Back to School...

Back to school... got my lunch bag packed, my shoes tied tight... (thank you Billy Madison).

Yep, meet "Too school for cool" Liz.

Let's start at the beginning shall we. After college (Go FU!) I went into Marketing/PR/Event planning and had a great 4ish year career working on the agency side, in the non profit world and then finally in the private sector. Once we moved to Columbia - for hubby's job - the economic world broke. Unfortunately, when companies are laying off people and closing their doors who is going to hire for marketing? Personally, I think that IS the perfect time to invest in creating customer loyalty through marketing so you have a customer base when consumer confidence goes back up. But that's just me - I'll get off my soapbox now.

SO... the job prospects in my chosen filled dried up and I took a fun job working at a spa planning on being one of those "ladies who lunch" - yeah, that didn't happen. I soon was working full time at the spa. While I was enjoying the great massages (nice perk) it wasn't me. I wasn't happy and having a mini "quarter-life crisis".

A lot of my friends around the same age can attest to this... you sort of hit this fork in the road, you've been on this path with one career (the one you planned on in college) and all of a sudden you wake up and say... um, I don't think I like this. Or maybe the fork for you is the split between baby land and career land. It's a tough call and you feel like you are the only one having these tough life choices. BUT YOU ARE SO NOT! I cannot tell you how many hours I've spent around the firepit with my girlfriends saying, "Am I living this life?". John Mayer even sings about it...

(I removed the music video - sorry, I didn't realize it would play an ad whenever anyone opened up Splendid Minta. Forgive me? If you are curious - google John Mayer Why Georgia)

After a LOT of soul searching, I decided to head back to school. To be a TEACHER!!! I applied last October, found out I was in at Thanksgiving and COULD NOT WAIT to start in January.

Here's my school:

So I am a couple weeks into my Masters and love it! I honestly feel more alive, more awake and happier than ever. I am learning about educational pedagogy - I actually get to write my own educatioal belief system, or pedagogy here in a couple weeks, I'll be sure to share. It will be kinda like my educational manifesto. I'll start student teaching in the Fall and then again in the Spring. The fact that my program actually spends practically a year student teaching is one of the reasons I chose it - major real world experience.

If you don't mind, I want to share some of what I am learning along the way - I promise I won't make you write any term papers but, please chime in on the comments. Education is such an interesting field and hopefully it's getting better and better - the discourse among different points of view is what helps advance the field.

Thank you for the encouragement! xoxo