Applying to college: Part two

I might have given myself permission to think about thinking about college a month ago, but it took me until last Friday to pick up the phone and call the admissions office. I had to work up to it, you see. I had to sneak up on it, lull myself into a false sense of security (it’s a seasonal thing, this college nonsense, I could tell myself. I get the bug every September and by December I’ve already found ten reasons why it’s not going to happen this year…)

In yesterday’s post, I talked about how, in my brainscape, making a decision is a whole lot like quantum physics. Just let the quarkian thought molecules work their magic over time and space, left brain and right. But don’t look right at it!

Two weeks ago, I told my ADD coach again that I was thinking about thinking about going to college, and there was a program that might just overcome one out of three obstacles: time — because they offered college credit for life experience and because they had an online degree in my field. Shortest route. I figured there are loans and scholarships out there for someone like me, which would knock down a second obstacle to a manageable size. This only left my own, gnat-like attention span as the final hurdle to actually thinking about going back to college. My coach set me a task, and told me to call the admissions office and make an appointment. In true ADD fashion, I happily accepted the task and then forgot about it. I forgot about it three times a day, when my Outlook, gmail, and Blackberry all told me to check my ‘to do’ lists at three different times of day. I kept telling myself I was too busy with the summit at work coming up and really, it would just have to wait.

My new brain was quietly looking for windows of opportunity to spring that phone call on me. Slyly, it waited until Friday afternoon when I finally left the frenzy of work for a moment to get supplies for the summit. You have a Blackberry, my new brain whispered. Why don’t you just look up the Registrar’s phone number, maybe program it into your phone? And whaddaya know? I did. And, being a curious monkey, I just had to push the button and call the number. A number that was, inexplicably in this day and age of cell phones, call waiting, and Skype, busy. This, of course, triggered my ability to hyper-focus on a task. Call. Listen. Busy tone. Hang up. Call again. Listen. Busy tone. Hang up. Call again. It was great. I could say I’d tried! Really! But I couldn’t get through! Honest!.. Call. Listen. Busy.. no wait, what? It’s RINGING???

I was so surprised when the phone rang, I nearly hung up. But I had a few, very precise questions to be answered, and when I had exhausted the extent of the registrar’s knowledge, she sent me on to Admissions, where I was enlightened as to the process.

And discouraged. The old me would have yammered in righteous indignation at the thought that Writing 101 is REQUIRED. “That’s one of the reasons I never finished college in the first place!” I burst out. “All these boring classes I was REQUIRED to take full of stuff I’d learned as a junior in high school! I write for a living! Do you know how insulting that seems? Writing 101? REQUIRED!?”

Oh. Wait a minute. I suffered through that course the first time I tried to go to college. Never mind. The nice young man sent me lots of links to look at.

I have learned the first steps towards going to college. I have to apply. I have to fill out the FAFSA to begin the financial aid process. And in order to be accepted into the semester-long process that will leave me with a portfolio documenting the value of my life’s work in the coin of college credit, I have to have successfully completed a semester of coursework at the university.

HORRORS! my old brain cried. A whole semester of classes?? I’m a full time employee at a non-profit that’s not paying me enough to make ends meet! I’m a full-time single mother with parents who will babysit the kid but not THAT often. How on earth am I going to manage a full course load when I have two hours a night to get everything in my life done??

“Hang on. Define a semester. How many classes do I have to take?”
“One.”
Wiktory! There’s even a class I want to take, a 300 level technical writing class. I wonder if they’ll let me take it? But that’s a hurdle to jump only when I get there.

Now I have to start thinking about thinking about filling out a college application. But what’s this? Does the deadline loom? I don’t know. But I can tell you this: If I don’t have a passable start at finishing an application by Halloween, I’m not going to be able to work on it until December.

Why?

Because I have gone and signed up for NaNoWriMo, and have committed myself (and should have myself committed) to writing a 175 page novel in thirty days. That’s six pages a day, every day, for thirty days.

That one kinda snuck up on me, too. But that, as we say, is a story for another day.