I Wish I Could Go Back To College (Blogisode Eleven)

If you are new to Sharon Wheatley’s blog, welcome!  I write stories in “blogisodes”, and to start at the beginning of this story, go here.

I have 62 minutes to write this blogisode and a lot of information to get through (and I’ve had a lot of coffee) so let’s GO!  Oh, and good morning!

Let’s start with some Blog Business.

The results of the poll are in–not really totally in–but I am making a CNN election night type prediction based on the way the numbers are trending–and here’s what we are going to do.  Oh, and thank you to the person who reminded me that this is my blog and should be about my creativity.  That’s right.  True statement.  What I have decided is this.  I will post three long blogs a week, probably on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and those blogs will include the long post continuations of the stories.  Right?  Capisce?

That said, I really like to blog and keep in touch with all of you and talk about Beatrix’s pee pee (sorry Mom), so the other days (probably Tuesday and Thursday) I will more often than not still write a short blog about something that is on my mind or a funny picture or a video.  Why?  Because the “daily” part of the entry (like what I am writing currently) takes me no time at all.  I just sit down, fire it off, kinda sorta proof read (or I have Rob proof read, or Nick Wyman corrects me publicly on my Facebook page) and I’m done.  The part that takes a long time to write (and where people start to fall behind in the reading) is the cliffhanging blogisode. Capisce?  On the weekends I will do re-runs of the current series.

To re-cap (this will be on the quiz).

1)  MONDAY-WEDNESDAY-FRIDAY:  New cliffhanging blogisodes–just like you are all used to–exact same format with the daily dose at the beginning….oh!  Do we like that term?  I just made it up.  The Daily Dose.  Okay, let’s keep it until I get sued for using it.  So three days a week you get a Daily Dose AND a cliffhanging Blogisode.

2) TUESDAY and THURSDAY: A short Daily Dose.

3)  Weekends:  Re-runs for those people who need to do make up work.

4)  No long term break anymore.

Yes?  We like?  This will start on Monday.  Warning:  I will take off Holidays, and to define a holiday, that is any day that my children are not in school.

OKAY!! (Third cup of coffee made me write in all caps).  If this makes you unhappy, you can get a full refund HERE.

Item number two on today’s agenda.

Maybe Alan Thicke can help my blog. OMG, I loved him. I was in his fan club. For real. Don't tell anyone.

There are some pretty serious problems with the new “hosting platform” that I am using for my WordPress.org account.  (37 people just fell asleep in boredom, myself included, I am now typing in my computer-geek-tech-talk sleep).  THE POINT.  I have to switch some things around so that my blog does not crash.  Maybe it’s happened to you?  Every night since Sunday (the day I made the switch) I get an “Error” report around 10:30pm saying the host is down.  Seriously uncool.  So I’m finding a new host and I will make that switch over the weekend.  Don’t be surprised if it is a little slow or weird or gone for a minute during that time.  It’ll be back and better than ever by Monday.  Thank you for sticking with me during my growing pains.

Also, soon we will have a new look here at My Own Space.  I’ve hired Dan Pearce from the giant blog Single Dad Laughing to set me up.  I have some ideas, he has some ideas, it should be all good.  I might have a writing contest.  There might be videos.  Just wait and see.  Those changes will be in place over the next couple of weeks.

I think this is fun.

Okay, now let’s get back to yesterday’s cliffhanger in the Daily Dose.  How was the gallery opening?

I have pictures.  I am not in any of them.  Here we go:

The artist with one of his works. I call this picture, "Becker with Birds"

The show “Buckled Wings” is at a gallery called Creon Gallery on 24th and 2nd Avenue, a trendy neighborhood, far from the ghetto I call home. The show documents a year of birds hit by automobiles (2009), categorized by month.  Tony found a dead birds along the road, bring them home, stuck it in the freezer and then he sketched them all.  Basically a year of beautiful road kill.  They are beautiful renderings and the way he organized it was cool, he put all the drawings in file folders by date and, so you pull out a picture, hold in in your hands and look at it.  Here–this is a picture of Brynn and Rob going through the folders.  Brynn looked at every single bird, so she gets an A+

"Buckled Wings"with Brynn O'Malley and Rob Meffe (and my sister way in the background)

The red folders represent the days he found birds.

Notice who isn’t in the pictures?  Beatrix.  She was uninvited by me. Ally Bo, babysitting wonder, covered for me.  Thank you Ally Bo.  Charlotte did go, and spent the majority of her time brokering a deal for one of the pictures.  She’s got a savings account burning a hole in her pocket and buying a bird became top priority last night.  She left empty handed because her uncle would not take money from a kid.  Heated negotiations.  I am staying out of it because the last time I entered into negotiations with that kid I ended up getting pregnant with her sister (Remember Thirteen and Three?) .  Good luck to Tony.  I will let you know how it turns out.

Uh oh.  So much business today.  We’re already at 1,000 words.  How about a little bit of a blogisode with a cliffhanger, and I’ll make up for it on Monday with a short Daily Dose and a long Blogisode.  Okay?

Where were we?  Oh.  Day one of class and I’d become my mother, which I call an “Adult Learner Over Achiever”.  I don’t think I’ve told you that my mother also went back to college as an adult and while working full time.  And in her 60′s.  Which, since my mother just gasped that I may reveal her age, let’s just pretend that when I say “60′s I mean “40′s” and my mother is still her “50′s”.  Otherwise my mother will ream me out in her daily comment.  She’s super young.  She had my sister when she was 7.  It was a miracle.

So, getting back to class, I don’t mean to concentrate so much on what I learned (but really, studying The New Deal during this contemporary recession was utterly  fascinating), but more about how I felt as a student.  Look.  It’s a depressing thing to spend your life defining yourself a suck-o student.  As a kid, I didn’t really think I was dumb, I

One of my high school report cards. Please note the number of D's and F's. Please note that I put a "property of Sharon" sticker on it. I was immune to being embarrassed.

just couldn’t understand WHY or HOW people actually sat down and did homework.  I mean, there was just so much excellent television.  Like Gilligan’s Island reruns and Brady Bunch reruns and Welcome Back, Kotter.  I had things to do.   And friends to call.  And nails to paint.  And split ends to look at.  Just so many other more interesting things to do on this planet than homework.  By fifth grade I could justify not turning in homework so easily that I actually was proud of myself if I did any at all.  I remember studying for one test in college (a musical theater history exam) and my shining moment was not that I got a good grade, but that the smartest girl in the class wanted to cheat off me because she hadn’t studied.  I was gobsmacked.  THAT was a great day for me.  Some might say, the bar was very low.

Full confession (since I am on a roll).  I graduated 120th out of 121 in high school.  I was on Academic Probation for most of my high school years, and you already know what happened to me in college. You getting it?  Okay?  Am I painting a pretty picture?  You think I wasn’t scared to death that at any moment the old Sharon Wheatley would just show and flip on a *ANTM marathon and eat chips? (*America’s Next Top Model, which makes Gilligan’s Island look like Chekhov).  I just misspelled Chekhov and had to Google it.  Not. A. Good. Student.  Get it?

Fraud.  Fake.  Obviously some weird glee about getting out of the house was fueling my love of school, not just in my FDR class (which was the hardest), but in all my classes.  It couldn’t last.  I made a deal with myself.  Wheatley, just try to make it to midterms.

To read the next blogisode in this series, go here

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