I woke up this morning at 5:30 and prepared myself for my first real dealings with Empire State College. I drove 1 hour and 15 minutes to Latham, New York, arrived a little early, had some coffee, and promptly set myself up for expectations and resentments. The morning was spent listening to very dull, but necessary and required, presentations from assorted admissions people. Mostly stuff about what goes on academically, who to talk to in case of any trouble or need, financial aid information, etc…Like I said, all necessary, but, oh, so boring. I give the ladies credit, though, they tried so hard to make it interesting. I fell asleep during the financial aid section. I was also ‘given’ my mentor, a man by the name of Charles Fox. If his resume is anything to go by, he’s the genius who will be directing my academic career from here on out. I was very impressed, and was looking forward to meeting him during the lunch break.
He never showed.
At that point all of my resentments and anger started swirling in my head, and if it weren’t for my few years in recovery, I would have listened to them. Instead I realized that I wasn’t in control, life on lifes terms was in action, and that there was surely an honest and reasonable excuse for his absence. I practiced restraint of tongue and pen, and filled out my evaluation questionaire honestly as well. I gave them all high marks except for the lack of mentor. Then I drove home, exhausted.
Dr. Fox called my home 5 minutes before I drove up the driveway. So I called him back. All is well, and I will be enrolling in Empire State College next Friday, when the two of us meet and discuss my learning contract and my future. I am planning on starting in September, regardless of my in-state status. I feel that I should not wait until January of 2006 to make this move. This needs to happen now, while I’m hot-to-trot and ready-to-go.
Now it’s 10:30PM. I’ve had a full day of driving (4 hours), sitting in lectures (5 1/2 hours), a meeting (1 1/2 hours), and a nap somewhere in between (1 1/4 hours). I know, I’m missing 5 hours somewhere…
Did I mention I’m watching a lot of X-Files? 😉
Johnnyboy
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