week 3. written in week 10.

challenges people face...this was the assignment way back in week 3.

I have come to the conclusion that my journal entries are not what the instructor is going to expect to see. What I gather from other students is that they are basically writing the same as we are our essay assignments.

I wish I could write something serious about the challenges people face. I guess I could pull something together, but just how much time do you have? A personal challenge I face every week is writing these journal assignments in a way that would pertain to an audience that is not what I would consider to be my target audience.

I write almost every day of my life. I reach out to an audience that I believe is listening and may not agree with me (and I wouldn't blame them). Writing because I say so and on subjects I choose is easy. It comes natural to me.

I guess a challenge I face is taking my journal assignments seriously. I actually don't take people seriously. In the last 3 years I've seen so much that it has become extremely difficult to care or relate to anyone. It is difficult for me to be relatable. Or spell relatable. I write from my perspective because I just have in my head this idea of journal.

As of week week 9 I am making a 99% in English. I fear that by week 16 this will not be the case.

Maybe another challenge I face is gauging my audience. Maybe I know my audience has many challenges today in modern society. I know unemployment, insurance hikes, gas gouging have hit alot of my "audience". By audience, I don't mean my classmates because I don't know mst of them. I mean my Facebook audience because that's where I post my writing.

Maybe I know my audience, in this tough time, looks for comic relief from everyday life. Maybe I'm not cut out for essay style writing. I'm kick ass at it though, because my grades are proving that.

Maybe that's the problem though. Maybe I'm supposed to pull up Word and write there, without a clear view of any sort of audience. Just writing a general opinion about challenges, knowing the other than my instructor, no one will read it, and then to me, it becomes wasted words.

Maybe I'm just a better writer than English 111. Maybe I know this. So in that respect, doing the assignment as assigned is my challenge because I already did this class. In 1994. I was 16. Maybe I was reading college level material at 9 and I just can't dumb myself down. I guess that is a challenge for alot of people. I know alot of kids are truly gifted and talented and cannot get the education they deserve. I also know a few children who are behind that could CERTAINLY use extra help. ANd I actually believe the way our government has set up schools has set it up so that basically, everyone is to be average.

AHA!!! A CHALLENGE! Oh crap. This really fits better under the probem/solution assignment given in week 9! Well, I'm going to wrap this one up and continue it in another assignment, because I do feel very very passionately about the state of education. As a former homeschooling mother of some pretty smart kids and one who was born disabled, this was my main reason to homeschool.

So lets get back to challenges in every day life. Becuase I do have it in my head, I'm just having a hard time expressing it. We are not supposed to use the word *I* in our writing. I cannot help it. I've decided that my journal is going to be set in narrative tone. I just am a narrator by nature. Again, I've been a writer since I was 7 years old writing my first play and it was REEEDICULOUS. I could probably find it. If I really wanted to tell you I didn't like you because it's that bad. I digress...

My challenges pertain to this, and I do believe everyone around me can relate, time. Time to fit it all in. Fitting in school and doing all that I can do to be that A+ student I know I am (hey, 98.75% average ain't nothing to sneeze at). I know, it took me like 30 paragraphs to get to my point. And I'm not sure I'm even quite there. Tough it out.

I am like most college attendees going in their 30s. I have a family and a whole bunch of kids. I have a husband and a home I take pride in. Lucky for me I don't work full time like others have to do. I get to go full time. Which that's great for me but how about my husband and HIS challenge of time. He works extra shifts to afford for me to make my dream come true. We balance and juggle every single just like EVERYONE in college I'm assuming. Still, the weekend comes where my children are with their dad and I feel like I've fallen short on them. I feel like I just don't have enough hours in the day. And I'm sure if I asked everyone who agreed with this to stand up, you'd hear a collective "whoosh" of people standing up across the world.

Time management has always been important. When my girls homeschooled, my life was even more hectic than as a working mother or a college mother. I've worn many hats and funnily enough, college is the easiest one. But it requires me to be in several places in life each day. I'm mom/Betty Crocker. I'm commuter. I'm student of knowledge. I'm networker. I'm wife.

Is the juggle worth it? Absofuckinlutely. Yes, I'm going to have to eliminate the swearing from my finished product. I'm almost 33 years old. I went through a major depression spell when I turned 29. It was a dark few months in my life. Almost as dark as my divorce. That was when I realized I wanted to go to college and boy should have went for it then. I did not and I began to wonder what I was on the Earth for. This world spins every day and either you are out there, using 19 hours out of the day or you are sitting around wondering what you should do with your life. I was the latter and now I am the former and I've found that life is worth living even more when you wish there were more hours in the day. When there is just so freaking much you want to do that you wish for more hours. Depression makes you tired. Tired makes you waste time. Oh. There's another word we are forbad to use, you.

I'm going to polish up these essays, or rather, narratives before I turn them in. I'm not a student of grammar or capital letters even. I consider myself a student of the written word. And I'm always in awe of writers who use the written word in a way that it is life altering. My challenge is to pass Eng 111 and Eng 112 so that I may learn some better more effective ways to write to be life altering.

My true challenge in life? To leave my mark on the world. I'm getting there. Trust me.

Tonight's entry written with the aide of "Jane Says" playing full blast in the background.