sorry for the delay

Just so you all know, I have been working out-I kept it up over the holidays-just didn't keep up the blogging about it. I have switched from the 30 day shred to her burn fat and boost metabolism workout, because it's 45 minutes instead of 20, so it's more of a work out, and trust me, it really is. She's way into plyometrics, which is jumping exercises-way intense. Anyway, that's all I'm going to say about working out today-today's blog is something else. I am starting my second semester of graduate school in a week, and Zane is working on his last two quarters of grad school starting this year, so we're pretty busy with life and school. We both have done quite well so far in our programs, and I'm going to tell you why I think we've done well. Zane has been going to graduate school online full time in addition to his full time job for the last year and a half or so, and has maintained a 4.0 the whole time. Some people may thing that online classes are easier than traditional classes, and I'll tell you why that is a misconception. An online class takes at least twice as much dedication: in a traditional classroom, you listen to lectures, and discuss verbally issues, and in an online class, you read the lecture notes, and write your discussion postings-it takes twice as long to read versus listen, and to write versus speak. So just getting the actual class lecture out of the way for a 2 hour course may take 2-3 hours of work at home. And then factor in homework and papers and readings, and you've got 12-15 hours a week for each online class that you need to dedicate in order to be successful. Here's the secret to being successful: time management. Zane and I each have a day planner, and at the beginning of the semester, as soon as we get our syllabi, we sit down and write each due date for large projects, small projects, and weekly assignments into our planners, so looking at each week, you can see exactly what needs to be done. Next, comes the weekly schedule. Here's a little trick I learned in college: when your schedule looks crazy, you break it down into 15 minute time slots for each day-for example, a busy day for me may look like this:
7:15-7:30-wake up/get Layla dressed
7:30-8:00-breakfast/check emails
8:00-8:15-make bed
on through the busy day crap
6:15-7:15-read chapter 6
7:15-8:15-research for paper
8:15-9:15-respond to questions for chapter 6
9:15-10:15-research for paper
end day

When you manage time wisely, the course load isn't as overwhelming, and it doesn't get away from you. That means you're in control, and I think that's 90% of the work. So to all of you in school, I say that as soon as you get all of your syllabi, put everything in a day planner, outline each day's work at the beginning of each week, and stick to it.