Maybe my blogs so far have given an inaccurate picture of what going to school and being a mom is all about, or maybe my experience this semester thus far was atypical; but, this week I got the picture of how stressed I can get in the midst of the storm.

Let’s start with Sunday – I knew that I had a project due this week, so even though I have been working on it all along I intensified my efforts.  It was like constructing the “Bridge to Nowhere”.  Exactly what I was left with Sunday night as I looked at the mess of blocks, angles, smears, and patterns that were supposed to be my “Typography” project.  Could have been worst my project could have been due on Monday. 

So I decided that since my daughter had a project due this week as well I would utilize the computers at ASU.  Since the two we had at my house just was not cutting it for 3.5 projects (there’s yet another child to work into this crazy equation).  So we stayed at the school for 3 hours making a lot of headway on their geometry project. (How many of us remember how to identify a theorem, or a postulate from an everyday picture or a picture out of the geometry book for that matter?)  Well I certainly didn’t, I spent a lot of time looking pictures with them, trying to help them decide if it fit the if a=b and b=c does a=c?    At this point I’m already tired of looking at letters so we decide we would return to the house and organize the pictures they had found so far and label them accordingly. 

Upon reaching the house I encounter another problem instead of being just 1 computer short I am now 2 computers short.  My niece is sitting at my home computer working on her geometry project.  Now I’m all for helping the kids with their homework, but now they are really impeding on me and my project.   We solve the current problem by me relinquishing my laptop to them and they helping each other to figure out if a line on a plane forms a straight line or not.

Either way I spread all my materials on the kitchen table and start murdering letters again.  Did I forget to mention that I can’t draw; I always got reprimanded in elementary school for my handwriting; and I hate paper and pencil?  Well just in case I didn’t mention it you know now.  My mom looks at what I’m doing with a mild interest as to see how I’m going to pull this off while the kids are calling my constantly to help them with their project.

I know that my daughters education on a parental level is more important than mine, so I leave my letters or lack of letters and help them some more.  At ten (at least an hour after my bed time) I help them to wrap up what they are working on and save it to a flash drive.  (All of the experts who keep saying the kids are more computer savvy than adults have not met my trio).  Not one of them could figure out if they had actually saved their work or if they had lost it.  Not to mention how to change fonts, lines, and margins on a page.  I worked at as a parapro at a school for an excess of 8 years so I know that they DON”T teach this in middle school, but come on is it really that hard to figure out?

And that was the first day of the week. It was not good, but certainly a good precursor for the days that followed.

Monday – Now I know that there is just no human way possible to for me to draw my letters and facilitate 3 geo projects this week and stay sane.  So I make the hard decision to call in to work (on pay day I’ll be cursing myself for missing work) and work on my project and print some business cards that should have been printed and delivered about a month ago.  So I get out my drawing materials and head upstairs.  I draw for a while and seeing absolutely no progress I throw my drawing pad in the junk draw and walk away.  I decide now is as good of time as any to print my cards so I hook my laptop to the printer and press print.  The printer goes haywire and will not acknowledge my laptop, so like the problem solver I am I decide to uninstall the drivers from my pc and reinstall them. WHY? WHY? WHY? That’s all I want to know is WHY did I think that was a good idea? Because everything in my told me it was.  Well ladies and gentleman that was probably my biggest mistake of the day.  My laptop would not let me reinstall the software. It said the software was not compatible. I tried and tried to reinstall without much success.  I called the company who told me that my printer was out of warranty and there was nothing they could do about it.  How’s that for you.  In frustration I turned the computer off and said forget it.  It was back to pen and paper for me.  Not making any headway in my project I decided to watch day time television.

Now that is something I have not done since I can’t remember.  The senseless drawl  of the television soothe my frayed nerves.  After a few hours I turned my laptop back on hooked it back up to the printer and what do you know it was working.  I printed out a few things before heading to my night class.

After class I rounded up my geometry crew and we were at it again.  This time finishing up one project with a whole lot of promise on the others. 

And that was the second day of the week.

Now I stayed up all night getting only 2 hours of sleep working on my project.  Satisfied with the quality of work shown on my laptop screen I decided to print them off before rushing into another day.  I set the laptop up before going down stairs to wake my child.  Getting back to the printer I found what looked like a 2 year old had done my assignment.  Now this assignment is a good portion of my total grade for the whole semester so I had to do something. I called a friend to pick my baby up for school and I bee lined to ASU.  There I was told that I had chosen a poor resolution to print my work in.  After a friendly face showed me the correct resolution; I preceded to rework my project.  It was gruesome, but it got done.  Satisfied but not satisfied all at the same time I prepared for class. 

I went to class, left and came home to chill.  Too bad I couldn’t make myself go to sleep despite how tired I was.  Once the geometry crew made it home I helped work on another project before making it to bed at eleven.

And that was the third day of the week.

Now the absolute last day to work on geometry projects.  Yes I can see the light at the end of the sleepless tunnel.   We finished the very last project at 9.  Needing to go to Wal-mart we set the printer up and left.  While at Wal-Mart I received a call saying there was something wrong with the printer – it wasn’t printing.  Thinking it was out of ink I made my purchases and headed back home.  At home I tinkered and tinkered with the printer to get it to print with no luck.  So at 1 in the morning I made another trip back to Wal-mart to purchase another printer.  I went home printed out the projects and made it to bed at 4 or 4:30 a.m. .  I was back up at a quarter to six because the projects had to be in a book form.  I woke the girls up who where here and called the one who was not and showed them how to bind the books.  This took until 7:30 or so making me late for my 8 a.m. class (I think this is the last semester I will ever try and take an 8 a.m. class).

I went to all of my classes; including the class that I had a group presentation in. Yeah I forgot to mention that I had that project due.  I think under the circumstances my team did well. After all of that I went home and slept.

And that was the fourth day.

The last day of the week found me at work.  Tired, but happy to have completed a very hard week. This week helped me t o realize that friends, family, and lots of support will help you when you have gotten to the end of your rope tied a knot held on and still need more help.  When you least expect it someone will throw you another length of rope and remind you why you started college in the first place.

Thanks everyone who helped my through my week.  Next week should find me smiling and happy to be in school.

Side Note:

Be nice to your enemies it makes them madder.

Other Posts by Tiara

• To have or not to have a heart
• A look ahead
• Group growth
• It's not the cost that matters
• Always will be the United States of America
• True Friends.
• United we stand
• Get Ready
• Type Typography No More
• Brown Bag series
• To degree or not to degree
• Scrub
• Political Science
• Village People
• Is it the quality or quantity that counts?