I took my floating holiday from work to go take the placement testing and register for classes. I aced the writing and tanked on the math – no surprise there. I’ll just study up on the math and retake the test next quarter.
I’m good to go on the classes. Ended up with literature, american history, and communications. now I just need to come up with the money to pay for tuition, books, rent.
I have a great deal of confidence that the money is just going to fall out of the the sky and land in my lap when the due dates roll around.
In the few short months between my trip to Alaska for a family reunion in August and my trip to Alaska for my father’s funeral in October, I read Sarah Vowell’s book Take the Cannoli: Stories From the New World. The book had been sitting on my shelf for nearly a year before I finally picked it up and started to read.
The first essay in the book was called “Shooting Dad,” a coming of age story of sorts: a progressive minded young woman grew up in the middle of nowhere in a house full of republican gun fanatics, yet finds her way home to a reconciliation with her father during an outing that involves his cannon. Hmmm, could be the story of my life.
My dad was famous around town as the guy with the Moose Gooser – A cannon that he kept at the house and packed up to take to every home game and most away games of the Palmer High School football team, the Palmer Moose. He was obsessive about that cannon and spent hours loading the shells by hand before each game.
I went to one game with him to watch him fire the cannon. That was this August and it was his last game. I read Sarah Vowell’s essay a month later and it was exactly what I needed to hear. No matter how extreme our political differences, he’s still my dad. And I love him – and I miss him.
The story is as funny as it is touching and well worth the time to read it.
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I have recently decided to quit my job and go back to school full time.
I can’t begin to tell you the relief that comes with that decision. The sensation of relief far out-weighs my terror over how we are going to get our bills paid, and each day I am more convinced that I have made the right decision.
This is going to be an interesting couple of years with both of us as full time students and little hope of any kind of financial aid. We’ll see what happens.
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. The book had been sitting on my shelf for nearly a year before I finally picked it up and started to read.
