A Pen with Flair

WHOA! I know you might be thinking...hmm, November was a long time Melody! Where have you been? There has been some great and not so great things that have happened the last few months. I am actually in the process of writing a separate blog about it so it will not take away from the focus in this blog. In the meantime, I am going to let YOU pick what you would like to read about this week! How to not feel disconnected online Websites to support you in most academic areas Where to find additional support in school Let me know which topics appeal to you and I will begin with a NEW post this Wednesday, April 4th! Take care and stay strong! Melody--

 “ Back to School Series #7 -First Day of School” .  Ooh! how exciting is it when you know you are about to embark upon such an exciting voyage! You have by this point told many people and you are exciting--maybe even eager to start. But... there is something that you need to do! Time to get organized! Wait! hold on Melody. You JUST helped me to get organized. Yes, I did, But that was for helping you to get into school and to survive the entire process of registering for school! This is different. Everyone has a system  that is different. Feel free to use my template for success in school. Before I did ANYTHING, I made sure that I looked at the syllabus. If you do not know this term, it is a brief outline about what the course tells you what is needed to complete the course successfully. Get familiar with this format. Why? Almost every class you will have will have a syllabus. I actually used my syllabus as a checklist to complete all of the requirements from my class and I g

Back to School Series #6 - Taking Care of Yourself Welcome back friends! Sorry for the delay but I started working again and my posts usually take a bit of time. This week's topic will consist of taking care of yourself. Whoa. Hold on. I thought this was about school. Yes, it is about school. Part of earning your degree will include taking care of yourself. Before I get into the how, here is a short story as to why you need to take care of yourself… Picture this: I was in my last year studying for my Bachelor’s degree. Since I was a dual major in education, I was required to complete a certain number of hours for my student teaching. Since student teaching is a job (without getting paid) I was stressed. I was tired. I simply was not eating well at all, which made me feel even more tired. I was stressed from looming bills and at the moment had a 2 and 3 year old. This stress also added to the 2-3 hours of sleep that I got about 5 days a week for about a month. There w

Saving Time on a Dime One thing that was a struggle was being able to accomplish so many things at once. I realized I needed to break down big jobs into smaller jobs. This allowed me to meet my family needs for the week. So I have some pretty straight forward ways to save money and time to help you with this journey based on my personal experience. Set Up a Food Schedule You can go to your local grocer and pick up all of your food for the whole week and do a “food prep” for my lunch (and with my husband’s lunch and all three of my kids lunches) while I was working. Leftovers also served as my lunch. I did this every Sunday. Make it a habit. It does not need to be Sunday for you. Use a day that works for you! If you live with another adult that likes to cook, schedule those days in on your family calendar when they can prepare and cook a meal during the week. This saves you time AND money. Going out daily to spend a minimum of 7.00 a day for lunch for a full work week…that is 3

Time to get Organized with Balancing School and Work This section will be broken up into several categories. For now, this is strictly about how to effectively use a calendar. I found that the more I looked back at my college materials, the more organized I was with setting my eyes on the goal ahead in small steps, which was to finish school. School Supplies I know it sounds a bit silly, but when you were a kid, did you ever get excited about going school shopping? Some kids did not (cause they had to go back to school!) but I LOVED it (I also loved school!) I loved the idea of getting a new backpack, lunchbox, new pencils, pens and erasers because I was the first one to use them! It was special because I was about to create something new. Even as a child, I was doing something I did not realize would be a critical point in my life now. I visualized my success. Well, this is also a mental step you can do. Get new supplies for yourself. New pens (even if it is fancy) and mayb

Welcome back! We left off with you being accepted into the college of your dreams AND you have gone over major hurdles of researching the right school and you finally found it and you are registered. Okay, here is where many people will stop because…it’s the money.  Yep. We all have different financial situations that cause us to say yes or no to a school because truthfully, it is expensive. But here is the reality. You’ve got to make an investment in yourself. That includes paying for school. Everyone makes sacrifices and sometimes it is simply not easy. In fact, let's be honest, its scary!! Its scary because there is the fear of not being able to afford it. You can do it, if your willing to make the sacrifice. In this post, I will outline main webpage sources for you to become familiar with (along with helpful articles) that will help you survive the financial aid process! Student Loans.gov https://www.studentloans.gov/myDirectLoan/index.action This websi