Last Week

I have to admit that this last term was a really difficult one.  If ever asked again I would not take Comp 2 and Anatomy 2 at the same time.  With those two classes and an increase in work, I am shocked I made it through.  I do have to say I did learn I was a lot stronger than I ever knew I was.  I even had the guts to take off of work and to not answer my phone for the time that the final projects were due.  I had asked for a week off, oh, well, I at least got 2 days off.  It has been very interesting and I enjoyed everyone in the class.  If was confusing at times, but enjoyable.  I swear if I learned stuff in Comp 1 it changed in the term that I did not take comp though. 

Good luck to everyone, and take care. 

Happy Thanksgiving

Hi everyone,

This week has been a very difficult week.  I had two papers due for school and had only one to the point of a draft.  The other was only researched and outlined.  I told everyone at work I had to have a week off of work so I could get my school work finished and done to the way I wanted it done.  Everyone was fine with that.  It was, sure Vickie, we are not busy right now, go ahead and take off, get your schoolwork done.  Yea, want to guess what happened?  It was like everyone had a problem the first three days I was supposed to be off.  What I find really funny, is that the salesperson will sit there and complain about the bosses taking up all my time, but yesterday, I got no call from anyone but her.  She called me ten times and sent about twenty texts and was insisting that I fax stuff and e-mail items and anything else you can imagine.  Then today she texts me and wants me back to work immediately to see about closing a deal.  It is ridiculous, she does not even realize it.  Or maybe she does, I called her out on something similar before and all she did was laugh.  This was the first time since 1996 that I actually told everyone I had to take off of work.  I usually never take a vacation at all, but school was important enough to turn my phone off the last four days.

Good luck to everyone who had those final papers due this week.  Everyone have a happy Thanksgiving.

Constitution

I had an interesting incident this week.  In the process of discussing my opinion of what the government is doing, especially with our food and health and what they will allow anymore or not allow is more like it, a comment came up of people wanting to pick and choose their own government programs.  I understand that there is a lot of that.  I know that some people want every social program you can think of, social security, medicare, welfare, Medicaid, unemployment, and the newest, health care.  I know there are people who like all of these.  I have to say, and I did, I would be much happier if the government would stay out of our lives. 

What I would really like, and I very much doubt that many people even know it; it would be great if the government did just what the constitution said it should do.  The constitution was written and our country, the best and freest country and people, were based on that document.  If you read the constitution, it states that there are some responsibilities the federal government has, and anything that is not in the constitution, the federal government should not be doing.

The federal government is supposed to protect our country from enemies and threats from others.  It is supposed to protect our borders, (did you know it even states that when someone does come to immigrate and go through the naturalization and everything, they should actually pay a fee to become a citizen?).  The government is supposed to assist the commerce among states (not in the states), and the government is supposed to print the money for the country.  The government has gone way past these things.

Let us take just one example.  The Department of Education.  There is nowhere in the constitution that says the feds should take over our schools.  Schools were supposed to be under the control of the cities and the parents.  Then it went to the counties and the states.  Unfortunately, our previous president Jimmy Carter decided to create the Department of Education.  Took all control or say from the parents and the local government and gave it to the federal.  To say the least, you now see parents competing and paying huge sums so their children do not have to go to a public school.  We all know the schools have gotten worse as the feds took more control.  That is just one example.  We may go into others at other times.

Peer Reviews

How do I feel about peer reviews?  I really accept all the help, advice and suggestions anyone would like to give.  I am one who feels you can never have too much information.

What I do not like about peer reviews?  I really feel bad when I have something not so great to say to someone else.  I do not like being honest with someone when I know they tried their best and I find something wrong, or something I do not like.  I hope no one takes anything too seriously.  It has been an interesting week.  I have to admit I downloaded a few drafts, and had to throw some out, there was just too much to talk about.  I could have gone on all week.  I have to say I do understand why Nancy was frustrated last week in seminar.  Hope this week is better.

Everyone take care, and good luck on your reviews.

Well, this has not been a good week.  The job has been ok, maybe that is because I have ignored it the last two days.  My oldest daughter went to the emergency room 2 nights ago.  I have been in a panic waiting to find out what is going on.  I have almost decided to go to Florida, I wish I could, to be with her.  But I know if I had been there yesterday I would have caused more trouble and stressed her out too much.  The waiting was driving me nuts, and I in turn was driving her nuts trying to find an answer.  Imagine if I had been there and I was bugging the nurses and doctors.  No, I guess for that day I was better off in California.  She went into surgery this morning, they were not sure what they were going to do, they were going to see what it looked like and decide once they were there.  I still do not have an answer yet as to what they did.  I texted, but someone texted back she was sleeping, so I guess I will find out soon.  At least she is out of surgery and doing ok, otherwise I would not have gotten even that answer.

I have to say I found a new love for texting the last three days.  Where she has not been able to call, she has been able to text.  I guess they took her phone away as they wheeled her into surgery, because she was texting to the end.  Well, guys, I have a little trouble concemtrating on much of anything else right now, so I will go and hope to hear her voice soon.

Everyone pray for her please.

Plagerism

Hi everyone,

I hope everyone had a good week.  I started last week to post on plagerism since that is what we are studying in class.  I have to say, all my life I have been plagerized, I figured it was just part of life or part of my job.  I grew up with my mother always taking credit for everything I did, then I made the mistake of going to work for her.  Well, of course she kept on taking my ideas as her own.  Then when I went to work for my current boss, I was used to my bosses taking my ideas, but I did get upset when fellow employees took my ideas and letters, etc.  I got to the point I brought my own computer to work and home everyday.  (This was before laptops, I actually carried my desk top to work everyday, then took it home to play me games at night.)  To this day I do not know what it would be like to get credit for my own thoughts and projects.  Of course, if one of my ideas had a flaw, I got credit for that. *smile*.  That's what they call life I guess.

Have a great week everyone, I will try to post during the week next time.

This has been a crazy week.  It seems for every step forward I get in the work I have to do, I end up going back three steps.  My situation is really kind of wierd.  I do loans for manufactured homes.  Since the decline in the mortgage business and the housing bubble collapse, selling anything is hard, getting financing is impossible.  I remember it being this difficult only one other time, in 1990 and '91, when all the savings and loans back east went under from bad loans.

Well due to all of this, the boss I have had since 1996 is still determined to sell.  He made arrangements with a couple of the parks we had filled with brand new homes, to work with them.  We had these two parks almost filled with new homes until the 2008 problems with foreclosures.  When the lenders started to foreclose in these parks, they were actually pulling the homes out of the parks.  This leaves the parks with too many empty spaces, making the lenders leary of financing there again.  Also it makes the comparable sales reports so bad that you can niot get financing there anymore.

So the deal was and is (although it changes daily) that we will find the buyers, actually our salesperson, Connie, will, I will do what I normally do, verifying the credit, debt ratio and getting explanations on their credit problems.  I put the deal together, send it to my boss, and the two co-owners of the parks.  I also work with escrow, and the park owners are financing the loans right now themselves.  They are doing this to prevent homes from leaving the park as much as to increse their income in rents again.

But, like I said things change all the time.  I spent most of the week getting loans reapproved that had already been approved.  Then I go through this deal with the profit and loss sheets, the problems with the contractors, all the state regulations, escrow and I do the loan documents myself.  It has been rough the last week or so.  I get approvals one day, then turn downs on the same deal the next day, that same day I will argue it, get another approval, and who knows what will happen tomorrow.  I got the profit and losses done, the deal ready to close escrow, then one of the owners calls today and wants to go over the entire P & L again, trying to somehow get around having to put money into escrow to close the deal.  He should have done that when he bought the home and there were six years of back taxes to pay. 

It really bothered me, I guess, so much today, because everytime I turned around my phone was ringing, my e-mail filling up and on and on.  They all know that Tuesdays I do not work.  This gig was supposed to be a part time thing anyway.  Now I work more than 50 hours a week.  But they know that I have certain days I have to put aside for school, and this last week no one at all respected that time.

Anyway, I guess that is my rant for today, I have a lot of work to catch up on tomorrow and then of course I have two seminars also.  It is a good thing I am single and my kids are grown and do not live close to me, I have no time for anyone else.  Not even for myself a lot of the time.

Here's to having a better week and I hope everyone out there has a great one. *smile*