bane

So the grades are coming in and I am not doing so well.  I thought I have been very very careful and reading everything so so so carefully but I missed replying to a discussion post.  Knocked down my grade.  On another discussion board the teacher replied to post that I needed to add a personal experience.  Can I just say that discussion boards are the bane of my exsistance right now?  If I wanted to sit in a class and give my opinions and experiences I would go to a class.  I don't want to share that much information.
It literally takes me hours to do discussion boards.  To me that is not a class that is social media.  Sigh.

The Gathering

Tonight was the first Gathering.  It sounds like something out of a si-fi book.  Like some other world is going to come in and take over and it kinda did.  The world of a classroom.  There I was, uh late by like 1 minute.  That is another story. Okay I was telling a friend that she is doing the right thing when her kid was losing it for 3 hours.  Anyway. I walked in late the first night.  Great first impression.  I sit in the back.  Of course.  They are singing a song.  I hate to sing.  And then someone tells me I have to get a name tag.  Duh, I'm Genie.  No one else is Genie.  You ever met anyone else named Genie?  I hate wearing one.  But I get it and put it on and I smile.
Then Bro Ricks tells us to take 2 minutes to write down a 1 minute introduction of ourselves.  I just kinda sit there.  I don't need any time to write anything down.  I don't even need time to think about it.  It just comes out of my mouth.  I am a girl who can talk.  That is bad.  I need a filter.  My turn comes I take my minute.  It is good.
This class is a cross section of society.  It has the typical people that ask a lot of questions that were in the homework.  A few smart computer guys (yahoo!)  Some quiet people and some talkers in the back.  Just guess which one I am?
So they say they are going to pass around a sign up sheet for people to sign up to be the lead student.  We all have to take our turn starting next week.  I think, "man, I want next week so I can get it done."  Then I think, "that is just plain stupid."  I am in the back.  Towards the end of the sign up.  When I get it there are three spots left and like the heavens open up on it the spot right at the top is open and before I know it my hand is writing my name...right there...on the line for next week.  And it is in pen!
So besides feeling like I am going off to collaborate on some si-fi book next week I will be facilitating the lesson.  I will be the lead student.  

The first deadline

It's almost the first deadline.  Wednesday at 11:59.  Or in San Diego time 10:59.  We just got back from taking a YSA home.  They were here doing laundry at our house.  Good thing I THINK I have everything turned in that is due.  I am not sure when I have been more nervous.  Maybe when I was a freshman in high school?  I am pretty sure when I wake up tomorrow morning there will be this really big red writing saying that I failed to turn something in and now I have an F in both of my classes NEVER to be able to make up the points.  My dashboard is going to say all those things to me.  Right?  It isn't in my head?  
What I really should be doing is going to bed and sleeping well because I have checked everything 5 million times (okay that may be an over exaggeration of about 2 million). But instead I think I will worry about the step two of the assignment I just saw that is due on Saturday at 11:59.  What if I don't get that done on time.  It says it will take 15 minutes.  I am pretty sure I will worry about that one for a solid 3 days.
And then there is the first Gathering tomorrow night.  Ahh, all my thoughts about that....
I just don't know if I will ever sleep again.  

I missed one

Yesterday was my first day back to college.  Well, I was sitting in my office at home talking to my computer and telling my computer that I didn't understand instead of classmates but that is pretty much how it went down.  I am taking on-line classes through BYUI.
After a loooong hiatus from school I figured it was time for me to go back.  My husband has his masters. My daughter has graduated from BYUH, my son is going to Sacramento State and my daughter-in-law is finishing her degree on-line through Humboldt.  I better get on this, I thought.  So Pathway was my choice.  They ease my ancient 47 year old mind into thinking like a student again and it is Gospel centered.  How can this go wrong?
Until I was looking at the dashboard.  And the assignments.  And the discussion boards.  Do you know they want you to post on a discussion board and then go back and comment on three other people's post?  Can't we just say this is Facebook and call it good?  Why do we have to complicate it with a formal discussion board?  Oh my.  I feel like I am learning a new language, drinking from a fire hose or any of those other mind blowing sayings.  I feel like I am just maybe too old to do this.  What was I thinking?  I took a quiz and I missed one.  One!  That is terrible!  
All of these "new" things were weighing on me so I asked a friend over who teaches on-line for BYUI to come and look and make sure I was doing everything right.
He kindly obliged.  As I was going on and on about dashboards and discussion boards and missing one question on a quiz I realized he had on his smile he learned most likely from being a bishop.  You know the one---I have a crazy person in my office and I will let them vent and go off and they will feel better but in the end they are just fine.
And so at the end of the day yesterday I got a lot of school work done, updated my missionary's blog, went grocery shopping, I had dinner on the table at five (and it was healthy), went to FHE and read part of a novel. 
I just may be able to do this school thing....