Ahhhh, Monday! Not my normal reaction to Monday, but then, this is no ordinary Monday. Having just finished a very tough week at school, I am faced with five days of no classes, no presentations, no assignments to submit, and no alarm clock! Normally, I don't complain about school. I consider myself very lucky, if not absolutely blessed, to be a full-time college student majoring in a subject which fascinates me, landscape architecture. Having spent the past thirty years raising four children (most of that time as a single mom) and working in a series of marginal jobs that, for the most part, never challenged me or paid enough, I finally took the plunge last August and returned to school. I have an Associate's Degree in Management from Johnson & Wales University, which I earned when I was 22. But most of the ensuing time between my 22nd and 52nd birthdays was spent working as a bookkeeper, customer service representative, photographer, office manager, newspaper layout artist, proofreader, and warehouse clerical. It was that last job, working for a Target distribution center, that broke this camel's back. The semiannual Target chore of self-evaluation keep confronting me with the fact that I was bored with my job and had nowhere to go in the company without a degree. Coupled with that was a supervisor who sincerely believed that he could make me into "Superclerical!" (for which I suspect I would have needed, at the very least, a red cape). I just knew in my heart of hearts that I did not want to be any kind of clerical, let alone one with super powers, for the remainder of my working life. I tried online classes and found that they required a huge time commitment. My favorite online class, a seminar on Shakespeare, took at least 20 hours a week, between reading, writing, re-writing onto the computer, and commenting on other class members' posts, a class requirement. I looked into evening classes at local colleges and found that virtually all led to bachelor's degrees in vague things like "General Education". I found myself being drawn to course descriptions with environmental, psychological or design components, until I discovered landscape architecture, a field that combines elements of all three. Fortunately, the major was offered by my state university, and the one college where it was offered had decided to increase its class sizes at the same time I happened to apply. In one of those all-too-rare serendipitous events, they offered me a spot in their sophomore class and I jumped at the chance like an Olympic athlete in training. I left Target (where my former supervisor is still waiting for me to see the folly of my ways) and re-entered the college environment. It's been a trip. I love my classes but have juggled the workload at times. Last week, I had to submit a major design proposal and three computer graphics assignments, study for and take two history exams, present an informative speech, and endure a "jury crit" whereby each student explains their studio design in front of four faculty members and about 50 students, and then is subject to the verbal critique of their design by the aforementioned faculty "jury". It is an unnerving and emotional process desigend to toughen students and prepare them for the real world. Well, even though I've been slapped around by the real world more times than I care to remember, this process still takes a lot out of me. And coming as it did in a week full of additional stressors, I was not sure how well I would fare. Suffice it to say, I survived. I probably scored very well on my two exams (funny how much more interesting I find history nowadays than I did when I was a teen), and will get respectable scores on all the other assignments. But I was never more ready for a spring break than I was last Friday afternoon. And even though the outside temperature is below freezing and there is snow and ice on the ground, and I cannot afford to go anywhere tropical, or even seasonably warm, I am celebrating, enjoying my much-deserved rest, and girding myself for the next round of stressors which will undoubtedly begin next Monday and continue until the end of April. It's tough, but it beats being a Target clerical any day!
