In ten days from today I'll be starting school after being out of it for 10 years. I'm excited on one hand but also nervous because it has been quite some time since I've been in school, but I'm confident that I can make it work for me. The main factor is that if I take advantage of this blessed opportunity I can make the changes I need to get out of my current job as an Receptionist. My job is cool, but often people think that I'm stupid and I get a lot of disrespectful people, and combined with the sheer boredom and exploitation by my company of my skills the situation is a ticking time bomb for a nervous breakdown.

I had applied for a scholarship at the IDAT Design Your Future contest, and was brokenhearted that I had gotten 3^rd place (which had a prize of Adobe CS and some other stuff) rather than 1^st or 2^nd which offered scholarships. Considering that I didn't get what I wanted I was rather calm about it, and kept thanking God that I did win something, rather than nothing; and out of the blue I found out that the 2^nd place winner turned down her scholarship and I was eligible to have it, made me happy because I hear comments about my smartness and how I need to go back to school; I am grateful for this chance to go back, and I am scrambling to make sure that I do well because I need this to work.

So for me to make this happen, I had to admit that I need to get it together and do that a quickly as possible so that I am able to balance the demands of working full time, freelancing (so that my portfolio and this associates degree can open some doors to a Bachelors), family/church/social activities, and school and possibly a part-time gig. Historically, I've been extremely disorganized and dysfunctional, but I am looking to change my track record and become successful and what I desire to do. The turning point for me was GTD, I've made some changes in my life and they've been small ones and I did backslide at one point but I'm determined to get up off my behind and do better and break the cycle of being under-productive in my life.

In the past few days I have accomplished the following tasks:

1. Set up a notebook with the following sections: Syllabus (to hold copies) Yearly Calendar (printed from diyplanner.com for the entire year), Assignments (Calendar for the entire year which has my assignments listed), Next Actions (lists containing my next actions checklist), and a Notes/Misc section for those things that I need to deal with.

2. Planning on setting up systems for filing, and keeping up with paper work.

3. Planning a system to handle schoolwork and assignments, today I signed up for Remember the Milk, and am working on integrating Google Calender & Sunbird.

4. I installed portable apps on a thumbdrive so I can keep track of things, I really like the way the suite works, for me.

5. I am going to use a few hours a day to get my disorganized area together so I can function smoothly; and create systems to maintain the order.