The second week of classes is winding down and I have found myself to be already behind in my reading assignments. I'm not alone. This seems to be the story of other Cal mommies as well. Tales of late registrations, wait-listed classes, sick babies and financial aid hangups. There is always "something". Each semester is different from the last and requires a completely new set of strategies to make it through. Often, when many of us are on our second and third weeks of hunger (yes, some of us actually are starving while attending one of the top universities in the country), exhausted from burning the candle at both ends, and trying to master the art of mothering (and fathering... can't forget about the Cal dads) our children, we are left wondering if all that we go through, all that we have to sacrifice is really worth it.

Right now, I am amongst the bunch who are awaiting a financial aid pay out. No books (+) no note taking materials (+) a lame computer (x) frustration, further irritability and disorganization (/) depressive episodes = lots of unhappiness and disorientation. The optimism that I once had has been replaced by the usual chronic worry. I want so much for a new life, a new state of being... just for things to go right for a change, before they head wrong. Furthering my education was suppose to afford me these things. Instead, I am living a life that seems to be harder than the one that I lived growing up. A continued "suffering", but in a new context, with new rules to the game. Yes, this is a great opportunity and it is very much worth it and life will be so much better for my daughter and I once I have my degree, yada yada yada. That still does not cast a shadow on the daily, weekly, monthly, yearly grind that is endured in the quest for the American Dream.

I'm down now, but I am still looking up. I know that my financial aid will show up just before my computer dies for the final time, I will get all the books and materials that I need, I will cry and have sleepless nights over completing the 47 pages of writing for four different classes, I will bitch and moan about not being cut out for this shit, I will give my all and finish the semester with not one class failed, I will have a few days break and then get ready to devise a new strategy for surviving the summer that will earn me a degree.