Friday, September 16, 2011

What really happened!?

I never really paid much attention in school. There were to many distractions for me to really be able to pay attention. The biggest thing that I hated the most about school was the way the teachers would adopt there little pets and always give them most of their attention. Even if I struggled in class, I would have to compete to get the help that I needed. It was a struggle that I did not like. So, I usually didn't care much for school.
And since I did't do very well in school, I figured I would have a hard time getting good grades in college. Even though it was a community college, I was still very nervous. Just the thought of being able to digest all that information that I was going to need to graduate was overwhelming to me. But, what really happened was surprising and very invigorating. I started out my college career with A's in every class. I was happy and proud of myself. I figured from that moment on that I would work as hard as I could to get as many A's as I can. This would prove to be a problem for me in later events, but for now I was on cloud nine.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

The other class:

Computer class was a great class for me to start in since I was already interested in computers. I started working on computers a while back when I was around 24 or 25. I realized that I was way behind the times in technology and I wanted a computer, but I just did not have the money to buy one. I messed around with computers before, but not very much and so I was somewhat computer illiterate.
I did have a few extra dollars, so I invested in some hardware. I bought the essentials of a computer that I read about in computer manual I owned. I bought older computer parts because they were the cheapest and I didn't have to take much of a loss. I worked hard at trying to put this thing together and finally I got the thing to turn on a few days later. Within a week I was online learning about computers and how to put them together. I was lucky with that computers because the drivers were already on there without me having to download them. A driver is a program that helps the main part of the computer operate another separate parts.
After that, it was all internet work coupled with trial and error to put computers together. I began to sell them to make more money, so I could get better parts. After about a year, I finally had the computer that I wanted and stopped making them. I had finally reached my goal.
Well, after that explanation you probably would not be surprised to hear that I wanted to go into computer repair. So, the next class I took was Electronic Analysis, which was a class that you needed to get a certification in computer diagnostics and repair. The only problem with this was that after a couple semesters I started to realize, with other peoples help, the computer repair business was going to get more and more competitive and so I would have a harder time getting a job. Humm, what should I do? I will try to answer that questing in my next few blogs.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

The Reality of School

I began school not realizing what was really going on there. I figured that I would not make very good grades because of the grades I made in high school. It was interesting to go somewhere where the majority of people were much younger then I was too. I thought that I was going to find all of these young intelligent minds that were going to blow my old mind away. In hindsight this was a very self-demeaning attitude. I was not around a lot of people up to that point and my view of people and life changed dramatically since then.
Among my first classes were speech and computer class, which taught me a lot. Basically, speech helped me to find the reality of being able to exist in front of other people. I hoped that it would help me to get over my shyness of being around other people, and help me to be more social. In a sense it did, but very little. Over time I have become less shy by utilizing some techniques that speech class taught me, but ultimately education had the greater impact in that area of my life. The point here is that I started school as a bumbling introvert and defeatist. I had very little support and encouragement, but I still went to school and did the best that I could.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

What to do?

It all began sitting at my house looking at a few things on the Internet. Doesn't everything seem to start from the Internet nowadays? Anyways, I found that there was help out there for people who would like to go back to school and get a degree. I figured that I would go ahead and do just that. It was a decision that was somewhat easy to make since I wanted more out of my life then what I had at the moment.
I will not go through all of the gruesome details of my current situation of that moment, but I will tell you that construction was the only thing that I was able to do, and that was not my best choice anymore. I didn't like the attitudes that construction workers carried. I also didn't like that there was a lot of drugs that went along with this field. I was trying to go straight. College was about the only choice left for me.
I got a hold of a place called Vocational Rehabilitation, and they sent me through various tests that showed that I could obtain a degree in school if I wanted. I did. My VR counselor said that I could go to any college that I wanted, and I figured I would start out small and attend OTC in Springfield, MO. This was a great choice and I was very happy there.
In the following blogs I will try to show you the papers I created for various classes, and maybe explain to you what I was thinking and why I chose to select that particular subject. In this way I will try to also insert some information about my attitude with college at these times as well. I have a lot of papers to pass on to you and I am going to allow you to experience my college experience through my college work.