From Dusty Shelves

I'm going to at long last be able to learn to do something else I've always wanted to. This weekend I get to start a 4 day beginning sailing class on a local lake!

Sailing a boat is one of those childhood dream things I've always wanted to do but never have had the chance before. I think I probably wanted to sail boats before I even wanted to fly airplanes, and those that know me in real life know how much I have wanted to fly airplanes.

I grew up/spent a lot of my youth around the Texas gulf coast. Like most boys watching Errol Flynn movies and tv re-runs in the 60's and 70's, tall ships, sloops, cutters, boats of all kinds and the sea were very much in the foreground of my consciousness. My pre-teen and early teen years I spent the summer, winter, spring and fall on the waters of the local lakes in my dads old fishing skiff with him. Sometimes it was more about just being outside and futzing about on the water in the skiff with that ancient johnson outboard-motor puttering along as it was for the fishing.

So this weekend starts the first half of the class, we'll spend the mornings doing classroom work, the afternoons sailing. Each day we sail on a different boat so we get to see what different ones are like. We sail this weekend, take a weekend off, then the next one.

I've got my sunscreen ready, I'm ready to go!

I started work on an undergrad degree, any undergrad degree, off and on, some 26 years ago. There were years I didn't go to school. Work, life, all sorts of things getting in the way. Along the way I changed my mind, my major, many times. There have been many ideas, many dreams, many plans over the years. In the end I opted to take the smart way out, to complete, in what I could complete in with what I had. Realizing that all I had to do was fulfill some lower end credits with CLEP exams and a couple of higher level classes I set to work. It took about a year to take the 27 credits, 6 classes of CLEP exams(18 of those 27 credits), this with taking a handful of upper level English classes to round out what I needed to complete.

Then it was done. All the t's crossed, all the i's dotted. The petition for graduation was submitted and I waited. Had I really gotten everything together for them, was it all there, did it all count. I got the letter telling me I had met the requirements and was scheduled to have my degree conferred on the 5th of March.

As I sit here this morning and look at my undergrad degree hanging on the wall of my office I think about all the things that have transpired in my life since I started this journey. It's been very nearly a surreal trip. I wonder what the future will hold. I've got a grad school application in progress. I've investigated what it will take to be able to fly again. Who knows what the future will bring. There were many times I never thought I'd be able to sit here and see my diploma on the wall.

Of course there are side effects.

Everyone asks me now... how do you say your middle name? ;)

I also got my grade score from ETS for the GRE. I scored well enough on the verbal to place at my local school in the grad program, however I fell just a little short on what it states they want on the essay portion. I don't understand how that could be. I felt they were really strong essays.

Well, the report is headed to my college now. I'll queue up the final transcript after March 5th from TESC and we'll see if the graduate committee decides I am a strong enough candidate for admittance. I feel I interviewed well with the grad advisor of the program. I've got the undergrad advisor on my side personally as well as with a letter of recommendation, as well as a letter of recommendation from one of the professors in the graduate program there. My final letter was from another senior lecturer I had in the department. I should be able to meet the 3 out of 4 criteria for successful admission. I think. But then again I thought I had done better on those essays on the GRE too.

We'll see.

Time will tell.

In which 4 things make a post..

1) Grad Advisor met and talked with.

2) All three letters of recommendation writers have responded and agreed to write them for me. Forms dropped off at all their respective offices today.

3) GRE test scheduled for 1-30-10 at 12:30. (edited)

4) Application officially submitted.

In other news, or actually very related news, I've been told that it might be asking a bit much to get into a GTA slot this summer/fall. The good news is that the website is somewhat misleading in that I can likely still apply and be successful next summer/fall after a couple of graduate semesters behind me.

I'm still dithering about which way to go on grad school. I'm starting to lean more towards going ahead and going for my masters in english. While it may sound like the less wise path than going the MBA/INSY route I'm not so sure. Truth of the matter is that while I enjoy the information system classes I really don't like the business classes that much. I honestly think I'd enjoy the english masters much more. As for future employability with an english masters, it's not really as bad as one might think. There are a lot of things I could use it for later in case I'm not successful in following the goal of teaching.

Still thinking... considering...

It looks like a scary test.

It's adaptive. I hate adaptive tests. They are freaky to take.

The verbal and writing sections I shouldn't have any problems with. Math, now there's the rub. That'll take a bit of prep. Especially since I'd want to score fairly high on it if at all possible. I notice that I've found no real guidelines for how long one should prep for it. I know everyone is different. I also know that it's easy to get caught in the trap of trying to over prepare. At some point you've got to push yourself out there and just take the darn thing. So, one month, two months, more, less? There is at least some free test prep software out there that will give you an indication of about how you might score on the real thing. That and several metric tons of study guides should be able to get almost anyone through the gauntlet.

It's not like I haven't taken my share of oddball tests over the years

The other option is to think about the enlish lit track and take the GRE. The univerisity I would be likely to apply to doesn't worry about what you score on the math. The former would still likely lead me to a classroom easier though.

Must remember...
practical.....

it'll be a while before I ever complain bitterly about work again...

it's all in perspective now I guess..
a hard way to learn this lesson.

I was out at Arlington this morning around 11 or so. I was killing time until a test at 1 at UTA.

It was lightly misting, then it changed to a light rain, drumming quietly on the roof of the car. I watched a few planes come and go. The field was VFR for a while. A few biz jets arrived and were parked. After a bit a pilot walked out to his bizjet and popped open the door to start setting things up for a departure. The clouds, were indistinct, you couldn't see anything up that wasn't white. Featureless. I'd not have been able to tell you what the ceiling was. Looking off in the distance you could see a few striations in the cloud layers, but I'd be willing to bet that if you'd been up, it'd have been a VERY indistinct horizon. After a bit the rain picked up some, still, the ceiling was indistinct. I thought about the few times I've flown in the rain, wondering how the paint on 508 ever stayed on the plane. What it was like to grease on a landing on a wet runway, it's the weirdest feeling I've ever had on a landing. A flash caught my eye, the beacon on top of the tower had started winking at me, green, white, green, white. That indistinct ceiling must have dropped in the rain, a nudge of the METAR widget on the iPhone confirmed it, it was now down to 800. Still couldn't see the cloud base, it was smooth and featureless...

Made me think more about the IFR, about the pilots who can fly in that great featureless white...

It was a peaceful hour I spent watching the weather until I left for my test. Everyone should take five (or more!) sometimes and just hang out at the fence and watch the world pass every once in a while. It's pretty good therapy.