Be excited about learning; don't be weighed down by performance

"You will have to sign up for a university class" is what the bank's financial adviser told me when I'd asked to reactivate my student line of credit a few months back. I found that pursuing courses with a private school, however helpful or interesting, did not constitute "education" for the great bureaucracy...


Naturally, this left me feeling disappointed in our government's educational system rules and regulations. Who decided that photography or sound engineering weren't valid fields of study? A friend of mine was refused a loan for choosing Canada's number one sound engineering class. But I digress. I also felt like I'd lost a battle. Here I was, after having graduated from university, landed a job (well, quite a few in 5 years), returning to school to widen my scope and perfect my abilities and I'm told it's "not recognized". How invalidating. Why not encourage a young professional trying to stay relevant, trying to get an edge.

My new tool. Toy?

A few months went by and my reason for requesting this at the bank did not change. My job however, has changed in the last year. I am now in a management position with only minimal experience and absolutely no theoretical background on administration and management. I am competent but struggle a little more than I would with the proper basic knowledge. I thought: "Why not take an introduction class to administration?" But, did I really want to sit in with a bunch of kids straight out of highschool and have to work on team projects? I did not have the time, nor the patience as I'd been there before and remembered how my focus was very different... Get the grade, get the scholarship, get the portfolio... Take, take, take, perform, perform, perform, expect, expect, expect. Oh, and have fun. But school and fun were exclusive.


I've "paid" my share and followed the rules; I went through the system once. Now, it's time to look at it differently. 


Taking a class as an auditor has most of the benefits of taking a class - at least the most important one, which is learning, and none of the unpleasant ones - remember assignments? So here I go, back to university for a class. Learning - or at least the prospect of it - feels so thrilling when it's not weighed down by expectations and performance.


While I'm at it, I might even take an interest class, just for the pleasure of it! And with my new ipad, this second round in class might be more fun! Speaking of which, I just about loooove that new gadget. How handy is it to have a multitude of books (my primary reason for this tablet), management/lifestyle aps (allrecipes.ca anyone?), entertainment aps (Itunes, CTV, CBC) and games (Sudoku queen in the making) all in one nifty tool? That's not just luxurious, it's genius! Really, it's both eco-friendly (I will finally use/buy less paper!) and finally allows my long awaited de-cluttering.


Aaaaah.