Got Privacy?

A Monday of school, I think I have this down now, it seems to be fitting into my daily routine, up at 6 am to make husband breakfast, feed cats, let cats outside for their daily exercise/sunbathing (more on that later) then to ponder on any reading I am supposed to have done BEFORE class starts, and then off to my first class of the day.....Old Testament History. Moving right along into Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.....after class back home for lunch, and well, better read some more before that class, Business Ethics, starts. Wow, it really is alot of reading. If someone would please make my Business Ethics book into a movie so I could watch it, that would be great. We had a great class this evening, we had to read a case study on the Bernie Madoff case, and we got to see a documentary on it, amazing how that Ponzi scheme went on for the longest time, and perhaps would still be going on if the economy hadn't made a turn for the worse.....turned in my topic for my research paper, "Protection of America, Are We in Good Hands?" Professor says it is big topic, need to narrow it down, only 6-8 page paper, so, it is now, "Got Privacy?" :-) I am having a day of reflection, stepping back from it all, and I have a light bulb moment! My children are the ones that started me down this education path after all of these years....two of them already with Bachelor's degrees and the youngest not far behind, college junior this year.....I don't know what they will all be when they get settled into careers, but right now, in this exact moment in time....they are all interns! One is interning on the east coast, doing a stint at a federal-agency-that-will-remain-nameless, suffice to say, America is being looked after by hers truly, (is that a phrase???) one is interning in Hawaii with the Department of Agriculture, making tomorrow's food plentiful and delicious and the other one is interning in California for a manufacturing endeavor.....wow! I am amazed at where they all find themselves at in this moment in time and what they are doing for the betterment of themselves and country. Tomorrow's leaders all! I think I will turn in now and see what kind of reflection the inside of my eyelids gives off.....:-) It's awfully dark in here....zzzzzzzzz.......

Mass Exodus

My second class of Old Testament History came along, we are now going through the Book of Exodus, where I find that Moses is leading the Israelites out of Egypt. This took them 40 years, wow, I thought I had it bad on trips with my kids constantly asking, "Are we there yet?" I cannot imagine how many times Moses must have heard that on the journey.... Flash forward to my stint in time travel. As you all recall, I had two classes at the same time July 1st, and I could only be in one place. Talking to my Business Ethics professor, I let him know of the conflict and asked him if I could miss just this once. He came up with a better solution. He is teaching the same course at the Hickam AFB location, so he invited me to attend the Thursday class. The first class should have been held that first week, but since it fell on July 4th, it was pushed to July 11th. So while I was going into the future, it ended up a glimpse into the past, because while their class was on the first chapter, my class was already on the 3rd. I decided to check out public transportation to get to Hickam, and I got there a little early, so I went to the commissary. The class was to go to 10 pm, so I bought LOTS of sugared items to keep myself awake, frankly I start winding down right around 8 pm. I made it to class, spent half of the class explaining to the students that I wasn't their classmate, I really belonged to the Mililani campus.....they seemed like a good bunch of students, I wish they were my classmates, and I just realized I have STILL not met my actual classmates and won't until July 22nd when we have our next "face-to-face" class. But I got to meet the Professor and he was very nice, so I think it will be a great class. He told us we would not be there until 10 pm as that was too close to his bedtime, so he let us out about 9:07 pm. I beat feet outta there because I needed to find a busstop and find a way off base before the bus stopped running. Not 10 feet out the door, I see a very empty bus pass me, headed for the AMC terminal. I just happen to know that this is the last stop the bus has before going off base, so it usually sits there for awhile. I walk at a very hurried gate and I realize the AMC terminal is much faster by car than by foot because it takes an agonizing long time to reach it, but YAY! the bus is still there. I pull out my $2.50 to get on the bus, the bus driver takes another 5 minutes or so on his break, comes back to the bus, and is like,"Where are you headed?" I let him know I am catching the bus to get off base, where I have to catch a connecting bus. He's like, "Well, we better hurry up and get you out there!" He tells me to hang onto my money since I am the only one on the bus and he gives me a transfer free of charge for the next bus. Wow, that is some Aloha spirit! :-) He is able to tell me exactly where to go to catch the next bus, and for that, I am extremely grateful. It is now about 9:39 pm, dark as ink outside, and I don't really like being out after dark on my lonesome. I had a 21 minute wait for the next bus, got right on, found a seat and was home by 10:22 pm. Soooo, I went back to the future in a BUS, but I think I will take that any day over a 40 year trip in the desert.....

Business Ethics or Homework Ethics?

When I said Old Testament History was really the only homework I had, what I meant was that it was the only homework I could do....let me explain.  Books needed for classes should either:
A) Be bought from school-you-are-attending bookstore,
or
B) Ordered from-other-place long before class starts.
There is option C) if you are into this newfangled technology, E-books, but we will save that for another day.
I ordered my Business Ethics book from Amazon.  I am a renter.  Yes, for a small fee and the promise to return the book when you are done with it, Amazon will rent you a book.  And, being a student, I qualified for "Student Amazon Prime" (1/2 price off of regular Amazon Prime).  When I hit the check-out button, I got to select my mode of shipment.  There were three options:
1) Free shipping
2) We-should-charge-her-extra-because-she-lives-in-Hawaii shipping
3)May-as-well-just-buy-the-book-from-the-school-bookstore-and-keep-the-book-as-much-as-you-are-gonna-pay-for-this shipping.
Now, because I have Amazon Prime, the book qualified for free shipping, and Amazon Prime is supposed to be 2-day shipping.  Like order it now, and get it in 2 days.  Two business days if you want to get technical. So I did not heed the delivery time warning (you will not get this book for a very long time), no I crossed my fingers, waived my optimism wand, and selected free shipping. 
Fast forward to the first day of class (memory jogger, July 1).  I looked at the class syllabus and it said read chapter one before first class.  Well, I don't have the book, so I cannot read it, no problem, if you remember, I did not go to that class, so no one is going to know I didn't read the chapter.  Farther into the week, I read the assignment on the blackboard (the one on my computer), read chapter two and answer the following questions:
1) based on the chart on page 35, what group of people lost the most due to the Enron fiasco?
2) In your opinion, who was the most responsible for the Enron fiasco?
Alrighty, #2 could easily be googled and an opinion could be formed, but how to answer #1?  I looked at other people's answers to see what they said about the chart, (yes, other people were actually doing their homework and posting it for all to see) but it wasn't clear from their answers what this chart looked like. Also a timed test had now popped up for us to do.....
I went on Amazon's website, tracked the book, and lo and behold, the mail carrier's estimated delivery was Saturday, two days before homework was due. Whew!  Dodged a bullet on that one.  Saturday comes and goes, no book.  Went on-line to track it, tracked it to.....Honolulu.....I see that the book made it to Honolulu, Saturday at 0430 hours.....it was too tired to finish it's journey (8 miles) so it got a hotel for the weekend, saw the sights, played on the beach, etc. 
I decide to be honest with my Professor, (it being Business Ethics and all) and explain the situation.  I give him a heads up that I have yet to get my book, and if it makes Monday's mail, I will try my darnedest to complete all tasks before the deadline (2359 hours Monday evening).  He was actually really great about it, he mentioned a website (centage.com) that would sell me chapters of the book electronically (basically $4.50 a chapter for my particular book), and I thought that was an excellent resource if it came to that.  Book finished suntanning and made it in Monday afternoon, I hunkered down and ignored the outside world, and by oh, about 9 pm Hawaiian time, had a 100 percent on the chapter two test, and had answered questions 1 and 2.  I am not gonna lie and tell you I understood the chart on page 35 even after I got to see it with my own eyes, but I felt better trying to answer the question once I had seen it, instead of pretending to have seen it and copying someone else's answer, so there you go, a lesson in homework ethics.

Digital Homework

Well, my first day of classes were Monday, July 1st,  and they got over in the evening, the following day I had a wedding to attend see picture below:

Then I figured a visit to my youngest was in order, spent the night over at her dorm and then home right in time for the 4th of July!  Well, before you knew it, Friday was here and I started thinking I should look into doing my homework.  So, that is what I did.  Looked.  Into.  It.  Decided against it and goofed off the rest of the day.  Saturday, well, pressure is on, homework is due Sunday, at midnight.  Kinda unclear on whose midnight though, I am told that the blackboard is in a different time zone, so while I may want to wait until Sunday midnight Hawaiian time to turn in my homework, blackboard programming could mark me 5 hours late, due to them being 5 hours into the future.....well, anyway, I am a procrastinator, definitely I would put myself in that category, but I am a overzealous one.  Meaning, I am so eager to procrastinate that sometimes I get ahead of myself and get done ahead of schedule.  So, Saturday seemed like a good day to start.  The only thing I really had homework for was Old Testament History, so I logged onto Blackboard for the questions.  150 words on one of 5 Patriarch figures from Genesis, telling either their positives or their negatives and how we could learn from them.  Then a 100 word blog posted on blackboard discussing the significant points in our reading.  I started reading the Bible in book form and that was putting me to sleep, so I figured, why fight it?  I took a nap.  When I woke up, I started reading the Bible on the computer, and somehow, this was faster.  After I had read enough to substantiate 150 words on Joseph, I posted my "thread" on blackboard.  Then I blogged for another few minutes and homework was out of the way.
Overall, I feel good about my digital on-line homework experience.  No trees were cut down or harmed in any way, so I feel this is definitely a plus.  I do not have a back up generator, and if the GI Bill doesn't kick in soon, I may not be able to pay my light bill, this may be my only excuse to get out of homework, I guess the age old excuse, "the dog ate my homework," no longer applies.

Three Classes, Not All Created Equal.....

If anyone was wondering what the significance of the first blog post being titled, "In the Beginning, there was Genesis," well, wait no further.  The three classes that I am taking are as follows:
1) Old Testament History
2) Business Ethics
3) University Life
My class load is considered full time because they are 8-week, accelerated courses.  My three classes all fall on Monday, here is what my schedule looks like:

10 am to 12 pm---Old Testament History
5:30 pm to 10 pm--- Business Ethics AND University Life.

Yes, you read correctly, I have two classes at the SAME time.  I have devised a plan to clone myself and be in two places at once.  Here is how it went down this past Monday.

Old Testament History, started promptly at 10 am.  Professor introduced himself and we looked around the room to see who was taking the course with us.  I was identified as the only female in class....sigh....so I got all the "Eve eating from the forbidden fruit" comments directed towards me, but not to worry, I was enlightened that it was actually Adam's fault, because God had told him not to partake of the fruit, and it was Adam's job to convey the message to Eve, and well, we definitely see what bad communication skills Adam had.  Some class reading was assigned, and I was told that by the following afternoon (Tuesday), I could look at the blackboard to find the questions I would be answering, based on the reading.  Wow, they sure do things differently these days, back in my day, they put things on the blackboard during class, you copied it down in class so you could take it home with you.  Later, I relayed this information to one of my kids (they are all very bright) and she said, "MOM, they mean an on-line system, called, "Blackboard."" So, after gaining access to the University's web of confusion, I mean website, I was able to set up a blackboard profile where I can now turn in homework and post discussions that will be read by my fellow students.  You would think that since this system is called "blackboard," when you write something it would be called "chalk," but it's not, it is called, "thread."  I don't get it......
 Well, that class ended promptly at noon, and I had 5 1/2 hours to come home and tell hubby all about my one class.  My first day of class.  Who the professor was, what he did for a living when he wasn't teaching (pastor on Pearl Harbor Naval Base) what the people in my class looked like, what I thought they did when they weren't in the classroom based on what they said in class, and what they looked like, epic fail when they asked if anyone was active duty military, the two clean shaven men did not raise their hand, but the guy with a full grown beard raised his hand, so now I am wondering if he is working as a special agent????? Hubby got a glazed look in his eye and went to take a nap, I was left to my own devices.
5:30 rolled around and it was time to be a clone.  Show up in two different classrooms.  Yep, that was my mission.  I struggled with gravity, I tried to go to the future and have two each of me come back to the same time, but the laws of physics weren't working for me that day, note to self:  Take Physics!
So, off to University Life I went.  Yep, it sounded like the funner of the two classes, and besides, I had already arranged to go into the future (July 11th) and attend the first Business Ethics class of the semester, maybe this time travel thing would work after all!  ( I will explain later, for those interested in time travel)
University Life was very informative, I found out how to create a university email, I got my student ID, and heard all about blackboard....(should have had this class first).  Took a quiz to find out what kind of learner I am and I discovered I was auditory tactile learner.  We were out of class by 7:30 pm, not bad for a first day!
Thanks for tuning in, next up, homework, to do or not to do, or when to do?

In the Beginning.....there was Genesis......

So, here I am after 27 years, going back to school.  I texted my daughter (the one who likes comedic one-liners) and said," Yo Momma Goes to College."  Technically I have taken classes in the last 27 years, but nothing full time.  Now, thanks to all you tax payers out there and Uncle Sam, the Post 9/11 GI Bill is paying my way to full time college!  Today was my first day of school, and after much pestering of the husband and many failed picture attempts, I finally have this picture to show for it.

I had told my husband that it was customary to have "first day of school pictures," and he was muttering under his breath that he had never heard such a thing for college students....I had to finally let him get back to work because after like 7 pictures, the camera was not capturing what the mirror was telling me I looked like, ie, the mirror was being polite and showing subtle shading, however, this new "smart" phone was showing EXTRA lighting features that frankly, no one wants to see in a first day of school picture, I mean, bags under the eyes??????  The picture that finally made the cut was taken by yours truly and "WeChatted" to middle daughter so she could "Instagram" it for her ma.  She asked, "Any effects you want specifically?" I reply,"Make me pretty, whatever it takes."  She says, "Don't need to change anything then."  Wow, that girl is golden.  Well, anyway, she sent it right back to me, and viola!  Oh, and she says, "I posted it on Instagram." Lovely.  Later, I read her blog, and the picture made it there too, congratulating me on my first day of school. 
 http://toomuchinformationbyariale.blogspot.com/
 I tell my husband I made her blog and I told him,"See, I told you we had this thing about first-day-of-school pictures."  And he laughs, he gets it now.....I think......