Quizzes

Aaargh!!

My professor in my Weed-Out 102 accounting class wants me to construct a predetermined overhead rate from a little bit of nothing and journalize a bunch of accounting entries from a little more of nothing!! I went to his office this morning before class to inquire whether we’d had sufficient instruction from prior classes to complete the quiz at this point. He claimed we had. I, and every classmate that I’d spoken to, would differ in opinion! He wouldn’t even let me tell him where my thought process was going to see if I had any clue whatsoever. Didn’t mean to put me off—just doesn’t want to give any undue advantage, he said. Hogwash and malarkey!!

He did acknowledge in class that he’s heard from a lot of students about the predetermined overhead and gave us a teeny, tiny morsel of a hint that could have been missed, had one been mildly distracted at the moment. That tiny hint did sorta confirm that I was beginning to meander down the right path, but still…what does he think we are?? A bunch of genii??

I’m figuring out why people speak of these classes with such horror in their voices. Each class has a quiz due nearly every week that involves much time and lots of backward thinking to back into a solution. If they get progressively harder, whatever shall I do?!?

Well, this quiz is due in a little less than 48 hours and I’ve got lots of ground to cover between now and then.

A Hillbilly Hermit Fax

Martin was in fine form on Sunday at lunch. Kris and Martin were expressing their frustrations with their respective all-in-one fax machines not connecting with certain other fax machines. They came to the conclusion that an all-in-one office machine isn’t really good at anything.

Martin fondly recalled his Brother fax machine and, in extolling its virtues, claimed, “Why that machine would receive a fax from a hillbilly hermit with nothing but a…a harmonica to send his tones!!”

The conversation eventually turned to Kris’s current problem with her e-mail program and its refusal to perform properly. Martin asked her if she had uninstalled and then reinstalled the program. “Now why would you do that?!?” Mom said, “There’s no point in uninstalling something just so you can reinstall it.”

“Well, you do that in hopes that the good Lord will smile down on you and fix your problem,” Martin explained to her. It cracked Kris and me up, but for anyone that has ever had a software problem, isn’t that the truth?!?

A Bad Combination

Reasons NOT to do Accounting Homework at a Laundromat:

1. People in Laundromats love to tell other Laundromat-goers about their considerable health problems.
2. People chatting about their health problems and making obvious attempts at cleverizing conversations with family members because others can hear make it hard to concentrate on homework.
3. The inability to concentrate can lead to difficulties in reading problems correctly.
4. Reading problems incorrectly could lead to doing the problem a third time, with the third time being long after the first two attempts at the Laundromat when it was thought to be correct.

A stint at the Laundromat to wash a comforter yesterday led to the aforementioned observations. Am I ever thankful that I don’t have to go to the Laundromat on a weekly basis to wash my clothes!!

Ugly Shoes

I remember the first time I saw them. They were royal blue and came strolling into Algebra class on the feet of my friend Elizabeth. “My goodness,” I thought, “Those certainly are some horrible-looking shoes. They look like they were taken straight off the space shuttle and put on her feet. They look like astronaut shoes. I’d hate to be caught wearing shoes like that.”

As time passed, I saw more and more of those Ugly Shoes—first on campus, then more frequently I began to see them on the feet of people that were not schlepping college students. They came in all sorts of colors: red, blue, green, pink, black, and many colors in between. I became a bit intrigued by them. If someone that looked otherwise respectable was willing to be seen in public with shoes that ugly on their feet, there must be a reason other than fashion to wear them.

Several weeks ago, we were visiting Sara in Chattanooga. During our shopping marathon, she found those awful shoes on clearance sale at Target. The rest of us grossed out at their ugliness, but Sara bought a pair anyway. When we arrived back at Sara’s place, we all tried the shoes on, and I discovered what I had been suspicious of all along—they are comfortable. Later that afternoon we went back to Target and three more of us got our own pair of schlepping shoes.

My feet love ‘em. I declare that if my feet had voice boxes, they would sing me a lovely Celtic song each time I wear my Ugly Shoes. My right heel has this tendency to be an unhappy right heel, but in my Ugly Shoes, my heel is almost happy. I can definitely stay on my feet longer without my foot becoming contrary quite so soon.

For the most part, I have restricted my Ugly Shoes to home wear. After all, I do want to preserve my public persona, but the other night at the eleventh hour (literally) I needed to make a quick jaunt to Wal-mart for some NoDoz (lest I repeat my Tuesday dozing performance in class the next morning). My Ugly Shoes were very handy and, given the hour of night, I decided to take a chance at slipping in and out of Wal-mart unseen by any acquaintances. I beat the odds and made my trek through Wal-mart without recognizing a soul. Can you believe it?!?! I wore Ugly Shoes to Wal-mart!

I’ve been wanting to wear them other places now that I’ve taken that first step. It’s like the corners of my Ugly Shoe conscience have been rounded. I feel like I might need to join Ugly Shoes Anonymous.

“My name is Sharon, and I wore Ugly Shoes to Wal-mart.”

Another First Week Gone

It’s always good to have the first week of classes out of the way. People have had a chance to ogle you at least once, so you’re not quite as strange going in the next time. You’ve (hopefully) established your seat in the class—except that the people in my accounting classes evidently didn’t realize that I had Established. No matter…I didn’t like where I sat in either one of them the first day.

I’ve made some contacts in my accounting classes, which is always a good thing, and I recognize some people and other people (probably lots of people) recognize me. I sat down next to a girl in my accounting class today that to my knowledge I’d never seen before. She turned to me and said, “Are you Sharon?” I confirmed that I was and asked her how she knew me. She said that she took the same accounting class and teacher this summer that I did but took it in the hour following my class. Dr. L had a discussion board where people could get help from him and other classmates during the course of the day if they were working on homework. Evidently (I had forgotten all about it), I answered a good portion of her questions for her over the summer. She said she’d go to class and say, “I don’t know who she is, but Sharon saved me again last night.” It was heartwarming to receive the positive feedback.

My Mondays will consist of me leaving work around 12:15 for my financial accounting class in the afternoon, followed by a two hour and twenty minute break. I will then take my only night class—a management class about the Legal Environment of Business. (In that class, our teacher had us go around and give some information on ourselves. It was really weird to be surrounded by Juniors and Seniors. It doesn’t seem real that I’m one of them.) Wednesdays will be identical, except my night class won’t meet.

Tuesdays and Thursdays I will have classes starting at 8:00. The first class is a statistics class that has me intimidated all to bits. I still don’t have a clue exactly what we’ll be doing in that class. It’s that old Fear of the Unknown.

After statistics, I’ll take another management class about organization and management. (The instructor in that class is a total hoot. Today in class he mentioned a song sung by Michael Jackson, which led him off into a side spiel about Michael J’s moonwalk and how he always wanted to be able to do the moonwalk. He proceeded to do a horrible imitation of the moonwalk. “When Michael does it, it looks cool; when I do it, it looks like a fat man walking weird,” he said. He’ll be a lot of fun.)

After the management class, I’ll go to the top floor for my managerial accounting class, which will last until 12:30. On Tuesdays, I’ll rush back to the office to try to squeeze a few hours of work in; on Thursdays, I’ll take the remainder of the day off to try to get homework done so I can work all day on Friday.

I can already tell that it’s going to be a challenging semester! Accounting homework will be very intense. The legal management class shouldn’t be too bad homework-wise, but the organization management class will involve some projects and some public speaking that are bound to make me uncomfortable. And as I said before, I’m still clueless about statistics.

My work hours are now at a new all-time low. I don’t think that I’ve worked this few hours since shortly after I graduated from the eighth grade. My tiny side business as payroll processor and accounting consultant is far more significant in the scheme of things than I ever hoped that it would be—and not because I’m earning more at it either!! The knowledge that I can’t out-earn my expenses right now lurks in the shadows, but I keep telling myself that this too shall pass.