Lady Catherine the Just Crazy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shadowmate) wrote2009-10-24 08:37 pm
shadowmate) wrote2009-10-24 08:37 pm
Classes are evil
A post, because I haven't in a month, and I wanted an excuse to use the Anderpants icon.
So, as this is a newish journal, I'm going to guess that most people reading this don't know that I'm bi-polar. My dad is as well, but I was just diagnosed in late March/early April. Now, this doesn't mean much, except that I finally have a reason for why I've had to force myself to be around people, and been all over the place emotionally for the last few years. My highs, it seems, aren't very high. They are brief and mostly have to do with racing thoughts of story plots and scenes that I can't quiet down to work on anything else. My lows, however, are low and tend to leave me in my bed, hating the world and being so tired that even getting food seems like an exorbitant amount of work. When the lows last for months on end? It is very much not conductive to getting school work done. In fact, I ended up spending a good year and a half hiding from my friends, family, and pretty much everything except for fanfiction and my cat.
I should be graduating this year with my Bachelors of Science (yay, a B.S!), but because of this year, I'm behind. I've been doing better, and have been taking classes at the community college to finish up my associate credits and bring my GPA up. Which is all well and good... except that even with my having sent the transcript from the Uni to the CC, they didn't bother to look at it. So, I've been fighting to figure out just what is that I really need to take, and what I don't need. And, there are apparently two different degree paths that I'm sorta on, which makes everything even more confusing.
The first is the plain Associate Degree of Science. It's through the CC, and requires relatively few credits, so after next term, I should be done. For this one, I found out two weeks ago that I need a Speech class, for some obscure reason that they didn't bother informing me of until now. I also need one more science class, and I should be done.
Now, for the other degree, it's not really a degree. It's a Transfer Degree. Basically (from what I've inferred from the little the counselor actually told me), it's supposed to be 36 credits that transfers to a major university. Well, I've already done more than four times that amount, between the uni and the CC, so it doesn't make much sense. I do, apparently, need another multicultural credit, as well as a few more science credits, maybe. It's unclear. The form itself said I need 36 credits total. The counselor said I need 36 science credits. Big difference there. I'm all of two science classes away from that, but the Biology degree says that it needs a series of three consecutive classes, so that will be done at the end of Spring Term.
What I'm looking at right now is a little more than full time schedule for Winter term (about 14 credits), and one class in Spring term.
The other fun thing is that because of hiding out for a year, I have to talk to what is basically a board of adviser people before they'll let me back in. Something I'm rather nervous about, and have very little idea of what it actually entails. The CC counselor said I should talk to the Disability Resources department at UO to see if they could help me in any way. Following that, I'll talk to the Academic Counselors there to see if what exactly it is that I need to be, well, not re-admitted exactly, but taken off suspension. They still recognize me nominally as a student, but they won't let me sign up for any classes.
In addition to the highs and lows of bi-polar fun, I also have a social anxiety disorder. Meaning, basically, I'm incredible nervous of people. Stores are something I have to work myself up to even enter, and the idea of asking strangers for help does not sit well with me. I'm always absolutely sure that they won't help, either because they just don't want to, or because they can't. Or that it will be something so stupid that they'll give me that look of "why are you even bothering me for something so dumb". Helping strangers, on the other hand, is something I'm happy to do. It's weird that way.
Still, time is rapidly slipping away. So, next week I'll have to actually Do Something about UO. At the very least, I'll have to turn in the financial aid paper work that should have been in all ready, but that I didn't have all my parent's information to fill everything out. It says I'm eligible for Work Study... so I might even be able to at least get some more work experience to put on my resume, which would be awesome.
Here's hoping, at least.
In the mean time, I have short hours on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and want to pull out my hair on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I somehow got the idea that because I'm usually more aware at night, that it would be a good idea to take an evening class. Yeah, not so much. At least, not when my day starts at 10:30, and doesn't end until 9:00pm. There's a three and a half hour break in there, but that just means that I get out of the school thinking, and then have to force myself back into it again. At least it's only for another 5 or 6 weeks. Next term should be better.
So, as this is a newish journal, I'm going to guess that most people reading this don't know that I'm bi-polar. My dad is as well, but I was just diagnosed in late March/early April. Now, this doesn't mean much, except that I finally have a reason for why I've had to force myself to be around people, and been all over the place emotionally for the last few years. My highs, it seems, aren't very high. They are brief and mostly have to do with racing thoughts of story plots and scenes that I can't quiet down to work on anything else. My lows, however, are low and tend to leave me in my bed, hating the world and being so tired that even getting food seems like an exorbitant amount of work. When the lows last for months on end? It is very much not conductive to getting school work done. In fact, I ended up spending a good year and a half hiding from my friends, family, and pretty much everything except for fanfiction and my cat.
I should be graduating this year with my Bachelors of Science (yay, a B.S!), but because of this year, I'm behind. I've been doing better, and have been taking classes at the community college to finish up my associate credits and bring my GPA up. Which is all well and good... except that even with my having sent the transcript from the Uni to the CC, they didn't bother to look at it. So, I've been fighting to figure out just what is that I really need to take, and what I don't need. And, there are apparently two different degree paths that I'm sorta on, which makes everything even more confusing.
The first is the plain Associate Degree of Science. It's through the CC, and requires relatively few credits, so after next term, I should be done. For this one, I found out two weeks ago that I need a Speech class, for some obscure reason that they didn't bother informing me of until now. I also need one more science class, and I should be done.
Now, for the other degree, it's not really a degree. It's a Transfer Degree. Basically (from what I've inferred from the little the counselor actually told me), it's supposed to be 36 credits that transfers to a major university. Well, I've already done more than four times that amount, between the uni and the CC, so it doesn't make much sense. I do, apparently, need another multicultural credit, as well as a few more science credits, maybe. It's unclear. The form itself said I need 36 credits total. The counselor said I need 36 science credits. Big difference there. I'm all of two science classes away from that, but the Biology degree says that it needs a series of three consecutive classes, so that will be done at the end of Spring Term.
What I'm looking at right now is a little more than full time schedule for Winter term (about 14 credits), and one class in Spring term.
The other fun thing is that because of hiding out for a year, I have to talk to what is basically a board of adviser people before they'll let me back in. Something I'm rather nervous about, and have very little idea of what it actually entails. The CC counselor said I should talk to the Disability Resources department at UO to see if they could help me in any way. Following that, I'll talk to the Academic Counselors there to see if what exactly it is that I need to be, well, not re-admitted exactly, but taken off suspension. They still recognize me nominally as a student, but they won't let me sign up for any classes.
In addition to the highs and lows of bi-polar fun, I also have a social anxiety disorder. Meaning, basically, I'm incredible nervous of people. Stores are something I have to work myself up to even enter, and the idea of asking strangers for help does not sit well with me. I'm always absolutely sure that they won't help, either because they just don't want to, or because they can't. Or that it will be something so stupid that they'll give me that look of "why are you even bothering me for something so dumb". Helping strangers, on the other hand, is something I'm happy to do. It's weird that way.
Still, time is rapidly slipping away. So, next week I'll have to actually Do Something about UO. At the very least, I'll have to turn in the financial aid paper work that should have been in all ready, but that I didn't have all my parent's information to fill everything out. It says I'm eligible for Work Study... so I might even be able to at least get some more work experience to put on my resume, which would be awesome.
Here's hoping, at least.
In the mean time, I have short hours on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and want to pull out my hair on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I somehow got the idea that because I'm usually more aware at night, that it would be a good idea to take an evening class. Yeah, not so much. At least, not when my day starts at 10:30, and doesn't end until 9:00pm. There's a three and a half hour break in there, but that just means that I get out of the school thinking, and then have to force myself back into it again. At least it's only for another 5 or 6 weeks. Next term should be better.
