I admired my mother, it seemed there was nothing she couldn't do. She made our cloths and she did all the finish carpentry on the studio apartment they built. She knew about plants and she knew how to cook.
When she decided to go to college she put everything into it. She put in earplugs and sat with her books on a lapboard. With the family in the living room but not quite. She was on the dean's list at LACC, I'm not sure about UCLA. She must have done well to get into graduate school.