What I Love Most Today is My College Degree!!!

Remember when you first got engaged and you couldn't stop looking at your ring?  Well, I'm doing this all over again except with my college degree.   It dawned on me that around this same time last year I was studying for a second level French exam.  I had to go back to school to finish my degree.   It's a pretty long story but I'll try to curtail it.

I was pregnant with Kalen my junior year at Santa Clara University.  I had Kalen August of 2000, and went right back to school in the fall to finish up.  My mother in law would come to watch Kalen while I was in classes.

These darn private colleges require higher levels of foreign language than say a California State school, so wouldn't you know it the month before I was about to graduate my counselor said the high school French and semester in Junior College would not hack it.

So, luckily they allowed me to walk through graduation and gave me permission to take second level French at West Valley College.  That was a good deal.  Except, that I kept having babies and life was just zooming by.   At one point I got permission to audit the class at WVC, did it and it turned out that in the end SCU would not accept that, big waste of time.  Second time I tried to finish I was pregnant with number four, who is now Georgia and I ended up having complications and spent the next month in and out of the hospital.

So, last year right before Summer (the season) I just knew it was going to be "now or never."  I have student loans from an expensive private University, and I did work hard (with a newborn) to do all of my work for my degree which included a Senior Thesis on South American Governments.  There was no way I was letting this degree go sour.  So I got my ducks in a row (almost literally since this "duck" in my belly was about to come take her place waddling behind the other five) and started classes at WVC.  I have wonderful friends and family.

Before classes started, we hauled the kids down to Southern Cal. where my amazing sister in law Kerri picked up the kids and watched them for a week.  She then drove them up here and stayed here for a week while watching them here for a week.  Then my mom came and took her place and stayed for the week.  This was a Summer class so it was shorter than a usual semester.  Here's the kicker....

The Summer class was not the high level French I needed.  I had to take Level 1 because I hadn't taken French in so long I would have failed Level 2 going straight into it.  So I had to get a refresher course in the Summer.  Went straight into the fall semester and my life became...wake up early study before kids get up, homeschool kids, make dinner, kids to bed and study more after kids go to bed, day after day.  

Here I am "studying" while my daughters styled my hair.  I kept telling them "no, how can I study with you tugging on my head."  Well, they prevailed and I'm sure that study hour was most productive.  

I was pregnant with my daughter Summer, the sixth duckling.  Final exams were the week before Christmas and I had Summer January 18th.  Talk about finishing by the sweat of my brow.  It's the biggest burden lifted.  I can't tell you what it feels like to have that nagging feeling gone.  It's heaven.  So because of this burden lifted, my college degree is What I Love Most Today.