Attendance: The frequency with which a person is present.

I should say that I did not get good grades in university. You have to study and go to class to do that. It was a long time ago and I can't remember everything clearly but I didn't even bother having my transcrips sent to ESC when I applied. I wanted to start fresh. So I am starting from zero.
I may be able to use my life experience to get Credit By Evaluation. My very nice student mentor suggested that after ten years living in Italy I could probably test out of Italian and therefore satisfy my foreign language G.E. credits. Gee, I wish I could, but the truth is, I don't speak Italian very well. I speak English all day long. I can ask for the kind of bread I want, order my coffee, even find the words to show my dismay over recent news about the Prime Minister Silvio Berluschoni and his tryst with an 18 year-old model, but I honestly don't think I can test out of Italian.
I was fortunate enough to accompany my boyfriend to some of his classes at Mesa City College and U.C.S.D. when he was going to school in the early 1990s. It was great, sitting in on a lecture on the Midieval University or Kant or a lecture on entropy or the depletion of our natural resources. And how proud I was to see him at his table every night, surrounded by tons of reading material, our cat, Dotti, seated under the green desk lamp (those classic kind that look studious and can be aimed in three or four directions)... he was a natural at school. Curious about everything. Logical. An avid reader. He was my hero.
The first day he went to school I picked him up and he apologized for being a few minutes late. 'Held up at the library.' He had gone there to get supplementary reading material. This floored me. I asked him, how did you know what you needed, without a list? "Hey babe, you gotta get commentary on all this stuff. You need help to understand Heigl and Burkeley...." Commentary, indeed. We all need additional commentary. That's why we have friends and the library. I have a library, too. And, I can 'Ask a Librarian' right online whenever I want. I am going to school online. I bought my books online and 'talk' to my mentor online and can have my writing critiqued online. I am online, baby. Online.