FUD: Fear/Uncertainty/Doubt

You maniacs! You blew it up! Darn you all to heck! June 28, 2006

I have a “Hey! Amy is one!” post half-made, but not ready to publish. Meantime, here is an update on this whole school-is-for-the-COOL thing.

I got my information pack from the college today. It raised still more questions, so I finally gave them a call and talked to a nice young man called Jared. Yes, I sound like my grandmother. Anyway, I asked him a multitude of questions, a plethora if you will.

Question One: Hi, I’m a dumbass with a crappy educational history. Help me! Help me!

All Hail The Great and Omnipotent Jared: Well, the Bachelor’s degree courses don’t start until next February. How about taking this filler course to prove your dedication to education? Also, let me say something complementary. Does this help your self-esteem issues?

Question Two: Jared, you sound hot. Are you hot? I love you. Now tell me about childcare.

All Hail yadda-yadda Jared: We have a great daycare here. But! It burnt down! Last week!

…

Honestly, they had an electrical fire on the 20th. I called the daycare directly and spoke to their administrator and she said they’ll be closed for the next three months, and that they’re handing out lists of nearby childcare facilities. So that’s a bit of a pain in the patootie.

The long and the short of it is that I can go ahead and sign up for a Bachelor of Teaching and Learning (ECE), and rely heavily on my personal statement and my two references, and show them the UCSC transcripts, or I can do this filler course and have no trouble getting into the bachelor’s program next year. The filler course is a Certificate in Supporting Children’s Learning, and on its own it could probably get me a job as a teacher’s aide or a daycare teaching assistant, so it’s valuable in itself, I suppose. But it’ll be worth it as much for the foot in the door.

As an aside, I did ask about distance learning and it’s an option: five days of class at the beginning of the semester, then two compulsory days of in-class attendance per month. It will be a handy fallback. And for Vish, the College of Education is merging with the University of Canterbury next year, so if I decide to change to a more generic major it won’t be the end of the world. As we know it. And I feel fine.

The plan, as it were… June 27, 2006

I’m a-goin’ back to school.

Again.

No, again again.

Here’s some explanatory history:

1994: graduated high school with an A bursary and a scholarship.

1995: Went to uni, studied economics and accounting, loathed every torturous second, stopped going to class, got straight Fs (except in German).

1997: Took a basic accounting community course at the local teachers’ college. Still loathed it. Quit. Realised at last that there is no freakin’ way I could ever enjoy that sort of thing. Realised also that I should probably have chosen a different major in the first place.

1999: Took an intro to archaeology class at UC Santa Cruz summer school. Was hooked on anthropology.

2001: Studied enough to earn an Associate’s Degree in anthropology (with Honors, yo).

2002: Transferred to UCSC and did three quarters before a) getting too pregnant to carry on and b) coming back to NZ when Mike was made redundant. Failed to graduate.

2004: Took an Open Polytechnic course in Information Technology, but had to withdraw due to horrible, horrible morning sickness.

So, you know, there’s sort of a trend here. The overarching motif is “I am a dumbass who can’t commit to her education”. It’s something I frequently beat myself over the head with and it’s time I got off my lazy uneducated butt and did something about it. I’m going to study for a degree in early childhood education. I figure I have a head start what with having my own guinea pigs.

There are two problems that I need to come to terms with. One is my patchy history: the classes I have successfully studied in the past were in the US and don’t appear on my records here, so my NZQA student data is atrocious. The other is that all the time I spent studying in the US won’t count for squat — I won’t be able to transfer the credits because a) it’s not relevant and b) it’s a huge pain in the ass because I have to find comparable courses in NZ to establish the credit weighting, and half the courses don’t exist in New Zealand at all. Primatology? Skeletal biology? I have my doubts.

I’ve sent for an info pack and when that arrives I’ll make an appointment with someone at the Teachers’ College to discuss my special case. Mike keeps reassuring me that they won’t care about my history, but I can’t convince myself of that. I need to dig out my UCSC transcripts so I can wave them around and prove that I can settle down and study when I really try.

The other concern is, well, I have two children. Will I have time to study? What will I do if they’re sick? How can I keep Ethan in kindergarten and still attend classes full-time? Can I maintain some semblance of a social life with the Plunket mums, the neighbours, our friends and family? Will I die of exhaustion or frustration? Will I wind up dropping out again?

Excuse me while I work on a stomach ulcer.

Understanding Amy June 19, 2006

In Amyland, you can say amazing things with just a few well-chosen syllables. Here is a list of Amy’s current vocabulary.

Meh!: “Mother, might I please have some more of that delicious morsel of tasty tasty goodness that you’re currently holding out of my reach?”

Dad!: “Father! You’re back from whatever unknown place you disappear to every morning while I am eating my breakfast! I have missed you!”

Mama.: “Mater, I wish to climb on you and mouth your knees. You do not have a choice.”

Doo!: “Ethan, whom our mother calls ‘Dude’, I would like to play a game with you, in which you try to do something fun and I follow you and ruin your plans. You do not have a choice.”

Eh!: “Ethan, why are you walking away from me? Please come back this very second so that I may smack you in the face.”

DO!: “Ethan, our mother and/or father has expressed displeasure in some aspect of your behaviour, and I feel it is my sworn duty to inform you myself that the action you have taken is inappropriate. I am disappointed in you.”

Up!: “I don’t believe I like it down here on the floor/up here in my highchair, and I wish for you to immediately pick me up and carry me to my preferred destination. None shall know my preferred destination but me, and I will give no hint as to where it is except to squeal if you try to put me down.”

Ba!: “Is it bathtime? I would really love a bath right now, father, as in fact my face is brown with Marmite and toast crumbs, and my hands are currently glued together by the detritus of my dinner.”

x is for…kisses June 13, 2006

Now that my throat has finally given up its attempts to crawl out of my throat and die with dignity, life carries on. Ethan is leaning on my arm while I type and we’ve just spent the last half hour fighting over crackers with home-made capsicum relish and non-home-made camembert. It’s nice that he enjoys the finer things in life, like cheese wrapped in fungus.

Amy, meanwhile, has been in her cot now for ninety-six minutes, and has spent most of that waving at passersby out her window or yelling “Oy! Oy! OY!” at us. My next-door neighbour came over on Sunday to tell me that she has a direct view of Amy from her dining-room window and that she and Amy communicate via complex signs and gestures when I think Amy is asleep.

It’s been bitterly cold here for the last two days: Sunday was almost summery with sunshine and warm nor’westers, so I worked frantically all day in the garden in anticipation of the shitstorm that would appear soon after. And, predictably, it arrived in the form of SNOW.

It looks like we’re going to get more snow today. MORE. SNOW. We’ve already received our snow allotment for the year, and for some reason someone out there thought, hey, cabin fever has barely set in yet, let’s give the suckers more! Ethan’s kindy was cancelled yesterday and probably will be today. Dear lord. I’m running out of crackers.

As your attorney I advise you to get high. June 8, 2006

I have a horrible nasty dose of the flu, and spent most of last night feverish and telling Mike he was too cold. Today I’ve blobbed out on the couch.

Mike: What kind of painkillers do you want? We’ve got ibuprofen and paracetamol.

Me: Whatever’s fastest. How about morphine? Do we have any heroin?

Mike: We have codeine.

Me: That’s probably a bit extreme, I suppose.

Beep-beep, beep-beep, yeah! June 1, 2006

I hauled out Ethan’s old push-along/ride-on digger that he loved to push around the house when he first learned to walk. Amy’s close enough to walking now that she can, with help, push it along on the carpet and smash it into walls and shins.

A few minutes ago she found my car keys where they’d slipped off the stereo cabinet, and has crawled with them over to the push-along digger and is whacking them against the steering wheel.

I can see that she is going to drive as well as her mother.

* * *

A few days ago I actually had to get the video camera out because she was playing with Ethan’s LeapFrog alphabet thing — it’s a magnetic magical singing box that sticks to the fridge, and when you put a magnetic letter in, it sings the letter, and when you press another button it sings the whole alphabet — and she’d not only managed to turn on the alphabet song but was bopping her head along to the music. When the song ended, she laughed and pressed the button and started all over again.

* * *

Ethan’s favourite new word is definitely:  “I’m definitely not eating my lambchop!” “I’m definitely having a bath tonight!” or “I’m definitely not pushing Amy right now, Mama!”