Goals For The Weekend

Seeing as how this may be my last weekend off for a long while, I have made up a list of what I need to get done, starting today:

Thursday (today) 

• Organize Korea papers in a binder
• Email Platteville to verify that they will send me the paperwork I need
• go through all paper work and files on computer and set up a portfolio
• start up a list of stuff I will need in Korea and begin to figure out what I'm taking with, shipping there, buying there, or other.
• do dishes and clean stove
• get laundry done
• make bed and pick up room
• vacuum house

Friday

• Pull and cut the buck-thorn in the yard
• Put ashes in back gardens
• Rake off all gardens and trim up dead plants
• Take dogs for a walk at Lion's Den
• get both grammar sections completed by today

Saturday

• Start going through clothes and getting rid of the stuff I didn't wear this winter
• make sure all seeds are planted and get set up in the basement with grow light
• clean out smokehouse and reorganize
• Start on garage organization, get rid of what I know goes
• Wash carpet in living room and parents room

Sunday

• Start going through music on laptop and figuring out which CD's to put on itunes
• Clean bathrooms
• Organize more of garage

Everyday I will keep up my exercises, which I have had to modify a little because of my knee continuing to hurt.  I am also keeping up on the calorie specific diet and it seems to be working. After this weekend, I won't have much left to do but work, and work on what I can in the yard, and stress about Korea.  I went to the Library a few days ago and got all three books they had on Korea and all i know now is I really Really want to go there.  Oh, and I also know that my libraries organization system makes no sense at all and they have a terrible selection of everything but romance novels and Christian philosophy.

Chugga, Chugga, Chugga

Things are still rolling along.  I have got everything turned in I can for Korea, I'm just waiting to get stuff back.  I am burning through my TEFL online course and I'll probably finish it up in the next two weeks, as well as the grammar section and whatever else I may have to get done.  One thing has slowed me up with this, I don't really know how to teach little kids.  I have started to make all of my lessons focus on classes I may actually teach and it is forcing me to think harder about the classes I am designing, but it is also really helping me out.

As for the whole job situation, I need to go to Madison on Monday and pick up a copy of my birth certificate since the passport place took my original.  I also need to go and buy some red shirts and Khaki pants.... Lame.  I hate two pieces of clothing more that anything in the world, red shirts and Khaki pants.  But at least I will have a job.

The weather is still awful and cold and snowy, but I am almost done planting my seeds inside.  My garden is going to be even more amazing than it was last year.  I have it almost all planned and then I will get some pictures up on here of the drawn up plans. Here is a preveiw of whats to come:

This will probably be the last Korea focused post for awhile since I am not going to be doing much besides work and gardening.  But never fear!  I shall have many other things to talk about as I begin night shifts and as the weather warms!

Now We're Getting Somewhere

Today was probably one of the most productive days I've had in a long time, and it is only half over!  

I got up bright and early this moring to go and get my Passport at the post office. My passport picture is terrible, big surprise, and I will defininetly be taking one here at my house and getting the correct size made up rather than use that one with my applications.

After the Passport stuff, I stopped off and got pet food, and potting soil and the last seeds I need for my garden.  Now I just need to get them planted, today hopefully, and draw up the plans for what goes where in which garden.  Oh, and I also need the stupid weather to figure out which season it is.

When I got home I made a lot of phone calls to different people trying to get stuff figured out.  I now have all the graduation stuff sorted away, finally, and I need to wait till I get my stuff in the mail in May.  I also found out that I don't have to change up my appointment for the doctor in April which is good, I didn't want to wait another two months to get this physical over with.  And I got everything except my fingerprints set for the Criminal Background Check request.

I headed out to the final interveiw at *sigh* Target.  As long as I pass the drug test tomorrow I should be starting up on wednesday working overnights.  After the interview, I attempted to do the drug test but the facility was packed so I am going first thing tomorrow.  Then I got my fingerprints, which was awful, they put me in a booking room.  Tomorrow I will mail in the stuff to the FBI and then I am all set until I hear back from James, who I will be emailing to update on all of this as soon as I am done here.

Tonight the rest of my plans include, completeing another lesson for my online course, cooking a delicious Chinese Speghetti and Meatball dinner, and doing some reading just for fun, maybe even a movie, and I will be doing my workout video and walking speed walking two miles.  My knee is still really sore from when I hurt it the other day, so I am hopng cuttung back on the workout video time and starting up walking again will help out.  The past three days I have stuck with a 1200 calorie diet and I'm starting to adjust to the food amounts.  I have also increased my coffee intake by about three times as much, but I refuse to change that.

Life is looking much better that it has in a long, long time.

These guys greeted me outside the Feed Mill. Just another wonderful part to the day!

Is That Sunshine Peeking Through?

As I sit in my parents living room, listening to our leaking roof drip into the bucket next to me, listening to the bluegrass country band, Cadillac Sky, I find myself imagining that I can see a little metaphorical sunshine off in the distance.

Even though I had all the lovely issues with college yesterday and I felt like my life was crashing down, when the sun came up this morning, I rolled out of bed, fed my pets and got in the shower to get ready for my job interview.  I just keep going, fighting my way through.  I have been thinking about the way I've lived my life up till now and I need to make some changes, changes I have been working to make for a while.  It is time to let go of the last of the things holding me back.

One of the things keeping me back is my ability to be okay with less then I really want.  I am a great "settler."  I always have been.  I settle for not quite the job, not quite the guy, and not quite the life I really want.  And I am done with it.  I deserve the life, job, guy, the everything I want out of life.  I have to start fighting back against a world that seems stacked against me.  Life is stacked against everyone, I know, but screw everyone else.  It is time for it to be about me.

So, starting today, I am going after the life I know I can have with every bit of fight I have in me.  I am done listening to the people telling me to be sure not to get my hopes up, or to make sure it's really a good idea to want what i do, or telling me to be realistic.  I am not stupid.  I now that I will be disappointed sometimes but not putting my whole heart into it will only do two things: stop me from getting what I want, and when I don't get it, I won't feel any less awful.

To those of you that love me and to those of you that may be telling me these things out of the goodness of your hearts.... Shut up!  Cheer me on and be there to help me get back on when I get thrown off.  Other than that, let me live my own damn life.  I love you all, but it's time to let me go off into the big blue world.

I think I may be done with this little rant.  I am going to go out and get done what I need to do today, and I am not letting fear and second guessing get in my way.  I am going to get my own little bit of sunshine in this deary, cloudy world.

GAH!!

I Hate The University of Platteville Wisconsin's Staff.

I am not talking about the professor's or even most of the support staff.  I am talking about the people who work in the offices that are supposed to be keeping track of my records.  They must really hire from the bottom of the barrel in those places.


Today I emailed the college to find out what date I would be receiving my diploma when I graduate in the spring.  I received an email back stating that I was not enrolled and asking how I intended to fulfill my ethnic and gender credits that I needed to graduate.  The email I got from them:

Hi Carly
Diplomas will be ordered after all degrees are posted.  Our office will receive them sometime in August 2011.
I see you not currently enrolled at UW-Platteville, will you be transferring credits back in for your degree?

I sent back an email telling them that I had already transferred those credits from Milwaukee and had received confirmation from their office that the transfer was successful.  I got back the following email:

 Hi Carly,

We have received your intent to graduate for May 2011.  It appears you were last enrolled here in Spring 2010.  When you left campus, you still needed an ethnic and gender course for your general education requirements and English 3950 Writing for Performance for the Creative Writing minor.  You are not required to complete the minor, but how do you plan to complete the ethnic and gender class?

Thanks

Again I replied to them stating that I had already requested that the ethnic and gender courses I took at UW-Milwaukee be counted for my ethnic and gender credits that were still missing and I had the letters from them stating the approval of those credits transfers and asked what else they needed me to send to them.  At this point they told me they had never gotten my transcripts from those courses even though I had sent them to then right after completing the course:

We haven't received a transcript with these courses on them yet.  Are you currently taking them or are you done?  Once you complete them, make sure to have an official transcript sent directly to our office.

I then told them that I was sending another transcript overnight to them from Milwaukee.  Now they want to know when I first sent to transcripts to them... like it matters.  I have requested the transcripts be overnight-ed to both them and to me so when I drive the three hours there on Wednesday, there is absolutely no way they can claim they have not received them.


And then to round out the day, I decided to order all the transcripts I needed for Korea from Milwaukee and to check how much it will cost at Platteville.  Milwaukee allows me to order the transcripts online and have them the next day.  This is what platteville has to say about transcripts:

To obtain your official University of Wisconsin Platteville transcript, you must submit a signed, written request to:

Registrar's Office
UW-Platteville
101 Brigham Hall
1 University Plaza
Platteville, WI 53818-3099

Online and phone requests are not excepted. Requests should be placed well in advance of date needed to insure adequate time for processing.

This is why.... I Hate The University of Platteville Wisconsin.