Back To School Day!

Today is Mike's first full day of teaching for the new year. Since we both work in education our lives really revolve by the school year more so than the calender year. The above planner by An Artful Agenda is perfect for kids or other people who live August to August. It has full page artwork from 10 different artists in a handy purse size.

I'm always a bit resentful of Mike when summer comes around since he has several months off right when I'm busiest at work. But come August when he goes back to work I have to start doing my share of the cooking and dishes again so there is a pay off.

My job is starting to calm down a bit since classes started for us on Monday. But if I hear one more student complain about having a 1 hour break in their schedule and wanting me to fix it I may lose it on them. I tell them to eat lunch or study and they look at me like I'm crazy. This freshman class is really making me feel old and crotchety for the first time. It started when I looked down and saw one of their birthdays on an application. They were actually born in 1991, the year I graduated high school. And there really is a different mindset in this group of kids. They were born with a cell phone in their pocket and are so much more watched over than we ever were. Hence the nickname for their parents, helicopter parents, since they are constantly hovering over them and doing things for them that they should be able to do for themselves.

I was venting to another advisor yesterday about how needy they were and I felt like I was becoming that old person complaining about "kids these days." I realized a few years ago that I had more in common and related better to their parents than the kids. Since I've always worked with college age kids this struck me as weird. I do think that working on a college campus helps me to stay youthful and up on the styles which is a good thing for my business. I just need to keep this in mind when they start driving me crazy!

Home away from Home

I brought my camera to work last Friday for Rachel's shower. It was a glorious July day in the 80's with a nice breeze so I walked around campus on my lunch hour and took some snapshots. The campus is quite right now in between semesters so they were no students to look at me strange. We really do have a well thought out and maintained campus. It's not at all the image you get of the cold community college with boring bureaucratic buildings. We have interesting architecture with lots of sharp, clean lines and our maintenance crew is amazing at adding color and greenery touches wherever you turn. There is lots of orange on campus this year and I love the vibrancy of the above macro shot. The shot below is one of the many flower beds and you can see one of the 2 fountains on campus in the background.


















We also have lots of geese and ducks that populate the 2 ponds on campus. I caught this group relaxing in the shade.


I also took a shot of my window that I look out on from my office. I'm looking out from my first floor window as I type, that overlooks my favorite tree. The bushes are pretty high right now but I usually can look out on my birds and other animals that populate the tree. I'm very lucky to have my own little patch of green that I look out on everyday as my desk actually faces the window. I had the tree guy in my office registering for a class last week and he was admiring my view and I dropped a hint that it is even nicer when the bushes are trimmed.

I hope you enjoyed this little tour of my home away from home!

Community College Props

Community College T-shirt Designed by Javidano and sold at Zazzle.com

I don't talk much about my day job here since I don't think you would care all that much about that part of my world. I have a comfortable position as an academic counselor at my local community college. I work mostly with our nursing students which is one of the most popular programs at the school, which means I have pretty good job security. This time of year is all hands on deck for Fall freshman registration, my least favorite time of the year. It is a constant barrage of first time freshman who have procrastinated until now, when just about everything is closed. It is an epic effort to put together a schedule for most of them at this point.

I generally enjoy working with my nursing students. They are very focused group and know what they want. Undecided freshman can be sweet but are very tiring to me. I get to know many of my students by name and particularly like my very large population of Kenyan students that are working on their Practical Nursing license. Even if I have to spend extra time with them it's worth it as they are some of the most gracious students I see. I had a student today ask me my name and when I introduced myself she said, "Oh, you are that Paige. You are my friend S's favorite person." That made my day.

I really hate the bad rap that community colleges get. We really are an invaluable resource to the community and make higher education accessible to just about everyone. My mother told me the other day that she saw a new TV show advertised for the Fall that was about a community college. I thought it sounded like a good concept but then I went to NBC's website and read this, "It's been said that community college is a "halfway school" for losers, a self esteem workshop for newly divorced housewives, and a place where old people go to keep their minds active as they circle the drain of eternity." I'm guessing from this description that we probably will not be getting much respect. The cast includes Chevy Chase and John Oliver from the Daily Show so perhaps the laughs will at least be well executed.