I joined the community a while back on LJ in which all posts are questions. It's interesting to read the random questions people post, along with the answers. Sometimes I spend a few minutes answering silly questions like, "What kind of houseplants do you have?" or "If you could have superpowers for a day, what powers would you have and what would you do?"

The other day, someone posed the question, "What in your life makes you happy?" and I was purely fucking stumped. Story of my life.

Aside from all that, everything's just mediocre. I'm taking a little time off next week from work. Just a few days to wrap up some school work. Actually, a few of those days will be spent vegging out in front of some movies or something. 2 tests, 1 research paper, 1 other paper, 1 retarded assignment that has nothing to do with computer graphic design for my computer graphic design final project, 1 presentation.... Yeahhhhh.... Now, mind, 3 of those things aren't due next week. I'd just like to get through with some of them, if I can. Less than a month to get my ducks in a row. I'm not overwhelmed by homework, but I was already a tired lump before school. It's worse now. Work, study, sleep, study while at work, read, watch a show, sleep, work, study, sleep. If I multi-tasked anymore, I'd probably die from blarghhhhhhhhhhh. (And wtf at spell check thinking multi-tasked should be mufti-tasked. That is not a fucking word.)

I keep telling myself that I'll do full time as long as I can. When school is too demanding, I'll cut back my hours. I'm hoping that next semester is more fun than this semester has been. This one's been a steaming pile of boring. History's been interesting, but the class itself is lame. Can't win them all, I guess.

Oh, look at that. It's bed time. 11-8 tomorrow. 5 day stretch will be over, and mini vacation of homework begins.

There is an extreme downside to taking online classes. Lesser downsides hit you along the way... The first being that online courses are more expensive than regular classes. Why is this? Do schools actually think they can justify making them more expensive to cover network costs. If that's the case, then they need to spend that money better and upgrade the fucking servers. They are slow as hell and time out more often than not.

The second downside is that the teachers for these courses are hit or miss. You might have one competent teacher who knows how to make a good layout, makes timely announcements, and keeps students informed of what exactly they are supposed to be doing each week. Or you might have a teacher with a horrible layout that you have to dig through every day to make sure you didn't miss something, makes announcements once a month, and doesn't explain jack shit about assignments. Most of my teachers are the latter. I have one class that has an ungodly ugly layout, another that hasn't made an announcement since the first week of school, and another who writes up assignments like she's having a seizure and forgets what she was thinking. She sent out a mass e-mail today saying most of the class didn't write their last paper properly. She didn't specify what was wrong exactly, just that it could be resubmitted. That's helpful. Was I one of those people? I don't fucking know.

I have another class that is entirely done through a separate website sponsored by the book's publisher. I'm not sure how much the teacher of that class is even involved with the course. She still gets paid for it, I'm sure. It still costs the same as other online courses, even though the interaction with a human at any point in time with the class is nil.

But here's my biggest beef with my online classes this semester. So far, with the exception of the history class (and that's purely because the text is interesting), I haven't learned shit. This is the biggest risk of online classes. I would say any classes, because I faked my way through quite a few over the years, but online are particularly hazardous.

My graphic design book is crap. I read it, but have yet to absorb anything. Everything covered so far is stuff I learned in high school. And it doesn't have any clearly defined terms to keep in your mind. I bet my first test in this class is going to be a bloody nightmare. This is the class with the spaz teacher. Read this! I'm not going to tell you what to study, just read that and pray the mess of pointless words MEAN something to you. Yeah, okay. So far, she's had us do 12 blind contour drawings. Do you know what those are? They're the drawings you do without looking at the paper for the entirety of the drawing. The first one was an apple (3 times, then later 3 more times). 10 minutes for each one. How the...? Unless I'm drawing like 1 centimeter a minute, I can't stretch that drawing into 10 minutes. It's a fucking apple. Round shape. Usually comes with a stem. 10 minutes. Suck my dick.

We used to do these in high school art class. 1-2 for Drawing I. I thought they were dumb then, and now I just resent them. "Learning my line" whatthefuckever. I wouldn't be so angry, but the gov't and I are paying for this shit. Teach me something, dammit.

The web design class is something I've taken before, so I haven't even cracked my books open yet. I could do the entire semester's projects in one weekend. I might do that if I start stressing out over other classes.

The intro to information systems makes me feel like I should be 70 years old and learning how to use a computer at the local library. That's the one that's on the private website (which cost $135 for the book & code to get into). Hurr dee durr what's an OS?

The history class, which is my favorite so far, is the only one where I'm learning something. I haven't studied history that wasn't just literature (like Homer or Benjamin Franklin) in years. I got a 104/104 on the first exam. However, I don't know if the next ones will go as smoothly because he gave us plenty of time to study. I just wish his course page wasn't such a mess... and that he took more control of the assignments instead of letting us, the students, pick and choose what percentages of our grade come from what.

I wish they'd all give more feedback. I'm not psychic. I'm a month in, and I don't know if I'm doing things right or wrong. I should ace all this shit, but I have this sneaking doubt that I'm going to fuck up somewhere just because I couldn't read one of the teacher's friggin' minds.

Yesterday went better than I was expecting... run-around, aside.
"Go here." "No, go there." "No, you need to go there." Hour and a half later... after they don't call my number....

I'm enrolled in four classes. They're all online because the first was online only, the second only had 1 class and it was on Tue/Thur, the third had 1 class which meets Mon/Wed... well, you get the idea. I'm not sacrificing decent shifts at work to drive to campus for one class a day. This also spares me from buying a parking permit this semester.

I'm studying graphic design, so I have to take a ridiculous intro to information systems course. I took a similar class several years ago that was a prereq for web design classes. Oddly, I'm not stuck taking an intro to web design class, also. I could probably test out of it, but I don't want to deal with the school... and I need a refresher on CSS. I taught myself HTML years ago, then took a class on it (didn't buy the book... because why the fuck would I?), so these first two courses will be bunny courses on turbo mode.

In addition to those, I'm taking intro to graphic design. I could probably finish the homework for the entire semester in one week if I really tried, but I will humor the e-learning bullshit with timely updates and submissions. Lastly, I'm taking HIS 104: Western European history up to the 17th century.

You are probably thinking, "That's awfully random. 3 IMD courses and a history class?"

Well, the history class isn't for the graphic design degree. Some years ago, I finished everything I needed for an associate in arts. I never got the degree because I was going to transfer to EKU, and they told me that getting that degree would interfere with my credits there. After EKU royally fucked me with a rolling pin, I never bothered getting the paper work for the AA.

The requirements for the associates in arts have changed to needing a heritage credit instead of a humanities (which is a shame, because I have humanities credits falling out of my ass). And so, I'm taking a history class.

The goal is to have my associate in arts and associate in applied science: graphic design in two years. I won't apply for the first degree until I've completed both, because I don't want to fuck up my financial aid. Make sense?

It's going to be a strange 2 years. I don't have to take any gen. ed. courses (besides the HIS), because I already have those done. All of my classes are going to be Information Management & Design. I assume many of them are going to be online.

Now that this is out of the way, it's a huge weight off my shoulders.

High stress. Hello, stress. GTFO, stress!

Tomorrow, I go down to the school for the mass advisory thing. I am underwhelmed. I half expect to hear bad news of some sort or another. The other half just wants to grab some bananas and start beating my head with them.

The weekend was pure shit with the density of a bullet and the weight of an atomic bomb. You know how sometimes you're in a fragile state due to worrying about something? Well, I was like a stick of dynamite left on the stove this weekend, and work cranked up all the burners. One burner in particular happened to ignite me, and I've been a fucking ball of anger ever since. I wanted to cunt punt a field goal with this bitch.

I am all about some metaphors tonight.

My blood pressure's been up since Saturday, when a manager utterly undid all of my work for the previous 4 hours. Right in front of me. Had the gall to tell me I could redo it all when I came in next. My brain fixated on it for the rest of the day. And the next day. Yesterday was so bad, my chest actually hurt from holding in a scream all day. First thing I did when I got home was pop a handful of Tylenol. I felt like I was about to have a panic attack. All I could do was breathe and work through it.

Today finished off a 5 day stretch of work. Sleep is a welcome reprieve from the bullshit. Sadly, it's been taking me hours to get there.

Tomorrow is going to suck, and I know it. I know I've got an ounce of optimism somewhere... It's probably swimming around in a toilet and making its way to a septic tank near you.

There ain't a lick of comfort in anything or anyone right now.