What's New?

This week has been very busy. I finally made it into work on Thursday and swore it was Monday. On Friday, I swore it was Saturday. I have been so confused.



Anyway, I survived my orientation at Utah State on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I have a few bruises from falling on a cinder block during a team building activity, but otherwise I survived. If I continue to survive, by May of 2011 I'll have an MEd in Instructional Technology with a technology teaching endorsement. The coursework covers everything from web design, html, multimedia, moodle, skype, blogs, video, etc. to grant writing and a course on how to convince people around you to use technology. Ultimately, the purpose of the program is to get teachers to use technology to teach kids. I am excited about the program, but still pretty nervous about being a student again.



The orientation was fun, though, and very informative. I think I have a good group of people in my Cohort for the next 5 semesters. It was a good opportunity to meet all of these people face-to-face.



In other news, we decided to bite the bullet and buy a new computer. Our main computer crashed about a month ago. James rebuilt the hard drive, but it's been sickly ever since and just hasn't been working well. What to do? Well, there's no way we can both be in school and doing homework (starting in the next few weeks) with just our little trooper of a slow laptop. We need 2 machines. So, we shopped around and decided on a super powered hp with a ginormous 23" monitor. It's pretty cool. You have to turn your head from side to side in order to see the whole screen. We even watched a Netflix movie on it last night. It's a lot nicer than our televisions!

My final thought for this week is that I am addicted to family history stuff lately. I'm pretty sure I am driving James crazy. My PAF is my best friend and I feel like I need to save the world by typing in people's names. Aaaaahhh!! Actually, what I would really like to do is find some names who haven't had any temple work done yet and learn the process of submitting them and doing the work myself, but I haven't found that yet. Oh well. I'll just keep typing names until I do.

Garland Wheat and Beet Days

So Haley and I went up to my parents house on Saturday. My parents had all but two children there for a party. It also happened to be Garland City "Wheat and Beet" Days. This is one of those old town annual parties that happen throughout the State. We were enlisted to go at 7:00 a.m. to do a 2 mile walk. Alicia ran the 5k, and she finished 5th overall and 2nd in her age group. The rest of us, “the walkers,” were of course behind her. Next, we had a breakfast that had the best pancakes. The parade was to follow. It was not as good as years past. Then, we relaxed after being generously provided with pizza for lunch. Thank you Mom and Dad.

Then we went to a firemen’s water fight. This is where Tremonton and Garland fire departments compete with each other to see who is the biggest and the best. Tremonton is usually the dominant force. In past years and including this year, the crowd is also soaked. It is a nice way to test out the capacity of the trucks, while allowing a cool down from a hot day. We returned back to my parents home for dinner and more relaxing. We had some very good socialization. (And the corn from the garden was delicious.)
Thanks to Mom and Dad for a wonderful party.
Here are some pictures. ENJOY!!!

The Cost of an Education

It's August now and that means we all go back to school soon. This year I am not only going to have anxiety over being the teacher, but I am also having a little anxiety over being a student again. I am starting an MEd program through Utah State University. It seemed like the right thing to do last spring when I applied, but now I'm a little nervous. Will I be a good online student? Is the program really what I want to do? Is it going to be too overwhelming to manage taking two classes a semester while piling on more at school by teaching on my prep as well as doing music lessons two nights a week? Can I really handle being an Aggie? Ugh. I go to an orientation in Logan this week. Hopefully my mind will be set at ease, at least academically, and I'll know a little bit more about what I'm getting into.

James and I are very blessed and we'll be able to both be in school at the same time with very little financial stress. Because of James' military service, his tuition is paid for! (Although he had a scare this year with some scholarship cuts. His 3.8 GPA wasn't quite good enough for the limited number of scholarships that are offered through the Guard. He was able to apply for a tuition waiver, though, and that was accepted. Thank goodness!) For me, teaching on my prep should bring in enough extra to cover my own tuition, as long as we stick to our current budget and spending habits.

Anyway, I've been thinking about tuition and the cost of an education. What James pays in tuition at the U is a lot more than what I paid 6 years ago (Gasp! I'm old!). In fact, what I paid then is about what it costs to go to SLCC now. I was curious and started looking at what other schools charge for tuition for 1 semester. Here is what I found (based on a full load of 15 credit hours, for residents):

Utah Schools (greatest to least) -
University of Utah ----- $2872
Utah State University ----- $2413
Brigham Poo University ----- $2145 (unless you're a non-member and then it jumps to $4290)
SLCC ----- $1395

Schools Outside of Utah (least to greatest) -
UCLA ----- $4500
Florida ----- $5300
Stanford ----- $6200
North Carolina ----- $2812 (unless you're a non-resident and then it jumps to $11,756)
Princeton ----- $17,000
Harvard ----- $26,000


Holy Cow! School is expensive.

For those of you within eyesight of this blog who have not yet started college . . .

START SAVING NOW!!!!!