All For You

I am so not looking forward to writing this paper.  Luckily, I have six pages of the twelve page requirement completed thus far.  Hopefully my creative writing juices can be stimulated because of this.  If I had to pick my most dreaded graduate school requirement it would be paper writing.  This is a must for all graduate programs and my least favorite of them all. 

Put me in front of a class anytime before asking me to write a paper.  Worst of all ask me to reflect on the experience of group work.  I don’t mean to sound so negative but it is the end of the semester and this is typical of whiners.   I know the reflection is suppose to be learning tactic but really is it necessary.  Twelve pages of reflection is a bit much in my opinion.  It is only a few ways to analyze the situation without repeating yourself.  Hopefully my paper will be rich enough to make a decent grade as it counts for a good chuck of your overall grade for the course.

As for my experience in the group, it could not have been any better.  We had a wonderful group and everyone put forth a lot of effort  in order for us to meet our assignment expectations.  I feel that we all equally did our share and there was not one person carrying the load for everyone else.  We all earned the grades we received.  I am hoping in my upcoming classes where group work is required that I have a group that will be half as wonderful as the “Yellow Birds”.  It is going to be very hard for any group to match up against the one I was privilege to be a part of this semester.  Super Work Yellow Birds!!

Each group member has to conduct a facilitation exercise tonight for Dr. Carter’s class.  This exercise feels a little rushed as we did not have a lot of time to prepare.  Of course we can pull it off but it may have had a lot more of energized activities in it if we had a little more time to prepare.  My group mates have assured me that we will do fine but because I feel the crunch my apprehension feeling still sometimes takes over.  Our last class is next Monday and I am so looking forward to it, not because of the group work but because I need a break from school so that I can focus on the kids and their activities for the summer.  I need to get them in a summer program very soon before all of the spaces are occupied.  I can’t seem to focus on anything regarding the kids until my school assignments are all complete.  I can’t wait until next week!

I have two papers to write for the end of the semester.  I am having trouble focusing on getting them done on time.  There seems to be stress among all of my classmates because of the end of semester requirements seem to pick up in the last couple of weeks of the semester.  Most times the semester starts off slow and by the end of the semester things are full speed ahead.  It feels like a car moving that has lost control of the brakes.   Once it hits the wall then everything will be over and a new day begins. 

Looking back at last semester and this semester, my school requirements were much more demanding last semester than this one.  However, I seem to be stressing more over this semester than any on the past.  My home life may be a factor in the stress that I am feeling this semester.  My kids have lots of activities in their lives during the spring because of sports.  I was hoping for a less stressful summer with taking an hybrid course but with much disappointment we found out that our hybrid class was no longer going to be.  This means that I will have to go downtown Richmond two days a week for class this summer.  This news came abruptly out of nowhere because I believed this was a done deal.  To my surprise, the deal was broken and we all have to sacrifice a lot of time if we want to stay on schedule for graduation next May. 

We are fast approaching the end of the semester and presentations are in high demand.  Both of my classes this semester required presentations.  This is usually a area that I am most comfortable in as I am having to do this in my line of work on a daily basis.  I believe no matter how much practice a person gets in this area there is still room for improvement.  Time-management is a key element when conducting presentations.  It is very easy to lose track of time when presenting.  If you don’t keep time in the fore front than it can ruin your presentation.  There is nothing worst than an audience feeling anxiety because the time allotted has been disregarded.  This puts individuals in an uncomfortable position.  They are watching their clocks and feeling animosity against the presenter.

Last Saturday I lost my kid for an entire five minutes.  This five minutes felt like eternity.  My kids and I visited a traveling carnival in town.  My three boys were all hand in toe with me when paying the attendant the fee for admittance.  When I proceed to the ride ticket counter I looked around and did not see my five year old.  At that moment, my heart started racing and all I could see were people.  My little boy was no where to be found.  I immediately started to panic, the tears started to swell up in my eyes so my vision became very blurry.  The nearby concession stand attendant could not even understand me because he could not speak English.  This intensified my anxiety.  At that moment I became to scream my child’s name to everyone and more tears fell controllably.  My oldest son at that point began to panic as well and started running around in circles because he too could not see him anywhere.  The franticness went on for at least five minutes and in those five minutes I saw my entire life pass me by.  I envisioned myself on television pleading with anyone with information to come forward.  I also saw my husband’s reaction to my news which was horrible to see.  I having to leave the carnival without my little one was something that I was not going to be able to bear even though God is not suppose to put nothing on us that we can not bear so how would he let this happen.   This was my question in my head the entire time.  While resting with these visions, my sweet angel appeared in front of me with a disturbed look upon his face.  He could not figure out why his mother was behaving in such a psychotic way. As he appeared in front of me my heart just stop beating and anger came over me so I started to scold him for walking away to look at a ride.  Because he was startled at my behavior he started to cry which in turn made me cry even more because he was now scared.  We tearfully hugged in the middle of the carnival while spectators looked on at our behaviors.  At that moment in time we as a family did not care about anything that was going on around us.  All we could see was our little Willie before us and we sure were glad and overjoyed to see him.    I gave my father all of the glory and praise for his mercy because if it had not been his will I would have never seen my little angel again.

This valuable lesson has taught me to pay closer attention to my kids when out in public.  Of course there was something I could have done better when keeping up with my kids in crowds and there was also something my Willie could have done to stay closer to me.  This is a lesson that we all have learned from and I pray to God that I never have to experience what other mother’s have experienced before me.  I have a very high respect and admiration for parents that are living with this horrible reality of losing your kid.