THE BEGINNING OF THE END!

An old picture of my mom, little brother and me
 with Taekwondo Instructor Billy Owens.

 Well . . . here I am at the beginning of my last semester as an undergraduate at ASU!  I’m so excited!  It has been a long time coming.  Heck, I started at ASU before the majority of the people in our class were even born!  It all began for me way back at the first summer session of 1986!  I went a couple of years and let life distract me and knock me off track.  It took way too much to get me back on that track. I always said I was going to return and finish up my bachelors degree. In reality, I probably never would have if life had not used irony to get me back on track. Life knocked me off track, then four years ago it used death to get me back on track when I unexpectedly lost my mother. After a bout with depression, I decided it was time to return to school and get that degree.  We never know how much time we are given, so we better take advantage while we can.  While I am so excited about this semester, it is a mixed can of worms. I can’t help but think about how I wish my mom would be able to be there when I make that walk in May.

Like I said, I am so excited about this semester. I think my excitement is more about the classes I have and the knowledge and skills I will get this semester, and less about actually graduating.  I think this will be my favorite semester yet and it will mainly be about the classes. All my classes are ones I want to take because what they offer by way of knowledge and not because they are required for my degree.  I have three journalism-R/TV classes and one education class and each of them will help or enhance the others. I have wanted to be able to make websites but have found the thought of the whole process quite intimidating any time I have started.  I am so amped that this Internet Communications class will teach me how to do just that! I only need nine hours this semester to graduate but I am taking twelve because I want to take my only R/TV class, which is Video Post Production with a Lab. My other journalism class is Photojournalism, which will build on what I learned in last semester’s photography class.  My education class is Integrating Technology. It will help in my learning how to build websites and other forms of multimedia such as digital story books. It will also show me how to better use this semester’s learning in a classroom environment.  So, I think most of my excitement comes the rounding out of my media skills and how well all my classes will work with and enhance one another. I will learn how to make websites; make videos, photographs, and other multimedia to use with my websites; and how to use them in my teaching, whether as a high school teacher or with my martial arts instruction.

I’ll draw my ramblings to a close.  I hope each of you are as excited about this semester as I am. It is going to be a great one.  Thanks mom. Even in your death, you continue to give me good guidance. I just wish you could be here to witness it all.  Sorry ya’ll.  I promise I’m not as bi-polar as this post may make me appear.