Balancing Education and Responsibilities

Since beginning Penn Foster, it has been a challenge to balance out all my reasonability’s as an adult. From working 40 hours a week at my local Walmart, to volunteering a few hours of each day at my local SPCA. My life is full of chaos. I rarely get any “me” time and when I do I am trying to finish up my assignments.

Working at Walmart is not really stressful, granted we are a very high volume store but all I really do is stock shelves, and assist customers when needed.

The stressful part becomes before I actually make any money. My Walmart schedule is 1 pm till 10 pm. So bright and early, 8 am I am up on my way to the SPCA which takes no less than 45 minutes. My duties as a volunteer there are to walk and bathe the dogs, clean their kennel excluding new toys, new bowls, and new bedding.

With that cats my duties are to clean their cages also excluding new toys, new bowls, new bedding and a new litter box.

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But when our doors open I have a new expectation, getting our animals new forever homes! Thankfully, I am not the only volunteer there but when you have anywhere to 50 - 100 cats and 30 - 200 dogs it becomes very loud and stressful.

As you can probably tell we aren’t a small recuse, the reason we are so over populated is because we are the only shelter that takes in bully dogs. But volunteering with the actual organization is not the only way I give my time to them, at least once a month I also volunteer at charity events sponsored by the SPCA.

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Through all of that I still have not made it home yet, when I arrive home around 10:15 most nights. I come home to an lonely apartment with my two cats Angel, and Sammie and my dog Ringo. It won’t be till around 3 am till my boyfriend Aaron gets off work. So even after my “job” is done I start a new one by walking and feeding Ringo, and making sure the cats have a clean litter box and they are also fed and watered. I begin to make something small for dinner and place his in the microwave for when he gets home.

So finally off to bed I go! And to bed I mean to sit in my bed as I study for school. Most nights I struggle to keep my eyes open when writing my papers, that unfortunately require all my attention. But fear not, Sammie and Angel are right there to bite on my toes and knock over my papers to keep this sleepy cat mom awake!

At the late hours of the night, or even the early hours of the mornings I think it is the best to just quit and only focus on family and work but I know it is not an option. I know I cannot provide fully on 10 dollars an hour for my family, so that is why I push myself so far and beyond. One day it will be all worth it.

Sometimes it doesn’t even seem possible to stay on track with my classes, and unfortunately sometimes I don’t. Now that I am into my second semester of Veterinary Medicine I have finally taken a stand for myself and my school work. Recently, I have purchased a wall calendar, I write down all the chapters and tests I want to get done by a certain day which has reminded me to get it down since it is now a psychical reminder instead of a mental one.

I used to take Ringo on a 20 - 30 minute walk every night when I got off at ten pm. so I talk with my sister about my niece Madison walking him when she got home from school and now every two weeks I pay my 11 year old niece to walk and feed Ringo, and the cats. I don’t have her do the litter boxes since I know those can get messy at times.

I still work forty hours a week and I still volunteer at the SPCA but now any down time I have is now studying time. It has always been an idea in my head to do school work on my hour lunch at work but the time I would go buy my lunch and eat I wouldn’t really have the time anymore.

So instead I have been buying lunch items when I do my grocery shopping so now every day I work I get some of my school work done on my lunch break. One of my other small tricks to help me stay focused and buy me more time is going to either the game or laundry room in my apartment complex. After ten or eleven o’ clock not many people go in or out of those rooms so instead of staying instead my apartment with my cats and dog I go down there to focus more.

Since I have been doing that I have noticed I am a lot more focused and not so tired considering I am not sitting or lying in bed. With avoiding some of the major distractions that were bringing me down, and planning a little better it has become a lot easier to get my school work done on time. I’ve been seeing a nice jump in my grades which is keeping me motivated. It seems like soon enough my childhood dream of becoming a veterinary technician will be fulfilled soon enough, I am starting to see why I started this long journey once again thanks to Penn Foster Education.

Updated: Nov 30, 2023
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Balancing Education and Responsibilities. (2020, Jun 02). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/since-beginning-penn-foster-21444-new-essay

Balancing Education and Responsibilities essay
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