1. What do you do in your spare time? 

While keeping up with two kids, I do my very best to make an attempt to go to the drag strip, truck pulls, or dyno events.

2. What is your favorite movie or book?

Major Payne, hands down.

3. Are you a cat person or a dog person (or do you like another species entirely)?

Love them both! I have two cats now, Chevy and Smokey, but hopefully we will be able to get a dog next summer.

4. What is the most interesting/your favorite place you've been? 

Cairns, Australia. Even though we couldn’t swim in the ocean because of the jellyfish, it was by far one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited.

5. What is your favorite food?

I love summer time foods, good ole burgers and hotdogs (slightly burnt of course) off the grill. 

Everything seems to be going ok in the Anthropology course I am taking. Blackboard is actually cooperating for once, and I’ve had no major issues from the system. The first exam becomes available in Anthropology, and I am feeling pretty good about it all, that is I open the exam and the question is completely foreign to me. So of course I begin to immediately panic. Dr. McDonald is coming back from her trip to Europe at this current point and time so we have the TA to fall back on. Although they were both out of my reach (even through email) until I finished the exam. I try my best to calm myself down but that is not very easy when I already have such high test anxieties in the first place.

My son comes up to me and asks, “Mommy, are you going to be ok? Because I will help you, would you like for me to rub your feet?” I couldn’t help but smile and realize that I was becoming so frantic that my kids were picking up on it. So thanks to my 5 year old son I was able to calm down enough. All I could do is keep answering the questions that I knew, and attempt the ones that I didn’t know. However, I would be sending a frantic email to the TA and Dr. McDonald. We were able to be re-take the exam this past weekend, with the correct set of questions, and at least on my end, everything went well.

I will have to say that I am sure Dr. McDonald received a lot of emails concerning this problem. I felt bad that she was fighting jet lag and was just coming home from her trip to Europe; but I was a wreck. When Dr. McDonald first told the class in the beginning that she was overseas I thought that it was really neat! She had ample access to the internet and to the course, but she still had our TA help out with things here. Through our email conversations though she said that she would not start another class out like this one; and I can completely understand why. The online courses are demanding enough for the students and I can only imagine how they would be for the professors teaching the courses.  

Getting into the first week of statistics, life was moving along pretty well. There were very few glitches in the blackboard system of things (minus the fact that the notes for the lectures had gone AWOL). Minor issues resolved things were moving along quite well. I received the information from the other assisting instructor that she needed our proctor information for the exam that we are due to take by July 7.

               No big deal, followed through the websites that I needed to go through and tried to figure out who I was supposed to get into contact with about taking an exam. Well this information was completely not just “plain as day.” Through reading the instructions several more times and exploring websites, I figured out who I needed to get in contact with. I was attempting to take the exam here at UK, with the overview of a TA, but that was not possible. I work right in the Patterson Office Tower, and it would be a lot easier just to go up and take the exam on the statistics floor; however, this was not possible. There were no testing sites at BCTC – Cooper Campus. And there were no available times after work (5pm) or on the weekends. I wish places such as these testing sites could open up a bit more. You are not only dealing with traditional students but you are dealing with a lot of non-traditional students like me. I have to lose out on a half-day’s work just to go take this exam. That’s a loss of money for my children and me that I am solely reliant on to pay my bills.           

               Hidden fees: They (BCTC and my professors) like to NOT explain that you need to pay an additional $25.00 fee for taking your exam. Our instructor requires that we have to have a proctor available for the exam since it is an online exam. I think that this is ridiculous. We are all in college, and we are not in high school anymore. This requirement takes away from the ability to take advantage of taking an online course.

               When I signed up for the course I was charged the normal $30.00 extra by the university for the “Distance Learning Fee,” and I am perfectly ok with that. I have seen first-hand what these guys have to go through to make sure that everything stays running and operates as it is supposed to. I was also charged a $10.00 Statistical Lab Fee. I mean really?!?!?! For what!??!?!?!? I may just be uneducated in why this fee is applied, but to me I don’t think that is fair. Because not only is there a distance learning fee, there is a statistical lab fee (which I’m pretty sure the majority of people can’t use the lab at UK – hence why they are taking online courses), and then the proctor fee.

               School is just becoming more and more expensive. I hate the way that Instructors and Professors are using these online homework sites. They cost extra money to the student and then on top of that you need to buy a book. I am the kind of person that has to have a book out in front of me in order to really understand the concept. I hate staring at a computer screen all the time, and I don’t think sitting at a computer all day is doing you any good. I enjoy taking my textbooks outside, on my porch, and watching my kids play, and reading a little. I refuse to haul my laptop around with me, especially outside where there is no telling what will happen to it.

So it looks like summer is back in session for me again! I was hoping to get by without having to take any courses this summer but due to some unforeseen circumstances I am enrolled in classes once again. There is a bright side to this though, they are ALL online once again J!!!! I couldn’t be more excited! (I know, I know, it sounds really nerdy to be excited for school but the advantages to being able to take online classes outweighs having to take classes on campus!) I have the ability to work around thirty hours a week here in the Dean’s Office at the College of A&S. I couldn’t have asked for a better job or a better place to work! With the fun, easy going attitude of the staff and faculty in the office, I have only the warm summer air to blame; it just makes this the most enjoyable workplace I have ever worked!

               Another really neat thing is that I have the same professor for Anthropology as last summer, the great and wonderful Dr. McDonald!!!! Last summer I embarked on taking ANT 160, however, due to a change in my major (it was biology and is now accounting and business management) I have to take ANT 101. Upset by Gatton, my new college, not accepting my ANT 160 course as credit for my USP requirement, I reluctantly decided to take it over the summer. Things just worked out for the better though! I have confidence in the material and the material that Dr. McDonald will present will bring me a step closer to understanding humans from many different perspectives, just as she accomplished last summer. I walked away from the ANT 160 course with a new found perspective on the things in my life that I took for granite; and the material discussed shined a new light on those people who are still living the nomadic life style.

               My other course that I am perusing is also one of my USP/pre-major courses that I am required to take, STA 291. So far, everything has gone pretty well other than some missing notes for the lectures for this past week. But, all is well; they were found and were downloadable from blackboard within a short few hours!

               An FYI: A lot of information needed for the course is found right in your syllabus!!!! I know from my point-of-view, I have received so many syllabi that it is ridiculous! But these things still serve a very vital role in every single course (I’m sorry guys, but I have had this stressed so much within the past week by my professors, that I felt like carrying on the same message).

Dr. McDonald kept the same sort of schedule, a day by day regime to stay on top of the course. Love this! It is much easier for me to see things on a day by day basis, know what I have to do ahead of time, and be prepared (it also serves the purpose to not be so overwhelming at times).  Professor Gebert has given a week to get three lessons completed as well as our lab. Pretty simple enough huh? 

There is no doubt that this semester I am sure will have its ups and downs, because, I mean, get serious, you are dealing with technology – and BlackBoard (which has a mind of its own sometimes!) Everyone just needs to stay patient, deal with the problems as they come… and remember to always not wait until the last minute to do your homework or test!