#Ifwewerehavingcoffee – Linda Nelson

Today was the day – Graduation Day! A day that I never thought would come until two years ago when I started my academic journey at Franklin Pierce University in the Associates of Arts for Business program.

The weather was blah, but that didn’t matter, I dressed to meet the challenge of staying warm and dry while waiting for my turn to walk across that stage and receive my announcement of conferral. When I left home at 8 in the morning, the clouds had just started rolling in. The weather forecast was cold and light rain. Not the best combination for a graduation ceremony.

Some used umbrellas while other wore sandwich-bag style rain coverings only to throw them off just before joining the line to walk across the stage.

I wonder if the same saying for having a wedding on a rainy day brings good luck applies to graduations too?

Since my degree was for Associates, we were last. Shivering and waterlogged we couldn’t wait for our turn to walk the stage. Out of 16 graduating Associates, only four of us showed up for graduation.

My day was made even better by the sudden appearance of my daughter as my turn had come to walk across that stage. She brought her new boyfriend for me to meet along with the new grandbaby that I had not seen yet. My granddaughter will be 2 in four more months. Jasmine, my older granddaughter, did not make the trip because she is at that age where long trips bring conflict in small cars. They were joined by Mike, my mother, and my son.

Later I was told, that mom took a tumble out the door on their way to graduation. I will have to keep tabs on her condition because she is prone to blood clots. Her tumble means that it is time to repair the front step before it happens again. Sounds like a good Memorial Weekend project if it warms back up and doesn’t rain. It always rains Memorial Weekend.

I am looking forward to the coming year. The next graduation is scheduled for 2020 when I will have my bachelor in Accounting.

— Go Me!

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I have no complaints.

The holidays are here and before we know it, the New Year will be here. I am looking to 2018 to be another great year. 2017 ushers out one of my most significant accomplishments to date. I received notification that I will be attending my first graduation since 1983. May of 2018, I will be given my Business Associates degree. For the past 30 years I have wanted a college degree, and now I am finally getting one. But I’m not stopping at the Associate level. I am continuing on with my education and should have my Bachelor’s degree by 2019.

Last summer, at the direction of my student advisor, I applied for the Business Plus program which will put me in the Master’s program immediately following the Bachelor degree.

My next accomplishment was Stats.

I passed Statistics. That class was hard, like Calculus for Business. It wasn’t my favorite class though toward the end, it became interesting. I will never look at a bar graph the same way ever again.

NaNoWriMo – only made 4k words this year.

Stalled but not forgotten. I did learn how to use Scrivener. Outlining is easier, and I can now format my books utilizing this program. I have not worked on the work in progress in the past few weeks. I will confess that I took my vacation week of leisure to play World of Warcraft. I now have my demon hunter at level 110 but not yet high enough gear to take part in any raid events.

I still have a list of books to read too. This month’s book of the month is still not been read. I’m half-way there only because there never seems to be enough time in a day to do all the things I want to do and now entering the holiday season time becomes even shorter.

In 2018, I would love to finish the first draft of at least one work in progress. It is a doable goal if I can keep myself from being distracted by video games and Netflix.

I would have a major dilemma if GRR Martin published his next book of the Game of Thrones. That would be one more item on my to-do list and to read pile.

Keelaa

Out cute fur child misses her big sister. I don’t think she knows where Julie got off to. She may not even know that she has died. Sometimes she sits outside waiting, hoping she will come back home. The plan is to have her leave Santa a letter this year asking for a female kitten as a new companion. She is more partial to cats than other dogs. During her first year, her best friend was a 20-year-old cat named Gracie who has also passed on to that great beyond.

This Term Classes are:

Accounting 2 –

This class is the continuation of the first Accounting class from a year ago. I am stunned to discover how much of the first accounting class I did retain. So far, Accounting 2 is much easier than Accounting 1.

I am getting much handier at putting excel spreadsheets into Microsoft documents.

Race and Ethnic Relations

Interesting topic –

How diverse is your city?

Well, my sleepy little town is not very diverse as far as race and ethnicity. I believe the community is about 98% white, maybe even higher, but if you travel across the border into the state of Massachusetts, which is a half an hour drive away, you will find that the city of Fitchburg has quite the mix of race and ethnic diversity.