Cara 4 Queen!

I did it! I submitted my application ten minutes ago to the Student Activities Office and am now officially a candidate for UNM Homecoming Queen.

I think I need a drink.

Putting the Queen in Homecoming Queen?

I am considering a run for UNM's Homecoming Queen 2010.

Ok, granted, I know I am not the hottest chick on campus, nor the youngest. I am 42, and built like you might expect a woman with five kids and a breakfast burrito addiction should be. I did not get my mother's lovely petite build, sadly, I inherited my father's resemblance to Fred Flintstone.

So why subject myself to the potential ridicule and scorn of my peers? After all, Homecoming is for the young, to highlight the beautiful young girls on our campus, and celebrate youth and school spirit...well, here are my reasons.

Increasingly college campuses are becoming havens for people like me, who have been out in the world for a number of years and are facing job losses and the need to become more competitive in a scary economy against yearly crops of younger, cheaper labor. We are competing against our own children!

By running for Homecoming Queen I hope to inspire others to return to school. I want to show other 40, 50, 60 somethings that we are on campus, there is a place for us, and that the University values us as more than a financial asset. I want to bring older students into the campus community in a more substantial way, to mentor one another and be an example to the other, younger students. We don't need to just be commuter students; we can be a much more visible and active presence on campus.

I also want to encourage older students to join the Association of Non-Traditional Students (ANTS). We are in the basement of the Student Union Building, room 1063, near student activities (second door from the elevator.) This fabulous organization can help you get connected with other students who may be returning after a long absence, have families, other obligations, and develop relationships that will support you through all the difficulties that come with life. We have a mini-computer pod, a printer, a copier, a quiet room, a loud table for lunch and conversations, and all sorts of great amenities and benefits for minuscule ($8/semester or $15/year) dues.

So, lend me your thoughts on the subject. Should I? Shouldn't I? Should I instead maybe seek therapy?

I am listening....

Hitch Dance lesson

Why Do I Love UNM So Much? Answer: Comedy

Yes, friends, this really is an actual banner hung outside the UNM Student Union Building by the First Family Church-sponsored group Wake, a community for campus Christians. WTF indeed.

Chaos Theory

I can't wait until my math teacher says he is going to talk about Chaos Theory. I have something to say about that.

I live Chaos Theory.

I have spent the last six hours in front of my computer trying to write content for this website for the Graduate Express Program. During this time I have had to also deal with a very nice neighbor filling me in on her not-so-nice neighbor's dislike for my cats, my kids fighting, my kids fighting ME, the Direct TV installer, Cuisinart Customer Service (to replace the lid to the basket of my beloved coffee maker), and trying to coordinate a fundraiser next weekend in my home for Martin Heinrich. I need to paint my living room and dining room because they are HIDEOUS. My feet are grody and need a pedicure. The kids need new shoes. Maddie has rehearsal today for Mice in Nutcracker on the Rocks. Tomorrow is costume call for Maddie and rehearsal for Amanda for the same show. We are out of food in the house, and I don't have time to shop. Every fiber of my body is saying, "Oh honey, just go take a nap!"

Not a bad idea.

Friday Night in the Life of a 40-something College Student

Tonight's activities:

• Working on the Graduation Express website content.
• Wine.
• Making chicken cacciatore.
• Wine.
• Studying.
• Wine.
• Facebook Warrior-work against lunatic right wing fringies.
• Wine.
• Blogging.
• Wine.

I Just Had to Share THIS!!!

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a big fan of MATH. Ick. EW. No, thanks.

Well this being my senior year, and having successfully avoided taking any college math up to this point, and wanting to actually graduate, I had to enroll in a math class this term. It just seems reasonable to take the one class standing in the way of my degree and my future legal career. I shouldn't have to, but I have to. So I am taking Math 129, a survey of mathematics. It sounded interesting for math.

The first section we studied was Set Theory. I walked away understanding only one thing: Set theory relates to sets. See why I might have difficulty?

Well today we began Counting Theory. The professor explained it like this...Suppose I have a pizza restaurant. There is one guy making the dough, and you have a choice of two kinds of crust. There is one guy putting on the cheese, and you have three options for cheese. There is one guy adding the toppings, and there are six choices there. If you can only choose one option from each stage, how many possible combinations can you come up with? Well you get the answer by multiplying the groups together, so 2x3x6=36. There was more discussion, some of which involved intriguing symbols and factors that I just glazed over when I saw, but I took notes anyway, and then he asked us to solve this:

Each phone number has 10 digits, an area code and then a seven digit number. How many possible combinations are there if the first digit cannot be a 0 or a 1 and the second must be a 0 or a 1, and the remaining 8 digits can be any number between 0 and 9?

I had a breakthrough. I got it!! I actually understood what he was asking me to do (this is huge folks!) and was able to compute it!!! The answer was 1.8 Billion. How? Well 8x2x10x10x10x10x10x10x10x10=1,800,000,000. I did it! I am so proud. I have to get back to work, but I had to post it, because I know that you will be proud of me, especially my friend Oliver, whom I have neglected.

School Ain't for Sissies

It is only 8:45 pm and I am exhausted. I just gulped down a cup of coffee, and I feel like I need another one to get to bed, which is about 20 feet away. I arrived at UNM this morning about 8, grabbed a breakfast burrito (which I delighted in eating the innards of, avoiding most of the tortilla) and a nice cup of coffee. I didn't have class until 11, but I took my breakfast down to the Association of Non-Traditional Students office (down in the basement of the SUB, great place to hang out!) and visited with my friend Janice, met a nice new civil engineering student named Joe, and was thrilled by the arrival of Dr. John, our most senior member. John is a retired OBGYN who attends classes between world travels and health crises, and is one of my favorite people, if for no other reason than last semester he brought me an article from a men's magazine touting the greatest pleasures in life, having circled "hugging an ample woman" or something to that effect. He gave it to me with a great big hug, which made me feel pretty damn good to be an ample woman, I can tell you. John was just in from Buenos Aires, and said he had never had a better steak. We talked about booze, his wife, his travels. He is a marvelous man to know. When he left another good friend, JoeL, a great young man who leads the campus LULAC chapter came to visit me, asked for a little help with his Spanish homework, and then fell asleep on our table because he had been up all night studying. I woke him up to walk with me to class. Today I only had one class, Campaigns and Elections, with Prof. Tim Krebs. I love this class, because we talk about my favorite subject for an hour and fifteen minutes, and Tim is very funny, and the class is mostly made up of a lot of really brilliant young people (yes, I am again the oldest member of the class, just a couple of years younger than Tim) with whom I have had the pleasure of taking other courses. After class I went to my job at the Title V program, and worked to build content for the new Graduation Express website.

Since coming home I have been working on Spanish homework. I just want to get horizontal now, my back hurts, my eyes are tired, and I think that I will fall asleep before my beloved Frasier.

Enjoy...

So What Am I Doing Now???

...and what exactly has kept me from blogging in recent weeks, besides my incredible laziness?

Well, I got sick the first week of August, really sick, and spent the rest of the month recuperating and healing and decompressing from stress by watching "My Life in Ruins" and "The King of Queens" on a loop. Say what you will about my media choices, but it was far more effective that Xanax.

So now I am back at school, trying to catch up, and working on campus for the Title V office. This is an outreach program to retain and graduate low income and minority students, and I am busy working on the Graduation Express program. It is pretty cool. Right now I am building content for the soon to be launched website. There will be a blogging component to this project, so I will be tying in soon.

Beyond this, I have had four of five kids' birthdays in the past four weeks, painted kids rooms, baked a fabulous banana birthday cake, and have been on the go ever since I felt well enough to leave the house. Oh! And today I picked my very first yellow summer squash from my garden (I planted way late, but am thrilled!) Could pumpkins be far behind?

It's good to be me again.

Oliver Bitched Me

Oliver, my one and only fan, bitched me out. He wrote, "Dude, you need to blog more." This is quite harsh for Mellow Mr. Oliver.

He is right, though. I have been in a blog funk. I started and ignored a post-Truman Scholars Leadership Week blog post, several times. I am finding it hard to locate my writer's enthusiasm. It is silly, I enjoy writing, and there was a time when I could crank out 6 or 10 blog posts in a day without even thinking about it. But I have been home from TSLW for 6 and a half weeks and still haven't put out my wrap up, or published anything else for that matter.

It isn't that I have been utterly overwhelmed with activity, I have been busy, but not so much so that I couldn't write. It isn't as though I have not been online for several hours a day. But I just haven't felt inspired. Well, thanks Oliver for kicking me in the pants. I needed that.

We have had a busy summer. I found that I wouldn't be able to take summer classes (this may have lead to the malaise that stole my writing groove.) We returned from Kansas City and Maddie broke her arm falling off her scooter. She is on her second cast, and the healing is slow, so that has been worrisome. My nieces visited, my brother and his wife, too. And I began walking early in the mornings with my friends, which has been great, too.

I have played countless games of Scrabble. I have glanced at the LSAT guides, and bought 501 Spanish Verbs. I have killed three basil plants. Hosted several casual dinner parties and a couple of planned ones.

All in all, summer has been pretty good, with a few disappointments, but then isn't that life?

Summer Classes

I confess. I am a class junkie. As badly as I wanted the spring semester to end, I cannot wait until summer classes start. Yes, there is something wrong with me. But I have two really exciting classes awaiting me, and I am anxious to get started (plus it is just getting me closer to the finish line for my undergraduate work and beginning law school.

Summer is broken into two four week sessions. The first session I am enrolled in Spanish 302, Developing Spanish Writing skills. Spanish is my minor, and it is funny because I am so bad at it. I first took Spanish in High School in North Carolina. My teacher was Sra. Causey, and she had the sweetest southern accent. Consequently I speak Spanish with a southern accent. This is interesting because I don't speak English with one. But when I speak Spanish I drag out my vowels, drawl terribly, and struggle to understand what the native speakers say. So I took Spanish in the mid 90's at the community college, and have taken it at UNM trying desperately to improve. First, I took Spanish Cinema, which was a lot of fun. It wasn't a Spanish class, but I picked up a lot of the language. I did my 15 page final paper on "The Films of Javier Bardem and What Alcoholic Beverage to Serve With Them." I received an A+ in the course :)

In the fall I took "Chicano and Mexicano Cinema" which WAS a Spanish course. The class was a conversation course with some writing. I worked so hard, and got a B+. But the professor was this incredible woman, Patricia Rosas-Lopategui. She is an authority on the women writers of Mexico, and has published books on the subject. Patricia is the warmest, kindest person, so open and engaging, that I enrolled in her "Mexican Women Writers" class this spring. When I went to my advisor to declare a minor we looked through my transcript and discovered that I had unwittingly wandered into Spanish as a minor as just a matter of it being the quickest path to graduation. So now I am committed. But that is ok, I have it all planned out. I have two required courses for my minor, the 302 and 307, which is a Spanish Lit class, which I am taking in the fall. I also have two other elective classes, one of which I am taking in the fall, as well...with my good friend Patricia, "The Mexican Revolution on Film," one day a week. Then just one more class in the Spring and I am done!

The second half of Summer I am enrolled in a class with another favorite professor, the marvelous Peter Kierst. The course is "Law in the Political Community," and as a bonus several of my friends from the Association of Non-Traditional Students are taking the course with me: Lisa, Matt, and Tiffany have all signed up, and we are working on getting others to join. Lisa and I are very liberal, Matt and Tiffany quite libertarian/conservative in their views, so this should be one great class.

The only thing I am missing for graduation now is math. I am going to take that at CNM for a few reasons. First, it is cheaper. Second, I have already begun the math path there, testing into math for mouthbreathers last year, I took the lowest pre-algebra you can take last spring. It was so bad my 5th grader said, "Mom, that's your homework???That's easy!" So in the fall I have to take Mouthbreathers II, then in the spring I have to take the real math for UNM's core requirement. Then I am done!

And after the fall, I will need just one more credit hour to graduate. Yay me!

Chillin with Willz

Another wonderful sleep in day, until 8:30, and Willy slept until 9:30. Heaven! We had Special K, and are now watching Sesame Street. It has been a long time since I had a sleep in day with Willy and watched Sesame Street! At lunch I am headed back to UNM to turn in a hard copy of my last paper, and then I don't know what I will do. The day holds so many lovely prospects. A walk in the park with my boy, or maybe working in the yard a little, planting some things. So many options!

So my sweet, weird boy, who is 1/4 Italian, I might add, hates spaghetti. He hates sauce. I don't get it. He is normally a pretty good eater. But we watched this on Sesame Street a few minutes ago and he was totally grossed out. Why is this?

I can't tell you how much fun I am having watching Sesame Street this morning!

Lazy Sunday

Last night a minor miracle occurred. You all may not have heard it, but I did, it was silence. All of the Compton kids spent the night somewhere else. Charles and I had the place all to ourselves. It was incredible! The most decadent thing we did (that I can tell YOU about) was sleep in. It was so great. I slept until 8:30, which was amazing. Then Charles and I got up and made a nice breakfast and coffee and watched my favorite contact sport, the Sunday morning pundit shows. Charles went to fix a friend's computer, and so far two of the kids came home...but just for a moment. They ran down the street to their friends Griffin and Margo's house and announced they would be staying for lunch. So I have been doing laundry...

Drinking iced coffee (YAY!!!)
And falling in love. Yes, I am in love with another man. Sorry Charles. You gotta go. It's time to make room for my new love...Big Daddy.

Oh. YES.
I just watched this beautiful man make some mussels and sweet potato turnovers. Fantastic. Friends, if you aren't watching Big Daddy's House on Food Network, you are missing out on one hot hot hot man.

In short, it has been a decadent, lazy Sunday. I don't get many of these, and I am so happy!!!!

Fabulous, Fancy Dinner Party Tonight

Tonight at Chez Compton we enjoyed the company of several young guests, Julie and her four kids, Tom and Nico from down the street, Anna, Rafael, and our four kids, and we feasted on a fabulous pile of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and bananas. We opened a delightful bottle of 2%, expiration date June 1, and Tom and Nico treated us to Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches, and Rafael to a tray of home made brownies, and we all settled down to watch "Bolt!" Fifteen minutes later the kids had all dispersed on scooters, bikes and foot, and the adults were sitting in front of the tv wondering what happened.

It was a great first night of break!

In the beginning

I will begin by saying this is not my first blog. I have been a lazy blogger for a while, and my other blogs are "Why My Husband Hates Me" and "Liberaltruthsayer." I am writing this blog so that I can document my journey through my undergraduate degree, and eventually law school.

Eventually isn't really that far away. I am a Senior at the University of New Mexico, and plan to graduate in one year.

I am writing because I have had the best and worst semesters of my life, and recognize that I need an outlet to vent my frustrations and hopefully find some other moms out there who decided to tackle the education trip, too. Maybe we can support one another.

So, let me tell you a bit about me (ah the narcissism of blogging). I am Cara. I am 42 years old. I have four young, wonderful kids, and am the birth mother of a fabulous, brilliant young man in New York. I am very proud of my beautiful kids. I am married to the most patient and kind man in the world, Charles. We have been together for over 15 years now, and life is great. I frequently say that I am the happiest person in the world.

Having been orphaned by the 2008 election (I have worked most of my adult life in political campaigns) and knowing that the economy and job market sucked I decided I would do what I have always wanted to do, and that is finish my undergrad work and get my law degree. I enrolled in the University of New Mexico in the Spring of 2009. My first day of school was January 20th, which was both my daughter Amanda's 11th birthday and President Obama's inauguration day. To celebrate I made cupcakes and sent them with her to celebrate both events with her class...

It was a little daunting entering university life at 40. First of all, I could be nearly everyone else's mom, and I am already pretty maternal by nature. Some of the kids in my class are so cute I end up just telling them, "you are too much. I have to hug you." Most of them like it. Thank goodness, I don't want to be accused of going to Cougarville. But it is also really challenging to take a full load of college courses, study, cook, clean and make sure that not only my own homework gets done, but that three other people are doing their own homework. (The youngest isn't quite in school yet...) It has been tough. But, it has also been very rewarding.

Last fall, at the end of my second term, I was contacted by email by the National and International Scholarship and Fellowship office at UNM. They said I had been identified as a top student and asked me if I would be interested in competing for the Truman Scholarship. I competed, and won. The Truman is one of the most prestigious scholarships available, offering up to $30,000 for graduate schools for students interested in pursuing a career in public service. This effectively means that my law school is paid for. All I have to do now is get accepted. I was also notified this week that I was awarded the Dorothy Cline Memorial Undergraduate Fellowship, which will help me with my senior year tuition. So, as I have said, it has been rewarding indeed.

But it has also been very challenging. I just had the worst semester of my academic life, where I struggled every day to keep my head over water, and just trudged to the end. My grades were not what I wanted. I was sick all semester. I badly injured my left hand mid-term, and it still is in a lot of pain. Excuses notwithstanding, I fought hard for every good, mediocre and lousy grade I got this term, and boy howdy did I get some doozies. And though I turned in my last paper today, I cannot wait until summer classes start and I can begin to redeem myself.

So this is my new blog. I hope you like it. I will post as often as I can. Sometimes the posts may be snarky, bitchy, or profane. Hold onto your hats.