Day 10

The "going" has already gotten tough for me because of my extremely busy home life and the schedule my family has. However, so far, my kids have been my biggest encouragement. They keep checking on my progress every day much the same way that I check on theirs and they keep telling me that they're proud of me for going to school. It's been a big relief that they're so supportive when I'm blaming myself for making things difficult for the whole family. I suppose that the things that will keep me going are their encouragement and reminding myself that I'm going back to school not just to check off another goal on my list, but to make things better for my family in the long run.

Day 9

Teamwork is an essential part of most jobs and workforces. I'm a freelancer, but I still rely heavily on mentors who teach me about things I don't understand, or on people I outsource to who write codes, design graphics, etc. When I write, I rely on feedback from proofreaders and editors to pare down my writing to the most succinct, essential parts without drowning the reader in over-writing. Even in non-professional settings, teamwork is invaluable. Without my family pitching in and accepting some responsibilities around the house I wouldn't even be able to come to school. There's simply no way to get around working as a team. If you tried to do everything on your own, you'd fail because everything we do relies on someone, somewhere shouldering a bit of the work to enable us to perform the work we need to do.

Day 8

My courses for next term are IST120 (Computer Applications) on Mondays and Wednesdays and MTH131 (College Algebra) on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Day 7

Stress is not a really big issue for me. However, it used to be. I'd stress to the point of making myself sick because there just wasn't enough time in the day to meet everyone's demands and still have something left over for myself. I had a major wake up call a few years ago, and it changed my perspective on a lot of things. These days, I decrease stress by writing it all out. Sometimes I blog, sometimes I just free-think on a scrap of paper, other times I sully the pages of one of my journals with all the crap I just have to get out in order to go back to reality.
I really hate housework, but I notice that my stress level is much much lower when there isn't clutter lying around, when the furniture isn't sticky with little kid sugar prints all over it, when the walls look clean rather than like murals, or when there isn't a mountain of laundry stacked up. It's really worth it for me to put other things aside and just clean like mad for a bit if I start feeling out of sorts. Not only does it get the housework done, but I blow off some steam while snapping the wrinkles out of the clothes or scrubbing the grime off of things.
I relieve stress and detox from life in a number of ways, but probably the best way for me is just to physically exhaust myself until I can sleep and then wake up refreshed and ready to tackle another day and the problems that accompany it with a clear mind.

Day 6

My group for the group project consists of J, Derek, Bruce, and myself. We are focusing our project on transitioning from military to civilian life. We intend to take a look at the steps necessary to make the transition as smooth as possible as well as ways to help military members (and their spouses/children) ease into civilian life/workforces. We are each going to take care of one main part of our presentation as well as contributing in whatever way possible to the research of the other participants. My primary focus in the project is to research the transition from the view of the military spouse and family and ways to ensure that the transition does not impede the success of the family members. I am planning to write about the different services available to family members that can help with planning for transitions to different workforces, schools, and relocation issues that affect the family members of service (wo)men who are leaving the military.

This evening, Bruce and I interviewed Mrs. Sherry Determan who worked with the Transition Assistance Program in the military support system for fifteen years and now works as a career services counselor at ECPI. She was full of insightful advice and information. I will use much of the information we got from her to write my part of the project.

We will be presenting our project on the last night of class, Wednesday, May 21, 2008. Until then, we will be working individually with a meeting to pool our notes and ideas and practice the presentation.

Day 5

The writing process for my individual project was more difficult for me than writing the things I normally write. While I'm rather comfortable writing what I feel, the compelled creativity was an uneasy process for me. I think that if the project had been about something other than ME, I would have been more open to it. At first I started writing my project on the computer, but there is just something about writing on the computer that stifles my voice. So, I took my pad of paper and pencil outside and sat in my garden for a while and within an hour I had nine pages worth of material for just the success and professionalism sections. I guess I simply needed to find my comfort zone to jumpstart the writing process.

My oral presentation was much the same. I stewed over the weekend about how and what to present and succeeded in doing nothing more than working myself into a nervous frenzy. However, once I jumped headlong into the presentation and let it flow into the parts of the project that I was more comfortable with than others, it went quite well. Granted, I was still nervous, but I managed to somehow find my voice while talking about some of the things I'm most passionate about.

Overall, I think the project turned out to be a success for me, and I'm glad that I've gotten the first of what I'm sure will be many such presentations out of the way. The first time doing anything--even if it's just doing something that you've done before in a new setting--is always nerve-wracking. I'm certain that this project has set the foundation for me to build on presentation skills and that the presentations I have to make in the future will be a bit less intimidating because I've found a few things that really work for me and know more about what will hold me back.

Day 4

According to the Enneagram Personality Type Profile I am a type 8 which is "The Challenger". From what the profile says, Challengers are rather controlling and domineering. At their best, they use these strengths to improve other's lives and become heroic, and magnanimous. I can attest to the fact that I am quite a control freak at times, but generally I do try to use my strengths to either help out the people I come into contact with or to urge them to live up to their potential.
Also in the profile were some of my secondary traits. I scored high in type 5, "The Ivestigator" as well, and this is very true of me because I am pretty much insatiably curious about most everything. I tend to drive my husband a bit crazy because I'm constantly performing "science experiments". Most of the time, they lean more toward the mad science type of experiments, but I'm always investigating the outcome of something or digging for more information on different subjects.
There were a couple of other types that were very close to my main types as well. These were types 1 and 3. These are "The Reformer" and "The Achiever" respectively. Basically all these types together are very indicative of my personality, and I would say that all of this profile describes me very well and also indicates that I'm a good self-starter and could work well in the environment that I've chosen for myself and my career.