[8/2/12] So my last chance to sleep in for the summer didn't work out. At all.

Today was the last day of the entire summer that I could sleep in. I don't mean sleeping in until, like, noon or anything. I so wish I could do that.

I just wanted to sleep in for a bit since I had no where to be today. And school starts Monday and seminary starts Wednesday. We are in a period of mourning at our house. We are so not ready for school to start. My sister's kids got out of school the same day we did, and they also have a week off for Potato Harvest, and they don't start until the 20-something of this month.  So not fair.

The days of sleeping in are gone. Although we can sleep in on Saturdays. Sometimes. But still. There is something really nice about being able to sleep in during the week.

The plan was working wonderfully until I heard Hailey's "I have to go potty NOW" bark at 6:45 a.m. (Really?!). I was hoping someone else would hear her and get up and let her out, but John and Parker were already gone and my girls are very heavy sleepers. I so envy that skill.

So I sleepily stumbled downstairs and let the girls out to go potty. It is a really good thing they are so cute. Abby always takes a long time because she smells pretty much every single blade of grass before deciding where to do her business (how can the grass change that much from day to day?), so I got on my laptop to see what was going on in the world. Abby must have decided to smell every blade of grass AND every speck of dirt because she was taking a really long time, so I decided to check on the BYUI online course list to see if any new classes had been posted.

That, there, was my mistake.

I saw that the release date for 3 of my 4 English cluster classes had been changed -- to later!  This so did not work for me! A couple were not even being offered until after the semester I hoped to graduate!

I instantly went from feeling like this:

To feeling like this, although quite a bit more grumpier (yes, I know that is not Proper English, but it is how I was feeling!):

I was wide awake.

Abby finally came back in, I put them in their crates, and went upstairs. We do not trust them to be out alone while we sleep. They can be a bit mischievous sometimes.

I tried really hard to go back to sleep, but it wasn't happening.

So I got up. And I must admit I was not in a very happy mood.

Because, you see, I could extend my graduation date, but what if the release dates change again and are even later?

I do not want to go to college forever.  I want to graduate!

So promptly at 10 a.m. (8 a.m. Idaho time) I called the advising department and told them about the problem. The advisor I spoke with was very understanding and said she'd see if she could find another option.

Then I called Janine (my BYUI English professor sister) and told her about my problem. She doesn't work in the Online Learning department anymore, but she was very sympathetic. I must tell you, for a younger sister, she is very wise. She suggested I request the reinstatement of my Exercise Science cluster so that I could graduate on time. I told her it scares the bejeebers out of me to take that Anatomy/Physiology class I'm missing from that cluster since I haven't had biology since high school and that Anat/Phys class is one hard class! She said I could handle it, they have tutors for online, and after all, it's only a semester. "You can handle anything for a semester," she said. And a bit later, after some thinking, I realized that although I might not get an A, I wouldn't die. I really wouldn't. 

I told her I was thinking about doing a different cluster so I wouldn't have to take that horrible Anat/Phys class, and she said that by the time I took those 12 credits I could be 12 credits into the masters program I'm thinking of taking.

See, she is very wise.

Then I asked her about getting a Masters in English and how far behind I would be because of this change of plans. She said that when she started her Masters in English degree that she hadn't taken any other English classes besides the general/required ones.

Woohoo! That was like music to my ears because I've taken several English classes above and beyond the general/required ones.

We really should have had this talk much earlier.

She also said that getting a Masters in English, along with my minors in English and Accounting, plus my cluster in Exercise Science, would actually make me more marketable.

More music!

When I asked her about still having the option to teach online English classes with more of a technical writing masters instead of a more literature/analysis type masters, she said that the market is actually better for teachers who are more technically trained, and that they actually like more technically trained teachers for the general/required English classes. Unless I want to go on and get my Doctors degree.

No, thank you.

So I'm pretty excited about this change of events. I figured out my new schedule-of-classes-to-take and I can actually graduate ONE whole semester earlier!

Woohoo again!

So what started out to be a wee bit of a traumatic day has turned into a pretty good one.

But I really, really need a nap.

I've been staying up way too late watching the Olympics. Which has been so fun.

But not really conducive to getting enough much sleep. 

*Images courtesy of Microsoft Clipart Gallery