Latest dispatch from the front

[A brief recap, which will update my educational quest to the present day]

As I explained in the previous post, I have wrangled my tuition money from those who were kindly taking care of it for my retirement. (And fear not: I took out enough to pay taxes and the penalty for early withdrawal.)

I have, after many heated e-mails, convinced HOTH to let me drop my scheduled classes and gotten them to refund my already-paid tuition. (By-the-by, I'm not the only one in a state of high dudgeon at that fine institution. Many students who are not dangerously over-educated, and are entitled to financial aid have had their money delayed over and over due to "procedural changes." Some, like my friend Lacey, have found other sources of payment to tide them over until their financial aid arrives. Others, without backup funding, have had to drop out of school before they could even start. The aggrieved students have even set up a Facebook page demanding reform at HOTH. I wish them well.)

I have put up for sale one of the textbooks I bought. (Why, yes, I do happen to have that information handy. Thanks for asking.)

I even have a shiny, new, powerful laptop for note-taking, legal writing, and nifty-paralegal-school-website accessing.

Now I wait with bated breath for my classes to start.

And wait.

And wait some more.

I will be attending at a satellite campus, not at Major University's mothership which is many miles from Large. The same program's "home" classes have already started. Lucky them. Our classes were to start, well, today, actually.  Just after I paid my tuition, we were told that the start date would be pushed back to an unspecified date to allow students more time to register. I became a little bit concerned. Twelve days ago, we were given a start date of September 20th. That would have made it unlikely to finish before Christmas, although an ending date before the close of 2011 would have been doable. Today, we were told that classes would begin in mid-October and end in February 2012.

Say what?

I expected to ring in 2012 with a paralegal certificate in hand, followed immediately by a thorough investigation of the local job market. Now I'm idling my engine; my enthusiasm dwindling, and my impatience rising. All I can do now is wait. And wonder if I should have asked MU for a refund, and signed up for the longer program at one of Large's slightly-less Major Universities. As it stands now, I will graduate a few weeks ahead of that group.

I really, really hope that doesn't change.