krista.txt

So I decided to scrap the old Nokia for a *pink* Motorola v3m Razr. (I know, I am always running behind.) But buyer beware, there are tons of imitations out there! The first one I received was made of plastic, with a different colored metal battery door! (The whole phone should be aluminum and for crying out loud, at least match!) The little bit I played with the phone, I can already see it is sorely overrated, not to mention it is too wide for me to open one-handed. But at least I can send photos, use Bluetooth, and not have to enter voice commands manually, not to mention the phone is pink which is really all that matters!

Now that Christmas vacation is already over (and sooo soon!), school is back in session and despite going back to work full-time on the 14th I will also continue to go to school full-time. I know, what was I thinking?! For this term I am taking Bestsellers and Accounting for Not-For-Profit Organizations, and just looking at the syllabi (plural for syllabus?) I am so overwhelmed. I have no clue about nonprofit accounting to begin with, and I have to read a novel a week for the Bestsellers course. In addition, I have W-2s and 1099s for three different companies to push out before the end of this month, not to mention the tax return preparation on the side... These next couple of months will certainly prove to be very challenging. Don't get me wrong I'm really excited, but I just want to be able to enjoy it all!

Yes, this would be what I got for Christmas...


Although the honkin' 12-cell battery has got to go! Otherwise weighing in at only 5.5 lbs, I love, love, love how light this is compared to my old one, which has now been given to my mother for those of you asking... ;)

Microsoft is finally issuing @live.com email addresses! So as of January 1st I will no longer be using kristadallmann@msn.com; my new email address is kristadallmann@live.com. Watch for new Messenger invitations from me and please update your address books accordingly!

Get your new @live.com Live ID here.

Less than a week until the start of Christmas vacation... I desperately cannot wait! The last time I had a break was last year at this time... I didn't take a summer break; in fact, I doubled my course load! That being said I will have 33 credits behind me with 27 (or 9 classes) to go... The plan is to graduate by the end of August, attending the graduation ceremony in May. I want to be done!!!

Now that I'm past the halfway mark, or over the hump, however you want to put it, I have more or less a few gripes with Upper Iowa University's online classes. First off, no grading scale is alike! In one class (regardless of core classes), a 90% may constitute an A whereas in another class a 92% or 93% might. Another is that the policies are not applied consistently; take for example, all instructors require 5 out of 7 days class participation, but there seems to be confusion whether it is one post or two per day that is required (most classes is interpreted to be two). All of my instructors (but one!) have accepted work late in which you usually incur a 10% penalty per day that it is late, but this one class I'm currently in I definitely learned the hard way (hence, "lesson learned" the topic of my post).

I tend to push off my homework until the very last minute (for which could yet be another gripe - "midnight on Wednesday" is always construed differently across instructors), and this last Wednesday evening was no exception. For this paper I was to view either the movie Wall Street or Fun with Dick and Jane and answer a number of questions. I was getting tired, and for once (just once!), I decided to accept being late and finish it up the next day, this was at around 11pm. At 12:06am Thursday morning I receive an email message stating that the online week was closed for credit, focus on the next week, in addition to an attachment regarding his specific policy regarding late work. I was shocked! This paper was worth 80 out of 1000 total course points! Luckily I am still pulling an A (and a 4.0 as a matter of fact). Not only did it cost me 80 points however, it also cost me $2.90 to rent the movie "Fun with Dick and Jane" and $10.55 in late charges. I'd say lesson learned!

All I want for Christmas is whatever you find here. I've been really, really good this year... I donated all of my technical reference books on Windows XP and Office 2003 to my local library as soon as I could so that my under-educated community may benefit... leaving my bookshelf nearly empty...