I'm Getting Old AND One Of Life's Little Triumphs

There are all sorts of things in life that might make us feel old, and if I wanted to, I could discuss random aches and pains or my disinterest in most forms of social media.  But I think a more important aspect of aging for me is the sharp reduction in procrastination in my life.

I don't think I was ever as bad as they come in terms of procrastination.  But going back to school in my late thirties has given me a chance to compare myself as a student at two very different ages.  When I was in my early twenties and had an assignment due in two weeks, I usually didn't worry to much about it, figuring I had plenty of time and what could possibly go wrong.  Now if I have an assignment due in two weeks, I feel like it should already be done and worry about what sorts of obstacles will pop up to prevent me from finishing it.

School is the area where it's easiest for me to see my change in mindset, but it happens in other areas of life, too.  Generally speaking, if I know there's something I need to do, I want to get it done so I can stop thinking about it and wait for the ten more things that will immediately pop up on my to-do list.  Not that I never put anything off, mind you--it's just less often, and usually with a good reason (e.g., a problem that I think will resolve itself if I leave it alone).

This brings me to one of life's little triumphs:  The institution I referred to as University B in my last blog post has finally decided to let me enroll in classes there this summer.  (I'm almost hesitant to write about this triumph, lest I jinx myself and find that University B finds some loophole to unenroll me!).  But right now, I'm so relieved.  For one thing, I really do need to take these classes this summer, and if University B had refused to let me enroll, I would have just had to enroll somewhere else.  But also, at this point, I've been dealing with University B for around a month.  It was that thing from my to-do list that refused to be checked off.  I purposely applied early, thinking I could enroll early and then forget about the whole thing until it was time to start classes.  At this point, I won't have quite as much time to sit back and forget about the whole thing, but I'll happily take what I can get.

Trying To Finish One Set Of Steps...So I Can Start Another

Oh, the joys of educational bureaucracy!

I've written here a few times about taking evening classes.  Well, since these classes were prerequisites for a graduate program, they were finite in number....and I'm almost done!  With one little catch...

When I started taking class at at University A, I enrolled in a specific post-baccalaureate program.  This program offered many of the prerequisites for the graduate program I was interested in, but not every possible class that every program might require.  The advantages to the post-baccalaureate program were that the classes were offered in the evening (thus making them about as compatible with a full-time job as you're going to get), and that I wouldn't have to compete with traditional undergraduates to enroll.  The disadvantage was that I was allowed to enroll only in this particular set of classes.

This all worked quite well for a while, but I now have two science courses to take that are not included in the post-baccalaureate program.  I decided to enroll in University B, an open-enrollment university with an emphasis on online course offerings.  What could possibly go wrong?

Plenty, as it turns out.  For reasons I don't understand, the fact that I am currently taking a class at University A may preclude me from taking classes at University B.  I discovered this when--despite receiving many form emails from University B reminding me to enroll in classes--I was blocked from enrollment.  I spoke to and emailed several people at University B, and was ultimately told that I needed permission to enroll from University A.  The problem is that since I'm a non-degree seeking student, University A does not care where else I choose to go to school and has no mechanism to provide me with any such documentation. 

With some more follow-up, University B now seems willing to accept verification of enrollment (which shows no enrollment past this spring) from University A.  Naturally, University A was only able to send this by snail mail (why?!).  I sent an email to University B today to see if they had received it yet.  I've been working on enrolling at University B for about a month now, and I'm anxious to enroll in the classes I need before they fill up.  (While I'm assigning creative pseudonyms to universities, I'll mention that this is all so I can start a master's program at University C in the fall.  So, I'm on the clock at this point to finish everything up.)

Do I have any words of wisdom to impart from this experience?  Not really, because I still don't understand the problem. I'm not sure why it should matter to either University A or University B where else I might be taking classes.  The closest thing I have to useful knowledge about this is to start early when dealing with universities, especially if you're trying to do something even remotely unusual.  I wouldn't have guessed that taking prerequisites from two different universities was all that unusual, but maybe it is.

I remain hopeful that this enrollment business will work out in the end, however, and I'm very excited to see a light at the end of the tunnel!  I've been fortunate to be able to take so many classes using tuition remission, but there's no getting around the fact that taking classes while working is a tiring experience.  In addition to it being tiring, the outcome was also uncertain for a long time.  There was no guarantee that I would get into a graduate program, and completing these prerequisite courses on their own was unlikely to open very many career doors.  I'm happy to see my free time gamble pay off, and I'm looking forward to the next set of steps.

Spring Breaking In The Cold

Scott and I made a trip to Vermont last week, over his spring break.  We did something similar last year, but his break fell later in the year then, so it seemed somewhat more spring-y then.  We had fun this year, though, in spite of the remnants of snow.  And there is something to be said about having a spring break somewhere where you're pretty sure nobody is filming the next installment of Girls Gone Wild.

Middlebury wanted to keep its residents safe.  Good thing--those icicles have been known to kill people!

Montpelier had an ice skating rink in front of its state capitol building!

But alas, safety considerations prevented anyone from using it.  As a native of North Carolina, I have to ask:  When is the ice ever safe?

In Burlington, we saw seagulls standing on a patch of ice in Lake Champlain.

I'm relieved to say that while there was snow on the ground in Vermont, none actually fell while we were there.  It's been an odd winter, with plenty of late season winter storms to go around.  I think the season has truly changed in our neck of the woods, as we were greeted with this beautiful spring scene when we returned home.

Airport Epiphanies

Generally, I think that viewing other people as individuals, rather than representatives of some group, is a sound idea.  Don't judge a book by it's cover, you know what happens when you assume, etc.  However, I sometimes often fail to live up to my idealized vision of myself, and in the interest of self-improvement, I'm coming clean about my failure to see one group of people in particular as individuals:  Other People at the Airport (henceforth OPA)

OPA are nothing but obstacles to things I want in the airport.  When they're ahead of me in the security lines, I just know they haven't flown since sometime in the 1990's and will be completely clueless about all things TSA.  They will have worn knee-high lace-up boots and scattered twenty containers of liquid toiletries throughout their carry-on, rather than putting them in a quart-sized bag.  They will also hog all of the bins.  Because of them, I will miss my flight, or at least not have time to buy food before it.

When OPA get coffee in the airport, I just know they will spend ten minutes crafting the perfect order.  This will spiral into even more time as the barista stops everything to make said specialty order.  They will cause me to forgo my beverage or miss my flight.

I can't speak for male OPA, but female OPA are problematic even in the restrooms.  When they get ahead of me in line, I just know they will inexplicably park themselves in the stall for the next twenty minutes, and probably pee on the toilet seat before finally leaving.

And of course we know that once we finally get on the plane, it's those awful OPA who have hogged all of the overhead bin space.

I laughed when I realized how I was generalizing about all OPA, but then I realized...to someone else, I am OPA, the imagined obstacle between the airport and the final destination.  In the future, I'll try harder to be nice in the airport so as to improve the image of our downtrodden group.

I Think The Calendar Misled Me

I thought it was spring, but this is by far the most snow we've gotten this year.  I won't complain, though, since it gave me a day off.  My rule for winter weather is that it either needs to be eventful enough to get me out of doing something (usually that something is going to work at this point in my life), or it shouldn't happen at all.  I've never really bought into the idea of snow being beautiful, and spend a lot of time griping when it makes my commute cold and slippery.  It's been a very odd winter here, and I wouldn't necessarily rule anything out, but I have to think this will be our last major (I am fully aware that this term is relative) snowstorm of the year.

Making Pants Is A Lesson In Patience

I've mentioned my foray into sewing at least a couple of times on this blog.  I also recently mentioned some of my pants-fitting problems.

I know I'm not unique in my pants woes.  I've heard and read complaints by women of all ages, shapes, and sizes about the problems of finding reasonably flattering jeans, in particular.  Some women find a budget brand that works reasonably well with their body; others feel compelled to shell out for designer varieties in order to not feel self-conscious in their own clothing.  The trouble with pants in general (and maybe jeans in particular, due to the material used) is the number of body parts they have to fit.  There is a lot of room for problems with both appearance and comfort.  Where my problem comes in is that I am confined to the small subset of women's pants that have a 36" inseam.  From there, I have to try to find a pair that works reasonably well with my waist, hips, etc.

For all the reasons that it is difficult to buy pants that fit well, it is also difficult to make pants that fit well.  But given the rather small selection of ready-made pants I have to choose from, it seems like a good skill for me to try to master.  I've had what one might call incomplete success with pants-making in the past.  I made a couple pairs of drawstring pants that I liked as a teenager, but I don't think those make the best work clothes now.  More recently, I made a pair of wide-legged pants (only wore once, as they were clownishly wide-legged), and a pair of slim-fit pants (only wore once, as the mystery fabric I used to sew them became weirdly baggy throughout the day).  I decided to try again recently, using the wide-legged pants pattern (but making the legs more narrow to avoid the clown look) and using a higher quality fabric.

I started out by re-tracing the wide-legged pants pattern and making the legs a smaller size than my waist and hips.  I basted them together to test fit, and they were still ridiculously large.  Oddly, the fabric was really pooling in the back leg pieces.

I ripped out some of the basting stitches, took an inch off each of the back leg pieces, re-basted, and tried the pants back on.  It was an improvement, but still pretty clownish.  I ripped out the basting stitches again, and took two inches of width off of each back leg piece.  I re-basted, tried them on, and decided this was an acceptable fit.  Back to the sewing machine to sew and finish real seams.

I then constructed a waistband from the pattern pieces that came with that pattern.  I sewed it to the pants, and--just for kicks--decided to try it on again.  Good thing I did because the waistband was just not going to work--the waistband curve was completely wrong for my proportions.  I put it aside and sulked for a couple days.

It finally occurred to me that the waistband from the slim-fit pants that I sewed from mystery fabric fit me pretty well.  I new waistband pieces from that pattern, sewed them together, and put that waistband on my pants.  Success (at least comparatively speaking)!

The final patience-tester of these pants was botching cutting open the buttonhole for the hidden button closure (I put a lot of Fray Check on it, and am hoping for the best).  But they are done now, and I can say that I did everything I could to ensure that these are pants I will want to wear.  Sadly, my photography skills turned out to not be up to the task of providing a decent picture of this triumph, but I'll try wearing them to work later this week and let that be the test of my pants-making skills.  Whatever happens, though, much like my botched buttonhole, my patience is frayed, and I think I'll try sewing something else next.

One Person's Trash Is Another Person's Treasure

I'm going to be deliberately vague about the circumstances surrounding this story, but I've been giggling about it ever since it happened, so I wanted to share.

I'm part of an organization that hosted an event catered by a local deli.  When this deli delivered the food, it included a ginormous container of lemon wedges.  Seriously, they must have cut up five or six lemons to fill the container they provided.  In my mind, this was an excessive quantity, especially considering that they were meant to go with a mere gallon of iced tea.  Suffice to say, we had a great many lemon wedges left over.

After this event, I was working with a couple of other people to triage the remaining food.  I asked them what they wanted to do with the lemon wedges, and wasn't surprised when they told me to toss them.  However, maybe a minute or so later--after I had already turned my attention to some of the other remaining food--someone who's part of the organization but wasn't part of this event piped up that she would like to have the lemon wedges.

I can see speaking up for something like sandwiches or a fruit plate, but lemon wedges?  Something that combines inexpensiveness, ease of preparation, and lack of palatability in the absence of some other food item?  Doesn't asking for a leftover container of lemon wedges pretty much cement your reputation as an excessively frugal eccentric?  I think if I had wanted something like leftover lemon wedges, I would have tried to abscond with them quietly for fear of drawing too much attention to my idiosyncrasies.

When I broke the bad news that I had already deep-sixed this valuable item, this person just gave me a dirty look and walked away. 

Am I a wasteful person who just committed the food equivalent of blowing my nose on dollar bills?  Have I made an enemy for life by throwing out a container of lemon wedges?  Was I just dealing with an extreme case of someone taking life's lemons and hoping to make lemonade?  Whatever the case, it was worth the entertainment it brought me.