Shaky Thursday

How do I do this again? Blog without a specific event and pictures to anchor me? It's been a while.

I was feeling a touch surly last night, although mostly still shaky. I'm taking a basic Computers course in my Library Tech Diploma. Until now I've been able to muddle through all the courses even though I'm not terribly comfortable with computers and they keep changing course platforms on me; but NOW, I'm supposed to be learning about computers ON A COMPUTER. It feels somewhat akin to learning how to race cars by building my own car and then racing it - I worry there could be a catastrophic injury.

So I was starting a little late because of all the World Series nuttiness, then school starting, then Matt being in Asia and Eve having the flu, then Blissdom, because I knew the first assignment wasn't due until next week. I was working through the chapter on Windows 7, clicking all the buttons and thinking this was pretty good, useful and simple even - some instructions were just to 'notice' things. I can notice things! I'm a kick-ASS noticer! Then I got hung up on something (displaying windows side-by-side, if you must know, STOP LAUGHING, I'm good at other things!) and had to email the instructor, and then I started reading through the learning plan just to make sure I hadn't missed anything (of course I'd missed anything, I'd missed lots of things, did I mention they keep changing course platforms and I'm really bad at computer stuff?) and there way at the end is this one line: Exam at Mohawk.

Say what?

Since I'm doing the embarrassing confession thing already, let me just be up front about the fact that the first couple of courses I registered for were ONLY offered through Mohawk - it doesn't really matter, it's all through Ontariolearn.com, which is a clearing house for courses offered through a whole bunch of colleges. But some of the later courses are actually offered through Algonquin, which is the college nearest to me. But the Algonquin college registration interface is completely impenetrable, as far as I can tell - I've never been able to find the page where I register. So I went on registering through Mohawk, which has a really user-friendly interface but is in goddamned HAMILTON, five hours away.

Look! I figured out the snipping tool!

So I fired off a panicky email to my instructor, but it was almost midnight because I'd spent the evening helping out a friend who is solo-parenting her baby for the week and then Matt tried to install some viewing program that buggered everything and then spent another forty minutes trying to UN-install it, so I wasn't going to get an answer last night.

Whatever. Fine. I'm cool.

NO,OF COURSE I'M NOT COOL, ARE YOU INSANE? I might have totally screwed up because I was too stupid to figure out how to register at Mohawk, I might have to drop a whole course and be that much further behind in the diploma that I'm ALREADY doing so slowly that disco will probably be cool again by the time I'm done. That or drive five hours to write an exam at Christmastime.

No, no, enough of that. I'm a grown-up. I can accept that I make mistakes, and even if the worst-case happens here, it's not the end of the world. It's not death or dismemberment. It's only community college. I went to bed, played some Words With Friends, read a little and hardly laid awake all night worrying at all.

This morning there was an email from my instructor. She said of course I can write the exam at Algonquin and sent me a link to register for a proctor. Then she congratulated our family on the Little League World Series thing, because yes, I'm not above still using that as an excuse for everything - "I'm distracted in this course halfway through October because baseball".

Shut up.