November 4th. 

Yes, I do have updates. 

I missed the open house last week BUT the school where I will be attending ALLIANT UNIVERSITY is great about filling in the voids where they exist. My wonderful admissions advisor.. and hey I like her job. I was an admissions advisor for a "WILL NOT NAME" school and man I nearly had a nervous break down with all the stress and push push push they put on me... not my gal Gianna... I literally have to hunt that child down to talk to me. I prefer it that way. PLUS when I do finally catch her... she's got answers. AWESOME.

Okay so anyway... I spoke with her and HER supervisor today on a conference call. I had a list of about 7 sticky wickits and yes they answered them all BUT not all the answers where what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear that life was gonna be really easy for me during this process but... of course... it's not. 

STEP ONE:

Enroll... NOW. 

I wanted to enroll later. BUT in order to save me some money - which is another IMPORTANT factor, I need to enroll... NOW. Okay okay... I'll do it. BUT of course I have NO MONEY to enroll... again - Gianna is gonna try to fix that. LOVE IT. Helpful and I give a big HIGH FIVE star to ALLIANT on trying to make the impossible - possible. 

In order to finish my Preliminary Credential on time I need to start January 24th and then do my preservice hours (160) during the summer. ALL of this will be online. I can work with that! SO why didn't you want to do that Michelle. Wells Bells... I have not completed my CSET testing (4 TEST MANNNN) and I won't be finished prior to school starting... well unless I WANT to be finished by January 24th. WHICH now I think I NEED to be just so that I can get my results back faster and not have studying for them on my plate WHILE I'm trying to get coursework out of the way - and not while I'm adjusting to being back in classes... online at that.

So I will call Gianna back in a couple of weeks or so and hold her hand or better said... have her hold mine - through the enrollment process... WHICH will probably include some transcript action and that dreaded 4 page biography thingy, and all that other good stuff. I really would like to have a couple of classes taken off my plate from PREVIOUS coursework. So, I'm hoping my transcripts can make that happen.

NEXT STEP

I called financial aid... right?? HECK YEAH... no I haven't even enrolled but I'd like to have a CLUE how I'm supposed to pay for all this Jive.

Okay another GOOD thing is that I DO qualify for the TEACH GRANT... YESSS... pumping my fist like I just scored free tickets to a rock concert! It's not a TON but it is ONE free class per semester... and um YEAH I could def use that. 

He also said IF I go ahead and go for the M.ed. I'd get access to the grad plus loans... okay sure yeah I'll go for it because it's a Master's GRAD PLUS and not a Doctorate Loan... I can work with that but definitely. AND it's only 3 extra classes... that I can take all at once ONLINE... BOOOYA'LL and all while I'm working as a teacher (dancing some funky chicken type moves around my living room).

NOW the next thing is the BITSA(sp) um my CLEAR credential... well that's gonna be coming up sooner than later so I'm gonna be looking in to that like within the next month or so. 

SO where are we....?

We are freakin' out. 

I have to study for the CSET to be taken and hopefully passed by April but I do have until AUGUST at the latest... but who wants to wait until the last minute... biting NON existent nails to the quick.. NOT MOI. 

My question is this... will my online classes drive me BACK to having an online LIFE (i.e. facebook) DOUBT IT... because I 'virtually' don't have time for it. I'll be having a REAL TIME life which was - so - absent during my doctoral journey. This go round, I'm working as a teacher, I'm going to be in the ministry at least part time, studying for my ministry FULL TIME, I'm DOING classwork  full time, I'm planning my student lessons, oh and (slapping my head) I've actually made friends and have a LIFE now... derrrrrr. What a busy little BOOMER I am. I'm not quite an official senior yet - thus I can still call myself just a Boomer - I mean I only get 10% off at SOME places on some Tuesdays and well... ya know what I mean.

BTW, amidst it all, I’m still planning to go to NY on a tour in 2017.

So okay, life is starting to sound pretty doggone exciting. I'm so WITH THAT.

More later.