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| The view from the door nearest my classroom at Weber State. |
This week was school week for me. I returned to campus at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah for my twice-a-semester mandatory classroom sessions. I can't complain because the rest of the semester is all handled online. Typically it is a two day session of seminars and classes. This particular visit contained three days with one of them being specifically centered on how to write a thesis paper (which I am NOT looking forward to.)
When I worked the night shift it was easy to complete homework during downtime and not drag school work into family time. It's not so easy now that I work an 8-5 job but I'm not complaining. At least I have the opportunity to earn more education. Usually I take a kid with me to accompany me on the trip. It gives us bonding time and plants the seed for what college life could be like for them. So far, everyone who has gone with me has loved it.
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| Frosty parked outside the place I stayed (no snow upon arrival) |
This trip started out dry on the day I traveled to Utah but I woke up to several inches of snow. I almost got stuck in the parking lot the first day of class thanks to several inches of snow and my 3/4 ton 'burban with two wheel drive. Frosty, the Suburban I bought back from the insurance company after it was totaled in our house fire, cost me $400 to get back into my name with a salvage title. That poor old 'burban has been through a lot but it keeps trucking along. Got me all the way to Ogden and back (not to mention pulled Jack, our Volvo, all the way from Arizona to Idaho).
Speaking of earning it, the education is costing me about $3500 per semester and there are four semesters. $12,000 is really cheap on the grand scale of obtaining a Masters degree. Most degrees at this level cost much, much more. I'm hoping to find some scholarships to help along the way. That doesn't include books, hotels, gas or food.
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| Eating my sammich in class...mmmmm... |
I took along as much food as I thought I would need for the trip. A bucket of smoked almonds, a few ham sammiches, some granola bars and a water bottle. I made it through day two before I hit a Subway for a $5 footlong.
As most things usually go, this trip didn't end without a big, fat fubar event. I struck up a partnership, so to speak, with a local ski resort in Eden, Utah. The first time I stay, I swapped a few days of our timeshare for a few days for a place to stay for school. The ski resort was nice and not too far from campus. After telling the resort that I was a student traveling (at that time) from Arizona to obtain my degree, they began to offer me a low price for every visit. The protocol called for me to call them just a day or two in advance of class and as long as they didn't have all their rooms booked, they would let me have one for $39 per night.
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| A whole family of these guys reside on campus. I see them every year. |
On this trip, they ran out of rooms at the main ski resort but were able to place me at their sister location at the bottom of the mountain. The price for three nights were offered at $149 which was higher than usual but still couldn't be beat for the location and accommodation. The fubar occurred during checkout. The front office gal accidentally charged me $200 but quickly promised to get $50 of it immediately reversed. The next day, when I looked to see if it had truly been reversed, I noticed it had actually be debited $200 AGAIN. Now I'm out $400 when I should have only been charged $149.
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| Found a note in my lunch... |
It's always something, no matter what. My windshield on Frosty cracked for no reason too. I think it was my defrost putting out hot air on a frozen windshield. I've heard of people pouring hot water on a frosty windshield hoping to clear away their view only to end up cracking the windshield from the heat hitting the cold window. I guess this is what happened between my defroster and cold windshield...only I've never had it happen before.
Neither incident bothered me much. The money will sort out. The windshield crack is on passenger side and doesn't affect my view. It's a $400 car...who cares about a cracked windshield? You can't let all the little set backs get you down because they happen all the time. With nobody tagging along on this trip, I was able to crank out several weeks worth of homework in three days. It's almost Spring Break and I'm almost caught up on homework.
~OJD
You keep all that snow up there, we don't want or need it down here in sunny Texas (grin).
ReplyDeleteI was excited about the snow. My hens weren't impressed. Too bad it's almost all gone now.
ReplyDeleteSubways here are $6.00 so you are fortunate, snow we are praying for snow no SNOWPACK IN THE NORTH CASCADES AND CASCADES! Mt. Hood and Ski Bowl had 2 days of snow last week, the ski season was gone..Bend got the shaft no snow and people never showed up for weekends in the dry desert air and sunshine...It has been horrible here in the pacific northwest tomorrow it is suppose to be 70 at the beaches and warmer inland where I live, never has it been this hot, I hung our clothes from sept. thru now in our garage only had to use my dryer occasionally, but the weather people with real meterological degrees state it will be a huge fire season and no people to fight it or funds to do so! We drove yesterday march 6, 2015 to a huge Tulip and Daffodil festival the tulips are blooming toooo soon and the daffys are done blooming, oh, my the people who run the festival ususally april 1 thru april 30 will lose their income due to the early blooming...SNOW WE NEED IT AND RAIN TOO..don't be ungrateful Utah is at least getting some snow although our only child was at Sundance in January and said she never saw so much NO SNOW EVER! global warming is heating the tar out of our planet..ciao!
ReplyDeleteThat's really interesting info on the price and the internet/part-time campus experience
ReplyDeleteway of getting a degree. Thanks for sharing and for educating us, you never know when it might come in handy (as in going back to school, maybe). Thanks again. :-)
deb k
Master degrees are expensive here, married people usually get their jobs to pay for it, if they cannot swing that they take out lots of loans, usually single people get the Masters as soon as they can to cushion their resumes. Your lucky to be getting it in a part time campus experience....but I hear you about the gas prices, here in the pacific northwest it is over $3.14 a gallon already, good luck getting your degree fast and helping you in your job and your families quest to live not merely survive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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