Wednesday, January 8, 2014

The Mystery Keeper: College and beyond

This is the story of my life after high school. My high school graduation gifts of a cell phone and laptop computer were for college.

After high school, I went to a community college for my freshmen year.  It's in a nearby town to where I live, so I rode with someone, either my dad or some people in our church, usually, but one of my mom's cousins whose work was in that town took me once.  There was a boy a year ahead of me in high school taking classes at the college and a woman of going back to college age. The boy, Jonathon was a back up and the woman took me home on my short day.  Another woman was working in the town where the college is and had to take her brother there since he had no car then. I usually rode with her, but after a while she didn't want to take me because of some life circumstances, a main one being her daughter had some sort of health issue.   I took liberal arts with a science concentration this year. My first semester classes were English, College Algebra, Psychology and Biology, the last caused my short day since lab time was a stand alone ( my only class the day I had it). I made the dean's list. My second semester classes were History, Genetics, Animal Nutrition and Music Appreciation.  I planned to take an animal major at another college after that year and many of my classes at the community would transfer there. We camped at the park we went to went I was sixteen.  I graduated from the girl's club and had my last horseback riding lessons.


The next year, I transferred to the animal major at the other college, but had some issues there. The classes I took were two animal classes, microbiology and chemistry.  I also volunteered at an animal shelter near the college, since that fulfilled a requirement. I failed the lab practical for one of the animals classes and had to work at a vet office the next semester and over the summer, but I wasn't ready for that class, so I couldn't go back to that major.  I'd been a happy girl, basically but this took that away for a while, buried it.  They would've allowed me back at the college in another major, but I chose to go to quick admit day at the community college.  The community college took me back. That spring, our cat died and we adopted two shelter cats. They're sisters and the shelter thought they were one and a half at the time. They weren't little kittens but they were still young. My maternal gramma died shortly before I started back at college.   We returned to that park again.


I think being a returning student made it easier for the community college to admit me. They had my info and I had success there before.  I went into their animal major, as a path back to the other but did some stupid stuff.   I could stay at the college in another major. I was liberal arts for the rest of the semester.  I was dropped from the animal classes, I think I had two, but had other classes. They were Public Speaking, Intro to Computing with Mircocomputers, Technical Writing and halfway through the semester I picked up a history class, late session they call it, which was the next one sequentially to the history class I took my first year there.  I was liberal arts with the late session history class added for financial aid reasons, but I'm a history girl (means I'm good with history). I made the dean's list this semester. I switched to computers for the next semester because the man teaching the animal classes I took at the community college said I seemed good with computers. I wanted to do this after that animal class issue but couldn't be full time in that major since no late session class suited it.  I took Intro to Web Page Design, Microeconomics, Probability and Statistics, Advanced Computing with Microcomputers and Introductory Programming. I wasn't quite on the dean's list, but passed all these classes.  This was our last summer at that camping park.


The next year was my last year of college.  I was able to remain in the computer major this year. The first semester of my last year, I had Analysis and Logical Design, Advanced Programming,  Computer Architecture, a networking class and an overview of technology class.  The last two were out of sequence, since they're fall only and I was liberal arts the previous fall.  I went to two concerts at the college. A local musician played in the student lounge two Wednesdays without his band.  He said "I wish I could bring my band, but they'd probably blow the windows out." They played in the college's theater, apart from this but I wasn't aware until after the fact or it didn't work with my family's schedule. I heard some of their songs at the lead singer's student lounge concerts and I like that kind of music.  He played a song I know by another band the first concert in the student lounge.  His wife and their middle child were at the first concert and she was supposed to sing at the second but the little guy he introduced us to at the first concert had "bashed his head on a vacuum cleaner". His mom had to take him to get stiches.  The first concert was the day after my 21st birthday and the other was the first Wednesday of December.  I wasn't on the dean's list but I passed all my classes again.  After this came my last semester.  I had trouble getting to sleep the night before.  I was probably excited about being almost done with college. I took the other networking class, an operating systems class, two business classes, which are required for the major I took and Physical Design and Implementation. The last forms a systems sequence with Analysis and Logical Design. I passed all of these classes and graduated from college late in May 2011.  I was excited and relieved about this.
The February of this semester I had an opportunity I hadn't had since 2000. My dad had hooked up TV converter boxes the previous fall and that gave us Fox. Fox covers NASCAR races February to  the first weekend of June. I could watch with my dad like I did as a kid. It was different now due to the changes in NASCAR and the youngest drivers are around my age. For example, Trevor Bayne and Joey Logano, who were mentioned that day, are a little younger than me.  I was a Toyota fan the first four weeks of the 2011 season, then these two drivers became my two favorite drivers.   The first Bristol race gave me a metaphor, which Trevor was in the midst of that helped me get over my hurt and made me not upset.  That April, he had to go to the hospital due to an illness and I know how it feels it be in the hospital so it made me a little teary.  The first time was just overnight but the second time lasted into May.  He missed some races and I didn't like to see this be so. I was happy right along with him when he could race again. We have ABC, which also has some races.


After I was done with college, I continued to follow NASCAR and pursue other interests as well.  I had some cooking lessons in my last semester of college but not through college. I no longer do that, but I do other things with that woman, mostly volunteering at a library and animal shelter near where I live.  I've been reading, listening to music, walking, playing games, watching some things other than NASCAR, like game shows and movies, doing my Sudoku and crossword puzzles and writing. I also have job hunted and even got two interviews, which didn't lead to a job. The last started within the last year. My mom's twin brother stayed with us last summer.  About 2.5 years ago, I went to Indiana for my maternal gramma's 90th birthday party, which meant all my grandparents were able to have one. My grampas lived to 91 and nearly 97 and my other gramma was 94.  This was the highlight of 2011 to my dad to me it was graduating from college.  My gramma's alive yet, but she may die soon.  I had some supplement issues as a kid, but vitamin pills and fluoride were ones that didn't affect me in bad ways. I only needed the latter until some point in high school, I think. Flax is another one I could take then and still take now. I added cinnamon and fish oil in college and they had no bad effects on me, apparently, so I still take them.  I take these once a day and have since I started them. I took one niacin a day for a while in or shortly after college, but it was used up and never replenished, but I don't think it was bad for me. We just didn't care about it or maybe it was the expense.   I still hope to find a job, even if it was with an Aspie computer place.  People with Asperger's can be good at tech jobs.  Maybe I can get a job as a technical writer, as that class shows in the stories I write on fanficnation.com.



2 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your graduation and also for writing all of this about your life! Those are both big accomplishments! That's very cool that you volunteer at an animal shelter. I used to work at a vet hospital (as a receptionist) and later at a doggy day care, so I totally get your interest in animals. It's great that you were able to find other things you liked and were good at after your animal major didn't work out.

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  2. I've been helping with the girl's club since I graduated and yes college graduation was a biggie.

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