aaaannnd ..... DIVE!

I just totaled up my credits so far. Well, not so far. I just totaled up my potential credits by the end of this academic year, and I'm not "behind" at all! Because of PLA, I'm earning credits (okay, potential credits) really fast this year.

So far, there has been a one-credit investigative class last summer to find out about Prior Learning Assessment ...

then a six-credit PLA instruction class in the fall (which goes with 9 credits of courses I wrote for, so that makes 15 altogether for that quarter)...

then winter quarter just now finished, with a 3-credit mostamazingclassintheworld one weekend and a 3-credit online introduction to Marylhurst course (I'm glad that one is out of the way) ...

and now I've registered for spring. This is going to be fun! First, there's a really intriguing Lit course. "Nineteenth Century Literature and Culture: Secrets and Lies."

This course focuses on nineteenth-century British literature using the theme of secrets as a focal point in order to understand Victorian cultural attitudes towards topics such as spying, surveillance, domesticity, and cultural others. At the same time, we will consider how writers keep secrets from readers or provide unreliable information as a narrative or dramatic technique. We will read works by Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, and E.M. Forster. A Period Studies course.

What's not to love?

Then, I'll brush off my PLA writing skills and try to get as many papers as possible done before summer. The next PLA instruction course is only 2 credits though. They figure the student who has already learned the stuff should only need tutoring now - 2 credits instead of 6. That leaves an oddball credit hanging out there -- so I'm taking a one day course called "Problem Solving."

You should bring certain materials to class with you:
[ ] A few sheets of paper plus a pencil or a pen
[ ] one pair of scissors – for cutting newspaper
[ ] one dark crayon of any size; it does not have to be new; a loan from your little brother/sister or your child is authorized; instead of buying a new set of crayons, borrow one from your instructor or another student
[ ] one old towel having length shorter than from your nose to your outstretched wrist
[ ] one piece of old cardboard; it may be of circular or rectangular shape and it should be large enough to cover a garbage can; please do not buy a new posterboard; boxes available just outside any state liquor store will do after being broken apart.

When I was a kid, we took swimming lessons at the Y. This did not go very well for me. Chlorine and I are incompatible, for one thing. But I nearly figured out the breathing thing. I got very brave there for awhile. I dove once. I plunged in and pushed the water away from myself with one huge sweep of my arms, feeling the flow of water across my perfectly flipper-cupped hands in a great arc. I kicked hard. And then I skinned my nose on the bottom of the pool. I never tried to dive again.

I also went to school when I was young. I got pretty good at the breathing thing. But I overestimated the depth of the pool. I never tried to go to school again. Until now.

Deep breath ...