Yesterday I picked up my high school and college transcripts and went to do fun things at my new school. I did an exceptionally good job wasting my own time by taking the Accuplacer test for reading and writing, which I didn’t realize I could have skipped entirely because of my SAT scores from high school until it was already done. I also forgot to mention to my academic advisor that I shouldn’t have to take English 101 because of my Advanced Placement score from high school (okay, to be entirely honest, I’d completely forgotten that I’d ever taken AP English until later). I would like to sign up for the African American Lit class for the summer session (which starts in the second week of June), but I need that stupid English credit first.
I also was reminded strongly of how very very young I look. Most of the people I interacted with did not speak to me like a woman who works full time, is married and raising a child, and is approaching thirty; they spoke to me like a doe-eyed college freshman. Only a couple of people were downright rude (both of them were the Accuplacer proctors), but even the ones who weren’t rude grated on me. I’d forgotten what it was like to be treated that way, and it made me feel very insecure despite the fact that I am generally not an insecure person.
I did a bit of poking around, exploring textbook prices, and what I found pretty much made me want to curl up into a ball and die. I’d known that it was bad, but what I remembered from my year in college was having to spend at the most $150-200 on books for a single class. Some of my nursing classes require $500 of textbooks, and those classes are also 8 credits which makes them super expensive to begin with!
I’m also very nervous about the classes themselves and how well I can do. It’s just been so long since I’ve had to take notes or write papers, and I’m feeling pretty rusty. I feel pressured to get as close to a 4.0 as I possibly can because that will guarantee my acceptance into the nursing program. I just don’t know if I can do it.
I woke up at 3 this morning because the baby was coughing. I started thinking about school and just couldn’t get back to sleep again. I just have so much on my mind. Marcus and I have been talking and in order for me to see this through, we have to make some very huge changes in next two years.
And we won’t be having another baby any time soon, and that’s what’s been weighing the heaviest on my mind. I really wanted to give Eve a sibling no further than 3 years apart. My brother and I are 2 and a half years apart and we’re very close to each other; Marcus and his sister are almost 5 years apart and they barely even talk to each other. I know intellectually that there is no magic number to guarantee a close relationship between siblings, but I still feel like there’s a window in which to give her the opportunity to grow up with another child and that by choosing to pursue a degree right now, I am choosing to miss that window. She’s going to be an only child for a while, which was never in The Plan, and I can’t help but be sad about it.
At least she has her cousin, who is only a month younger than she is; and hopefully she will have more cousins closer to her in age when my friends start having children. It’s still not the same though, and I feel like I’m letting her down, as silly as that may sound.