Going back to school for older adults

“I can't blame you for wanting to quit. School is such a total waste of time. Studying about old dead people and reading stupid novels in English. The only good thing is when we have Earth Day and lunch break. It takes a doobie just to get through the day. I faked being sick yesterday and today just so I could lay out.
School is just for people who want to be in the rat race. What did that hippie dude say?
tune in drop out get stoned. something like that. that's the life I want. freedom. Besides my chics mother has lots of bling so we can live with her until she gives us the money for our own apartment.”

“gottcha”

“um....Maple....why don't you look at the courses offered in the catologue? Don't you have to register pretty soon?

Do you even have a 6 week option?

Dude - I have to wait until the end of January before school starts - can't wait! - Geology class should rock!


hahahahahaha”

“Don't listen to cool breeze. He's just upset that his father told him that he wished he wore a condom that night he was conserved.


Hang in their Maple. It will all be worth it in the end.”

“still waiting to hear on my grad application. registration has been open for almost two months now, and i still can't sign up for classes. what a bummer!

on the bright side, i though i'd have to be in school 4 nights a week. found 3 possible saturday classes i can take if i can ever get admitted. my boyfriend will also be taking a saturday class, so that may actually work out pretty well!”

“I already reg for 1 class. i wanted to take another class too. I need three credits and i have to choice one class out of what i said before.”

“i am glad for you smiley!!

LOL zac... that is to funny!”

“The school beuracracy does in fact suck a bigun. We used to joke that if you could figure out which line to stand in and stand there long enought, with the right signature or stamp on your little piece of paper that you would eventually graduate.

Prolly doesn't apply anymore since everythings now done on the net for the most part; but the theme is still good.

Hang in there!”

“mapes, take psychology. it'll serve you well in life in general.”

“Anthropology was the most interesting. Psychology has been the most useful. And Sociology seemed like an amalgam of the other two so it felt like it was mostly review.

For usefulness in life I'd have to recommend the Psych.”

“General Psychology will involve a lot more biology than Anthro- or Sociology. General Psych almost always spends time on the brain, hormones, perception, neurons, the physiology of sleep and things like that. If you want to know about that stuff, take the course - if not, skip it.

One idea: Go to the campus bookstore and look at the textbooks assigned for each course (see if the profs are the same - that will give you a preview).”

“So how much can you expect to make with a degree in psychology? Maybe 30G. Whoa!!! I can make that much installing sound systems in cars on the weekends next year. Why bother with those kinds of degrees. Just a ripoff. College is just part of the system man. Just something for you to be a robot. Like the dude said, Forget about it.”

“I'm with pedxing on this one...go and review the books for the course. I found Sociology very interesting...sort of like psychology, but for groups of people. Of course, Psychology was interesting, too.”

“Well just one more class and Photography 101 is finished!

Signed up for Photo 2 Intermediate Photography last week! I Love This Stuff!!!”

“I had my final for Math on sat.
I passed baby :)”

“"do you think psychology can be done in 6 weeks?"
mistletoe leaf



For $75 an hour, I will get you through it!”

“LOL you wish :)”

“LOL you wish :)”

“$75/hr. Hmm, seems like that was the "going rate" when this relic went to school.

Nice job Maple!”

“That's the family rate. I'm also having her move my barbells to the attic!”

“Sorry, but the weightlifting scene from "Sixteen Candles" just flashed through my head.”

“Wayne State still hasn't admitted me to the grad school. I can't contact my advisor, who asked me to contact him last Thursday. I've left him e-mail and voice mail, and he won't respond. Grrrr!”

“He's probably done for the Holidays smiley girl.

He'll get back to you in Jan.

Wish I could have a job like that.”

“Ahh, then too late to sign up for classes. Ba$tards!”

“Congrats Maple!!! :)
Glad you made it.”

“Well I crashed and burned on the final, and lost my A. I ended with a B+ which is frustrating considering how much I studied. Feels just like when I went to college the first time, I always had trouble getting above that B+.

You ever go into a final with lots of knowledge and find that the test doesn't ask you THOSE questions! Grrrrr.”

“What? Hey how come no one is drinking and commisserating with me? Well I know it isn't about backpacking, but I'm learning medical stuff that I can use to amputate something while backpacking. That should wake y'all up!”

“Amputation is easy. Having your patient survive is the hard part.

lololololololol....”

“Oooooh, they are supposed to survive the amputation. Well when you put it that way ......”

“I have one more day of school and I am done with all of my requirements for eligiblity to take the state journeyman electricians exam. After thursady I am done! At least for one semester then I will start again....”

“I think the hardest part would be to close the wound after the amputation in a sterile manner to avoid infection from within.”

“Actually Rich, this is true. The worst part of a compound fracture is the infection risk since the bone has pierced the skin and come in contact with pathogens. Bone infections apparently are very hard to cure. So the same is true with amputation, trying to keep the open bone sterile while closing up the wound.”

“I was doing some reading about this in a Wilderness first aid book and the question of infection kept being mentioned when it comes to closing wounds in the woods. Makes you wonder about the cowboy days and what they did in the old days with no antibiotics.”

“whsikey in the wound”

“That has to hurt. On TV they drink it for the pain and then bite on a stick before they patch up wounds or pull bullets out.”

“I don't know Rich, there are some simple things that can be done. Marigold petals have antigerm properties. Salt in the wound hurts like hell but sterilizes. Whiskey, like someone said. Even vinegar is used in Asia although I don't know if the average cowboy would have lathered his wounds with saurkraut. I haven't read much about this.”

“The History Channel had a program on called Frontier Medicine and everything was pretty crude. People even operated on themselves because they had no choice. One mountain man amputated his own leg and made a wooden one to replace it.”

“Can you just imagine how much that would hurt while it is healing and as you got older, when you depend on only yourself to get food, firewood, etc. ?”

“It's pretty amazing to think what humans can endure when they have to. On the other hand they said the life expectancy of people on the frontier was only around 43.”

“But it's better than dyin' I had to cut off my own damn leg in the winter of '47. That's 1847, for all you smart alecks out there.

Damn modern little #&%!$s, all think you're so smart. My daddy never had a single day of book learnin' and he had more smarts in his little finger than all o' you knuckleheads put together. Why one day he...

Oh dammit, I got off track again. Well, it started easy enough, it was just my little toe from where I dropped a hammer on it. You know, one of those big smithy's hammers? Bet none o' you citified whippersnappers ever swung one o' those before. Your sissified little arms couldn't even pick it up off the anvil I bet. Hell, many's the day I spent 12, 14 hours or more swinging that damn hammer, beating out horseshoe after horseshoe, I bet you bastards would just buy 'em from China or some #&%!$ like that...wait, where was I? Oh yeah, my toe.

Anyway, it was easy enough to whack off with my big hunting knife, the same one I'd use to gut a muledeer or maybe even a griz. Heh, a griz! Now that's a bear, not like those damn pansy-ass black bears y'all got back east! Heck, a black bear is just an overgrown raccoon. A griz, that's a real bear. What in tarnation...dammit, got lost again. Where the hell...oh yeah.

So, my foot got the gangrene because the day after I cut the toe off I had to go out and hunt up some grub and I stepped right in a big pile of buffalo #&%!$. Yes, that's right, I had to go hunting for food even when I had cut my little toesy off, because there wasn't anybody else there to do it! I had to take care of myself and I'm damn proud of it! You little farts in the wind get all puffy-eyed and have to stay home from your cushy city job where you push a pencil or maybe you gotta lift a box or something all day. Damn, a mountain man's gotta get up and get grub even if he's bleeding from every orifice in his body...

Aw crap. Well, I had to hack off my foot next. That was a little harder, but my tree ax worked pretty good. Hurt like hell, of course it did, but I had laudanum to take care of that. Yes, laudanum! When did you modern fools get the idee that you had to go to a dadblamed doctor to get permission to buy medicine that you need? Hell, I been through more doctors than I can shake my dick at. None o' them fools is still alive, and here I am 85 years old, hobbling around on one leg and a fake one I made myself out of bearhide, a stump, and some lard. Stinks some, but I can still get around on it.

Why the hell do y'all keep distracting me? Dammit I'm tryin' to tell a story here!

So after I cut off my foot, I figured I had better lay around a day or two before gettin' back to trappin' again. I figured it was a good time to clean my old Hawken, so I sat it out with my brush and a rag and an old bottle of turpentine to get it good and clean. I was brushing it out real good, when, well, I guess I forgot that it was loaded and the damn thing went off and shot the brush right through my lower leg and out the end of my stump. Hurt like hell, but that's what the laudanum is for. It got all rotten again and I had to cut off a little more a few weeks later. Dammit. Lucky for me ol' Jake showed up with his Indian woman and they commenced to patch me up. Jake said it was the first time he'd ever seen someone laid up with a bum toe so long, and I told him to go to hell and get out, but just gave me a swat to the head with his Hawken, and when I woke up, they was putting a poultice on my new stump. Stank like beaver #&%!$, which I guess it wasn't, but it sure smelled like it.

Anyway, that took care of it and I didn't need no damn doctor nor none of you modern smartasses tellin' me to wash my hands or wipe my ass or take an aspirin and come by in the mornin' Hell no! Us mountain men takes care of our own and we don't brook no bull#&%!$.

And that's the God's honest truth, right there.”

“sure is a long winded troll!

OK...who left the gate open?....we're having more of these pesky varmits than normal.”

“I do believe that was written by the pansy assed raccoon faced grizzley buddha bear, who runs around these here parts still, despite rumors of his extinction!”

“That sounded like that old guy that used to run around with Grizzly Adams, what was his name??? Had that ole donkey, named Number 7....”

“She even asked me for a copy of my Research Paper...she wants to use it as an example in future classes!”

“AhhhH! Friggin' Wayne State still hasn't approved my application, and now they say I might not be able to take classes. What the f&ck!!”

“SG, I hear your frustration. My school still has me under a WA Grade(which just means that they suck and because of their being stupid, I wont get my grades till next year)

But my math teacher had alreay told me I passed right after I took my final. But I have no clue as to if I passed English.

oh well, I am going backpacking and I just want to forget about school for a while!”

“Wolfeyes knows a professor who was willing to help me out, but he's out of town already for the holidays. Grr! The jacka$$ on the phone yesterday said I should have just stopped by the office work "drop in counseling". Well, duh, you make this program for working adults, so why the hell would I have time to drop in for counseling? I work during the day, #&%!$heads!

Between this news, and failing the P.E. test, oh, and working 12 hour days this week, its been a fun few days. :(”

“if I get drunk for you on Friday night, will that make you feel better?



j/k. cheer up”

“LOL! Maybe if my boyfriend gets me drunk on Friday I'll feel better.... ;)”

“Oh the fun I could have...”