Making time work for you

"If I slowed down I was so tired I would be very ready to go to sleep. I didn't have any energy. So when I got home I would have to do something so I wouldn't feel so tired. I needed time with the children and myself so I won't be tired by Friday. I go home and I sit with the children and my granddaughter reads to me, after they change and everything. And it's my time with them and at the same time I'm relaxing. So that break in the afternoon makes it so I'm not so tired by the end of the week.

"If I have a lot of work to do I'll do a little bit when I get home. Then I'll have my time with my granddaughter then I'll cook dinner and then I'll give them a bath and when they're in the tub I can do a little bit of work. I set up my work area and then they go to bed at 8:30. I got my own room now which is really nice. I need to be organized. I'm much more organized than I was before. All I did was work and work and work. I had to do it differently because I didn't want to be tired by Friday."
- Jennie

"I was working full time and I had my family. When I decided to go to school I had no social life. All I did for those years was go to school and go to work and have my family. I didn't know any other people. I didn't socialize with any other people. Never went to the cinema or anything." - Norma

"Homework is hard. I live in an apartment with my two kids and my husband. There's not much room. I find I do my homework early in the morning. That works the best for me . . .

"Sometimes if I don't have anything to do right away I just lie on the couch. I need to do that — otherwise I overstress myself trying to be a role model for everybody which is kind of silly of me." - Rose

"It is one thing to stay on top of things and go through the classes in undergraduate school. At least this was my experience. It was something else to be clear in your thought patterns to go into your seminars in graduate school. I then needed time.

"In undergraduate to do my work, I'd get up at 4:00 in the morning and do my reading. Well I couldn't do it in graduate school because your brain doesn't fully function at 4:00 in the morning. . . This is going to infringe on family because I had to have right-after-dinner time. I had to have time while my brain was still awake and this started to be a problem." - Norma

Support

"What I did learn over the years was that you can't do it alone unless you want to die."
- Norma

"My boyfriend is paying for the babysitter so I can come to school."
- Roxy

"My dad feels it was a waste of time at my age going back to school. It gave me more drive to do it. I can't wait to get my grade 12 diploma and wave it in from of him." - Bev

"When I came back to school at first my family felt kind of rejected 'cause I'm always there for them.

My children, but mostly I noticed my husband. He had to learn to cope with me being not there or whatever.

"I more or less had to push myself to come to school. It is hard when you don't have someone to say, Oh come on, go to school it's not so bad." - Rose