of impatience.
"Skunk! There's a skunk!"
"Where?" He sounds bored and I'm totally peeved by it. So many things are going through my head. My daughter possibly following us out the door-- and by now the skunk would be just inches from her-- the dogs looking out from the big picture window-- they'd bark, so that would be utter disaster-- how my house would smell if the skunk tried to spray them. All of it raced through my head.
LJS is sounding mad now, "I don't see a skunk. Where is it?"
I turn and point. "Honey! RIGHT THERE! By the window!"
LOL... It became a two stooges act. You know the kind, where everyone walks a different direction only to keep walking into the other person? He's walking back toward the house, I'm walking away from it, we are bumping into eachother... as the skunk gets closer and closer, now in between us and the house.
All I can think is how much I want to get inside and lower the blinds so that the dogs don't bark at it!
Finally, the skunk moves parallel to us so that it is across from us and we side-scoot back into the house. I lower the blinds and then run back into the office to get Short Person, who is totally engrossed in a movie she's seen about 324 times.
She finally relents and agrees to come outside, but by now the skunk has disappeared. I turned to the husband...
"Where did it go?" I asked.
"Well, while I was closing the garage, it was heading toward the truck."
Great, I thought. The same truck that had the tv in it. The same tv that had to be unloaded that night.
15 minutes passed.
"Okay, go outside and see if the skunk is gone."
I looked at LJS incredulously. "Why do I have to go look!? You know he's still by the truck, don't you? This is a trick! I'm gonna get sprayed!"
LJS sighed one of those impatient man sighs. "No, I don't know that. I just want you to check."
Seeing as how I basically have no choice but to look, I quietly open the screen door, my eyes more open and round than I can ever remember them being, and peer into the darkness. "I don't see him. You go look!"
LJS, being a man, has gotten way impatient now and is totally over it. He tromps out to the truck with a muttered, "Are you coming?!"
Rolling my eyes, I follow him, just knowing that the noise of us unloading this huge tv is going to get us doused in skunk stink!
The tv makes a tremendously horrid noise coming off of the bed of the truck. Half way off, I'm supporting the weight while LJS grabs the other end... and suddenly, I can smell it. The skunk. And so does the husband.
Too late to turn back, we make a silent, mutual agreement to hurry the heck up and get this thing off the truck and onto the ground, still not knowing where the skunk is, only that it's close enough to smell.
We drop the tv onto the driveway and I realize that I'm now trapped in between the tv, the car, and the boat... and the smell is getting stronger. LJS, after releasing his grip on the tv, has already hi-tailed it back to the house, and I just KNOW I'm going to get sprayed!
With the prowess of a monkey, I jumped over the boat hitch, and ran back to the house... in circles! I kept spinning around to make sure that rascal wasn't following me, with a glint in his eye.
An event to get the adrenaline going to be sure!
We pulled the 5-ton tv out and loaded it into the truck to take to Goodwill. To make a long story short, I had called TWICE that day to make sure there would be someone there to unload it. The woman on the other end of the phone assured me that there would be. I drove to the Goodwill to drop it off, only to be told that they did not take them.
Oooo... I was mad. Two phone calls, $15.00 in gas, and they don't take them. I grumbled to LJS via cell phone all the way home!
Anyway, he needed the truck to go fishing the next day, so we had to unload it from the back of the truck. We've made a decision to stick it on the front of our driveway with a "FREE" sign on it. (Worked too! Someone took it home Sunday, thank goodness!)
Given my not so happy status and the fact that I'm dreading hauling this heavy-ass tv anywhere, we procrastinated until about 9:30pm. Well after dark. But we knew we couldn't put it off forever and therefore went trudging out the front door.
LJS was in the lead and he basically barrelled through the door, I was a bit slower, as I was pouting. Anyway, I go out the screen door after him and notice something rustling in the bushes to my left. It struck me as odd because the cat doesn't normally move like this did... and besides, the cat is white. I didn't see anything white.
I stood there for a second, thinking that the movement was just a figment of my imagination. It wasn't. Exactly 2-feet away was a full grown skunk... and he was walking my way!
I jumped off the porch step, gave a little yelp, while attempting to put as much space between me and IT as possible. LJS, hearing the yelp, turned and looked at me.
"What?!" he said in a voice reeking of impatience.
"Skunk! There's a skunk!"
"Where?" He sounds bored and I'm totally peeved by it. So many things are going through my head. My daughter possibly following us out the door-- and by now the skunk would be just inches from her-- the dogs looking out from the big picture window-- they'd bark, so that would be utter disaster-- how my house would smell if the skunk tried to spray them. All of it raced through my head.
LJS is sounding mad now, "I don't see a skunk. Where is it?"
I turn and point. "Honey! RIGHT THERE! By the window!"
LOL... It became a two stooges act. You know the kind, where everyone walks a different direction only to keep walking into the other person? He's walking back toward the house, I'm walking away from it, we are bumping into eachother... as the skunk gets closer and closer, now in between us and the house.
All I can think is how much I want to get inside and lower the blinds so that the dogs don't bark at it!
Finally, the skunk moves parallel to us so that it is across from us and we side-scoot back into the house. I lower the blinds and then run back into the office to get Short Person, who is totally engrossed in a movie she's seen about 324 times.
She finally relents and agrees to come outside, but by now the skunk has disappeared. I turned to the husband...
"Where did it go?" I asked.
"Well, while I was closing the garage, it was heading toward the truck."
Great, I thought. The same truck that had the tv in it. The same tv that had to be unloaded that night.
15 minutes passed.
"Okay, go outside and see if the skunk is gone."
I looked at LJS incredulously. "Why do I have to go look!? You know he's still by the truck, don't you? This is a trick! I'm gonna get sprayed!"
LJS sighed one of those impatient man sighs. "No, I don't know that. I just want you to check."
Seeing as how I basically have no choice but to look, I quietly open the screen door, my eyes more open and round than I can ever remember them being, and peer into the darkness. "I don't see him. You go look!"
LJS, being a man, has gotten way impatient now and is totally over it. He tromps out to the truck with a muttered, "Are you coming?!"
Rolling my eyes, I follow him, just knowing that the noise of us unloading this huge tv is going to get us doused in skunk stink!
The tv makes a tremendously horrid noise coming off of the bed of the truck. Half way off, I'm supporting the weight while LJS grabs the other end... and suddenly, I can smell it. The skunk. And so does the husband.
Too late to turn back, we make a silent, mutual agreement to hurry the heck up and get this thing off the truck and onto the ground, still not knowing where the skunk is, only that it's close enough to smell.
We drop the tv onto the driveway and I realize that I'm now trapped in between the tv, the car, and the boat... and the smell is getting stronger. LJS, after releasing his grip on the tv, has already hi-tailed it back to the house, and I just KNOW I'm going to get sprayed!
With the prowess of a monkey, I jumped over the boat hitch, and ran back to the house... in circles! I kept spinning around to make sure that rascal wasn't following me, with a glint in his eye.
An event to get the adrenaline going to be sure!
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