A Murky Assignment

Well. I’ve just enrolled in an on-line writing course. Or I think I have. I’m still struggling to “navigate the course.”

It’s that “on-line” thing that has created the problem. The confusion and uncertainty.

In my mind, I imagined a real teacher, in a real classroom, standing behind a wooden desk, facing all her eager students. And I would be one of those.

I’d hear the soft scratch of the chalk as she wrote our assignments on the blackboard and later she’d let me clap the erasers together to clean them. A bully might pull on my pig-tail but the teacher would chastise him and take pity on me.

And so it would go.

Last week’s “enrollment” material quickly disabused me of that longed-for image.

I was “invited,” via email, to enroll at the Haiku Learning Center.

That was the first alert.

Or should I say e-lert?

I don’t do Haiku or any other type of poetry.   I assumed, that as is usually the case, I had overlooked the fine print.

Emailed the “in-charge” person who assured me that the Haiku Learning Center is much more than poetry. That’s just their name.

I proceeded.

In filling in my info, I discovered a space for “parent” signature/approval.

Second e-lert.

Wrote “in-charge” person again. Told him I have no parents; only grandchildren and great-grandchildren and, that it looked like, yet again, I was walking down the wrong side of the street.

He wrote back and told me all was well; that the Haiku Learning people have classes for elementary school children as well as people like me.

Third e-lert?

Continued processing. Pressed wrong button. Lost all info I had sent. And received. E-mailed tech person. Pretty sure I still have missing elements. Some of it may be important. Hard to know.

I’ve sent in two lessons. Been chewed out by on-line teacher twice. I’m batting two for two. Has she no mercy?

There’s clearly a learning curve here. I just wonder which one will get to the finish line first: the curve or the learn.

This is obviously a work in process. I know it’s all taking place in a “cloud.” But right now, at least for me, it’s definitely not “Cloud Nine.”


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