Thursday, April 22, 2010

School is time consuming

So I've been going to school full time for about the last three weeks. It seems like I spend all my time either doing homework or chores and I always seem to have more homework. This is the first time I've gone to school full time since graduating almost 20 years ago, so I'm not in the habit of keeping track of more than one class, and I have three. To make things more fun one class has weeks that run Wednesday to Tuesday, another runs Thursday to Wednesday (with the quiz for the previous week's material available Thursday through Sunday) and my last class runs a normal Monday to Friday. Because of this, once I get everything done in one class, another one starts a new week and it seems like I'm never caught up.

Now if I could just get my kids to realize this and understand when I need to be left alone to do my homework. But maybe, just maybe they'll see me doing mine and think that maybe they should put theirs first too. Ha....who am I kidding, of course they won't.

At least I'm doing OK in the classes I can see scores for so far. But then seeing as how two of the classes are basic intro to computer type classes, if I don't get A's in both of them I'm going to kick myself. The only real challenge is each one has a research paper, on one I have to pick from a list and on the other I have to compare two operating systems. And in both I have to find sources. That will be fun. And of course I have no idea which two operating systems to choose, since I can choose any two, not just one of the big ones that everyone knows. Anyone got any suggestions?

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

All I can say is wow

I know it's been a long time since I posted anything, but it's been a busy time since then and much has happened.

Let's start with the bad news first, last May I was laid off from my job at a major aerospace company here in Everett. I'd been with the company 11 years, but I'd just changed careers about a year before and ended up ranked low because of lack of experience in that job. In addition to this, my ex-wife continued to actively avoid paying child support and as of this time owes almost $2000 in unpaid support. She was paying occassionally over the last couple of months, but mainly because her paycheck was being garnished by the state. She's lost that job, and does not appear to be seriously looking for another one.

I've been looking for work without success for almost a year now. I filed for unemployment when my severance ran out and even signed up for ProjectHIRE, a partnership between Washington State DVR and WorkSource. I only got one interview in that entire time, and because I've been out of IT work for almost two years, didn't get the job in the end.

Now for the good news, my wife returned to work both as a substitute teacher at one school district and as a private tutor. This has been just enough to help us just scrape by and not loose the house (but we did get rid of cable and suspend Netflix.) More recently my employer petitioned for Trade Act coverage for their laid off employees, and because of this I'm going back to school. I start next month.

So in short, I lost my job, my wife got two part time jobs and I'm going back to school while my ex is still a dead beat parent. More exciting news to come I'm sure. I may write about ProjectHIRE, dealing with unemployment and the joy of filling out tons of paperwork for a federal program in the next couple of days.