Day 66

Good evening everybody. Last night I faxed over 'everything' i had to the financial aid department, and to the veteran affairs department at the University of Phoenix. The stuff for my GI bill was only 2 pages, which consisted of a cover page and the single page I filled out via adobe acrobat reader. The stuff for my financial aid was a bit more lengthy. The day before yesterday, they emailed me saying that I had in fact been selected for verification. Basically what that means is that based on my fafsa, it was decided that they needed my 2008 taxes to verify information. Usually it's just that, verification. As soon as you turn that in, then they are able to process your financial aid.

I had parts of our tax information because of having to jumble them around while trying to submit them over and over to AMU, so what I did was yesterday when Zoe and I went out to get us all food, we stopped at HR block and they printed 2008 and 2009 off for us, including state taxes and federal. I think I already mentioned that my plan was to just turn in every single thing, including 09 so that they would have nothing left to ask me about. All in all, it ended up being 38 pages with both 2008 and 2009 state and federal tax information. Well, today I got an email from school VA office saying to allow 3 days for them to process. I then got an email from the financial aid department saying that my file appears to be complete, and that there was nothing else that I needed right now. They said the next thing for me to do was to contact my actual financial aid representative that is assigned to me for certification. So I called and ended up leaving him a voicemail. As far as I know, I'm good to go. I'm sure they will let me know otherwise. I will be happy when 1) I start classes officially, and 2) when I see the financial aid, including grants, loans, and the GI bill, being processed and paying for my school.

Although class hasn't started yet, I'm still in the New Student Orientation workshop. It is 3 days long, and so far I have completed 2 days of it. Each day there are different things you have to do, all have to do with learning more about the University of Phoenix student portal. The more I navigate it, the more confident I am. It doesn't seem too difficult. I've noticed that compared to other students taking this mini-class, when we are posting our answers to questions asked about something we did or read on the site, my posts have been much more lengthy. I guess because I took classes online before, I know online teachers want substantive messages, which basically means that you don't just write things like "I think the answer is this because _____."

They have all wanted more than that. Erin can tell ya, as she is an online student as well. They usually want something like "The thing that brought about the such and such event was this. A few examples of some of the things that they have done are as, _____, _______, and ______. _____, which we all know very well is the resulting factor from when you combine the two elements of. . . ."

Etc, Etc. Sorry, I bet you were reading that going "What the hell is he talking about?" I wasn't actually talking about anything. I was basically just writing, thinking up a generic example of how you'd begin to write a response to a question in a forum as an online student. It's not so hard.

So anyway, this morning I guess Erin was tired. She didn't have to work, and so like I usually do, I was hoping to be able to sleep till 2 so that I would be nice and rested. Well, Zoe was awake before 11, and hollering out "MOMMA! DADDA!" from her room. Erin rolled over and nudged me saying "She's calling for you." Me, half asleep and knowing I hadn't gotten much sleep yet, of course was like "yeah but it's only 11! I only went to bed by 6:30!" But, reluctantly, I got up and went downstairs with Zoe. Although I was upset about that like I usually am, while Zoe and I watched stuff on netflix I got onto my laptop and logged in and worked on the school assignments for today for the workshop. I learned today that apparently University of Phoenix has a place online where you can go to and get math help, math practice, etc, basically if you have math anxiety, there is something to help ya. There is also a sort of math placement application, where you take this 3 hour test and it tells you what your math level is.

One of the questions we had to post an answer to was asking us what the 2 applications would do for me as a student. I wrote about how although I seem to be good at math, I'm still anxious about it. I added to it with writing about how even though I'm good at math, that i'm not really a fan of it. That I would still go ahead and take the test to see where I'm at, as well as try to better myself.

We may not like some of the things we have to do at times, such as math, but sometimes it's best to still try to learn as much as we can. As they say, knowledge is power, and the more you know, the better. And I plan to finish my associates and my bachelors, along with everything else in life I have as goals, and be able to experience and know a lot. Through knowledge comes confidence as well. The more you know, I've noticed, the more confident you are in yourself. But have you ever had friends ask you something, and it was about something completely foreign to you? I have. It's not necesarily 'bad', since nobody knows everything, but if it's a rare topic and you happen to be aware of it, that doesn't hurt! Sometimes I am real big on reading news articles on cnn.com or the clintonherald, an then later I will be listening to John Tesh on the radio and he will talk about one of those topics. It could be someone escaped from prison, the oil spill, whatever, and when he mentions it, I get the "hey I know about that!" thought going through my head, and it feels good!

So, in closing, yes I realize I have been rambling. Erin and I had a little disagreement. Not really an arguement, we were both upset, but we weren't necesarily yelling or bickering, etc. Basically, when she got up around 2, by 3 I was done with my school stuff and I went to lay down to go to bed myself. It was closer to 4 by this time though. Erin commented how we never spend any time together currently. I dont think I said anything, but I know it is mainly because of work hours, school etc, and that once Randy's replacement comes sometime after the 21st, I will have 3ish days off per week again and things will improve. The money might not be super over time like it is now, but it will be better than it was before randy left, as the hours were increased. So, on that note, I will call it a night for tonight. I will write more for you all tomorrow.

Thanks for being here.

CB