What have I been dealing with the last six weeks???

Every week that I am in school I deal with procrastination, lack of concentration, and wanting to be with my family instead of doing my school work. Hopefully you guys understand what I'm talking about, and don't think, "Wow, she is a terrible student." Especially holiday weekends... LOL! As we speak my husband is sitting here wanting to know when I'm going to be done on the computer, because he wants to spend time with me.

I have been dreading writing my papers for this course, and my A&P course. I chose my topics carefully this time, so that it would help keep my interests alive, however, I lack the confidence in my writing abilities, so therefore I procrastinate. Sigh!

Consider how your ideas about your topic could be influential in later research.

My topic is very interesting to me, probably because of what I said a few weeks ago, I have ADD, and both of my daughters, my Mother, and my Grandmother. So, therefore finding out that exposure to phthalates while in the womb, may be the cause, really is something that I will continue to research even after I'm done with my paper, and even done with this class. I also would like to thank you for bringing this information to my attention.

I just started a new job this week... I'm "self employed" so I will work as much, or as little as I want to. Obviously this will make school more challenging, but being broke is just to hard to do anymore. I'm praying my new "career" will be profitable, and take the least amount of my time, because my family and school still have to come first and second.

I'm frustrated with my Anatomy & Physiology class. I don't think my instructor likes me, or she is just really hard to please. I hope that's not inappropriate to write, but that is a huge academic challenge for me right now. I'm doing great on the exams each week, but my discussion board grades are horrible. What am I doing wrong? One day/grade at a time, right? ;)

I'm wondering how this summer will go. My girls will be home all summer, on summer break, and this will add a lot more distractions to my studies, which I don't need. I am thankful for online learning though, at least I'll be here if they need me, and they won't be stuck here alone, and I won't have to get a million, "When are you going to be home," calls... LOL

Unit 4: Research, Citations, & Plagiarism

Hi Everyone! Wow, I'm really liking this blogging thing!!! I'm learning to be long written instead of just long winded... lol

We need to site our sources to give credit where credit is due!!! It is not unfair for us to use someone else's words, work, and material as our own, but it is ethically wrong! If someone used something of mine, without giving me credit, I would tattle... lol, I'm sorry but in my opinion that is exactly what I would do, and even though I teach my children that tattling is wrong, I also teach them that holding people accountable for how they treat you is right, and I believe that that would apply in this case.

Some examples of "real-world plagiarism issues," would be if my husband, he's an electrician, copied a "rough in proposal" of another electrical company. By this I mean that when a prospective customer hands several electrician's their draft of their house, and they all take them home and make a bid for the job. If my husband was to see another companies bid, and then copy it, and underbid it so he could get the job, this to me would be plagiarism. What do you think??? Another example could be if I was writing a paper for a class, and my friend decided to write about the same topic, and I noticed that my paper sounded a lot like hers, only to find out she was coping my paper, this would defiantly be plagiarism.

I do believe that the Internet blurs the lines of "legally owned." My kids watch U-tube videos and stuff all the time, and to be honest I have wondered, "How is that legal?" The ones that make me question it are the songs, and music videos, when I was a kid (wow, that was an "old" statement, wasn't it? l0l) we had to buy the Cd's if we wanted to listen to our favorite songs, "on demand," and now days, with U-tube and other sights, they are just a click away.

Hi Everyone!

I'll start by telling you a little about myself, first of all I'm a thirty-one year old wife, and mother of two daughters. We live in central Iowa, on a farm. My husband is an electrician, and I have been a medical secretary for the last ten years. I decided to go back to school so I could earn more money, however being in school, and not working, has been really hard on us financially, but we're hanging in there.

I started at Kaplan University Online in August, 2009, for Medical Transcription. Going to school online has been a good fit for me, because commuting to school would have been very expensive, and time consuming. The challenges of attending school online are constant interruptions, from my home home life, and keeping up the motivation to succeed. I also find it challenging to get a hold of some of my instructors... but I won't get into that ! :)

My research paper will be about ADD/ADHD and chemical exposure to phthalates in the womb. I'm VERY interested in this topic because I myself have ADD and my Mother, Grandmother, and both of my daughters do too! Obviously this has caused some real hurdles in our life. My youngest daughter actually has ADHD, and that is different because of the hyperactive element, and boy does that throw a ringer in our lives, I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but it's true. I once had a friend come and stay at our house for the week, she said to me, "How on earth do you handle having to ride them constantly to get ready in the morning?" I quickly reminded her I to have ADD, so I often forget to ride them, and we are late for almost EVERYTHING!!! We actually have to challenge ourselves everyday to get ready and be somewhere on time. Sorry, bunny trail... that's what I call it when I get off subject! ;) Anyway, obviously if I could find information about what might be causing ADD/ADHD this would be very useful for my children, as they will probably have children some day. I'm excited to get started!

Thanks for reading my blog!!!! ~Jaclynn~