Rest, rest....precious rest.....is what I craved this whole week. I am still trying to recover from week 3. But sleeping in until 11:30 every morning seems to be helping. :)

Well everyone should know by now that my *continuing* goal is to finish all of my assignments during the first week? Any guesses on how I did this peaceful week?? Oh, hush.....I know, I know....I will be setting the same goal for week 5. It's amazing to me that I was so *sure* that I would get everything done this week. But I tend to forget how easy it is to sleep half of the day and then go to the mall and spend money! I did, however, make several accomplishments. I did complete all of the assignments except for the Project Prospectus. The one reason I didn't do that assignment was because I haven't given ample thought to it. The revision of questions and evaluation of resources were knocked out in the beginning of the week.......and it looks like I took a mini vacation the rest of the week!

I did the revision of the essential and foundation questions on Monday......soon after I printed off the assignment. I thought since I completed that one so efficiently, it would push me to the other ones soon thereafter. Boy was I wrong. I read the instructions for Evaluating Resources I, and for some reason I was totally overwhelmed. I calmly put my instructions away until another day.... There was no way that I could even attempt to do that assignment until I felt a little less overwhelmed. I didn't have the guts to look at it Tuesday (I was too psyched for Karaoke!), but by Wednesday I knew that I couldn't put it off any longer. I *made* myself sit down and do the assignments, so that by Wednesday evening I had finished all 3 Evaluating Resources. And at that point I felt like 25 pounds of pressure was lifted off my shoulders. Those 3 assignments weren't terribly hard, but they did take quite a bit of uninterrupted time to finish. (which is hard to come by, I might add).... The process of examing different webpages was quite interesting, I must say. I have honestly never given much thought to analyzing a webpage in that way before. I definitely didn't like being a "grader" in the third evaluation. It was hard trying to decide how many points should have awarded for each section. I was like "Who am I to make this decision?" I know almost nothing.......But this week's assignments did heighten my awareness to the fact that anyone can publish anything on the WWW. (The elephant webpage was a SCREAM)

I also wanted to comment on my mailing list. I have been a little disappointed. Most of the emails I am receiving right now involve 2 woman *arguing* back and forth over some topic (which I am still unsure of). I also find it hard to determine what people are talking about. Most of the time the emails are replies to some earlier message, but there is no context given. I haven't read an email yet which really gives any insight into Augmentative Communication. And those 2 fighting women are giving me a headache!

I guess I don't really have a good excuse for not finishing my Project Prospectus. Several of this week's assignments had due dates of ongoing, which made life a little easier on us. So in a sense, I should have had less pressure to begin with. Somehow, I can always see things after the fact. You know what they say..."Hindsight is 20/20" I'm really not even sure that I should restate my goal for next week. After 4 weeks, I'm not sure it's worth it. The only real goal I have in sight is finishing this course and doing well. Should I really be concerned if I don't finish all of my assignments during the first week? I don't remember reading on the syllabus that this class was a *race*. If my best takes 2 weeks, so be it. I think I might be struggling with comparing my progress to everyone else's. I think that some people have a natural predisposition to *cranking* out their work in a speedy manner. But I am not like that. Is there something wrong with me? Why is that sometimes it feels like there is less glory to be had if you don't progress as fast as others?

I hope I haven't made this journal too personal. But some of these things are thoughts that I am struggling with on a daily basis, for one reason or another. Maybe I should do some additional postings as I think through some of these issues at hand.