When signing yearbooks at the end of my senior year of high school I always ended with K.I.T.
Keep In Touch.
Except that, looking back, I know that I never did. Not really. Not to any degree that would make the people that were my teenage friends my adult friends.
So, as I gear up for another transition in life, moving from Boston back to the land of my youth, I am finding myself saying that I'll keep in touch.
K.I.T.
I want to keep in touch, not that I didn't want to then, I just have better tools with which to contact friends now. Except the phone, we had that then and I didn't use it, and I probably won't use it now. I'm just sayin'.
I am on facebook (a ridiculous amount of time actually) and I have this here blog.
I hope that my friends will keep tabs on me and I will do the same thanks to email, text messages and facebook.
Another reason..
...that the University of Phoenix is terrible number 109883
The "instructors" don't pay attention. They PRETEND to pay attention.
Remember how I mentioned about the copy/paste version of feedback that UoP instructors or facilitators use?
Well, it just got worse.
Each weeks feedback also contains a summary of the score recieved for the weeks assignments.
It is posted to our confidential forums so that we can only see the scores and feedback we recieve, not other students.
This morning I woke an hour before my alarm and since facebook is being a bastard with its site maintenance, I decided to check out UoP to see if anything new had popped up.
In one of my classes the instructor had posted our grades from last week.
To my shock and horror this person had posted that I had missed the weeks assignments giving me a big fat zero.
What?
I anxiously checked my posted items folder and there they were - submitted according to requirements and on time.
Nice.
She apparently missed them in her hurry to get grades posted.
This kind of oversight is not uncommon and indicates the fun I am going to have for the remainder of this block of classes.
It also leads me to further question the validity of other grades this instructor will post - are points taken off valid or another oversight on her part?
One thing is certain, I will have to check and double-check her assessments of my progress to make sure she's paying attention and not just posting inaccurate grades willy-nilly to meet her job requirements.
The "instructors" don't pay attention. They PRETEND to pay attention.
Remember how I mentioned about the copy/paste version of feedback that UoP instructors or facilitators use?
Well, it just got worse.
Each weeks feedback also contains a summary of the score recieved for the weeks assignments.
It is posted to our confidential forums so that we can only see the scores and feedback we recieve, not other students.
This morning I woke an hour before my alarm and since facebook is being a bastard with its site maintenance, I decided to check out UoP to see if anything new had popped up.
In one of my classes the instructor had posted our grades from last week.
To my shock and horror this person had posted that I had missed the weeks assignments giving me a big fat zero.
What?
I anxiously checked my posted items folder and there they were - submitted according to requirements and on time.
Nice.
She apparently missed them in her hurry to get grades posted.
This kind of oversight is not uncommon and indicates the fun I am going to have for the remainder of this block of classes.
It also leads me to further question the validity of other grades this instructor will post - are points taken off valid or another oversight on her part?
One thing is certain, I will have to check and double-check her assessments of my progress to make sure she's paying attention and not just posting inaccurate grades willy-nilly to meet her job requirements.
Boomerangs
The tow hitch was installed on my car a few weeks ago. The reservation for the trailer at U-Haul has been made and confirmed for pick-up on Saturday.
Now comes the part where I try to consolidate the last 11 years of my life into 142 cubic feet of space. That may sound like a good deal of room, but it isn’t. Not by a long shot. It’s enough space to fit the boxes I am packing, along with the bins I have in the storage area of my apartment.
There will be a flurry of purging, recycling, donating and selling taking place this week because it all won’t fit and that in itself is stressful.
Will I keep too much and find myself with a huge pile of leftover items on Saturday?
Will I get rid of too much and find myself with space to fit that special chair or table set I really didn’t want to get rid of?
The agony of it all has me constantly running the numbers in my head. I am no algebra whiz kid or anything, but I find myself doing math problems in my sleep. “Okay, if the box is 18”x14”x12” and the trailer is 4’x8’x4’ I should be able to fit x, y and zzzzzzzz”. Key word is ‘should’.
With packing tape, boxes and wrapping paper strewn about my apartment, it finally feels like I am moving. Moving on? Moving up? Who knows, just moving is enough of a description for now.
With a little less than a week remaining in New England, I am finding that I am quite capable of paring down my possessions while I am completely unable to do one simple thing – say goodbye. To my dear friends that I will cherish for all of my days and to the man I have spent the past decade loving. I wish I could pack them all in a box and fill that 142 cu ft of trailer with the laughter, love and joy these people have given me so that I never have to do without them.
Unfortunately, when I am faced with difficult situations, when emotions threaten to get the better part of me, I tend to push the avoid button. I shrink back into myself so I don’t risk burdening someone else with my sorrow. Hidden behind the dry wit and a quick laugh are the tears I cannot shed. I was once called a “cold hearted bitch” for not breaking down, crying in the face of loss. I may be a bitch sometimes, but I have never been cold hearted.
I think I have always struggled with saying goodbye. It is a big deal, yet it isn’t. I believe that life has a certain cycle to it, a roundness that allows those we lose to be found again. I have to believe that distance is not an impossible obstacle for any relationship.
There will be new faces at the holiday cookie swap and a different person asking the ridiculous questions. The office Halloween costume tradition will continue without my Delta Burke impersonation. There will be weddings, birthdays and Thanksgiving dinners that I will miss.
But, on the flip side, there will be birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas Eve’s that I will no longer be missing. Family and friends that I said goodbye to all those years ago will be waiting to welcome me back into the fold.
I do not wish to negate the celebrations and sorrows I have missed with them because I was 3000 miles away with the heartbreak of leaving here to go back there. It hurt when I boarded the plane, with a suitcase and a couple hundred bucks in my pocket for a new life, new friends and new experiences.
I guess I am a boomerang; I toss myself into the wind to be carried here and there, but I always, eventually, return home having gathered friends, love and memories to treasure.
Now comes the part where I try to consolidate the last 11 years of my life into 142 cubic feet of space. That may sound like a good deal of room, but it isn’t. Not by a long shot. It’s enough space to fit the boxes I am packing, along with the bins I have in the storage area of my apartment.
There will be a flurry of purging, recycling, donating and selling taking place this week because it all won’t fit and that in itself is stressful.
Will I keep too much and find myself with a huge pile of leftover items on Saturday?
Will I get rid of too much and find myself with space to fit that special chair or table set I really didn’t want to get rid of?
The agony of it all has me constantly running the numbers in my head. I am no algebra whiz kid or anything, but I find myself doing math problems in my sleep. “Okay, if the box is 18”x14”x12” and the trailer is 4’x8’x4’ I should be able to fit x, y and zzzzzzzz”. Key word is ‘should’.
With packing tape, boxes and wrapping paper strewn about my apartment, it finally feels like I am moving. Moving on? Moving up? Who knows, just moving is enough of a description for now.
With a little less than a week remaining in New England, I am finding that I am quite capable of paring down my possessions while I am completely unable to do one simple thing – say goodbye. To my dear friends that I will cherish for all of my days and to the man I have spent the past decade loving. I wish I could pack them all in a box and fill that 142 cu ft of trailer with the laughter, love and joy these people have given me so that I never have to do without them.
Unfortunately, when I am faced with difficult situations, when emotions threaten to get the better part of me, I tend to push the avoid button. I shrink back into myself so I don’t risk burdening someone else with my sorrow. Hidden behind the dry wit and a quick laugh are the tears I cannot shed. I was once called a “cold hearted bitch” for not breaking down, crying in the face of loss. I may be a bitch sometimes, but I have never been cold hearted.
I think I have always struggled with saying goodbye. It is a big deal, yet it isn’t. I believe that life has a certain cycle to it, a roundness that allows those we lose to be found again. I have to believe that distance is not an impossible obstacle for any relationship.
There will be new faces at the holiday cookie swap and a different person asking the ridiculous questions. The office Halloween costume tradition will continue without my Delta Burke impersonation. There will be weddings, birthdays and Thanksgiving dinners that I will miss.
But, on the flip side, there will be birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas Eve’s that I will no longer be missing. Family and friends that I said goodbye to all those years ago will be waiting to welcome me back into the fold.
I do not wish to negate the celebrations and sorrows I have missed with them because I was 3000 miles away with the heartbreak of leaving here to go back there. It hurt when I boarded the plane, with a suitcase and a couple hundred bucks in my pocket for a new life, new friends and new experiences.
I guess I am a boomerang; I toss myself into the wind to be carried here and there, but I always, eventually, return home having gathered friends, love and memories to treasure.
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