For the first time since 1992, I have returned to school.

Let me tell you...it's an overwhelming culture-shock.

Just for some background, it was in September of 2008, and I was unemployed.  After literally dozens of submitted resumés, tons of applications, and no one calling back, I was starting to get really depressed.  That's when I decided that the best thing for me to do, in my current situations, was to go back to school.  At first, I wrote the idea off, figuring it would take me way too long to get any kind of degree.  At that time, my cousin told me that I should look into substitute teaching.  "Hell," he said, "all you need is sixty credit hours."  This, I wrote off as well, because even though I attended college previously, there was no way I had that many hours.

But...this got me wondering.  Hell...I had totally forgotten what I did in school.  I decided to go see if my old transcripts were still available.  Lo and behold, I was able to grab a copy of them.  Driving back home, I was floored to find that I'd accumulated 60 credit hours!  Obviously, this changed my thinking.  It changed for a LOT of things.  I started thinking that going back to school wasn't such a bad idea.  Hell, sixty credit hours is a helluva head start!

My next decision to make was which degree to pursue.  Previously, I had been in school for a degree in Criminal Justice.  Granted, I picked that degree because I'd probably watched too many episodes of "Cops," or something.  Regardless, back in '91, it was obvious that the degree would be worthless to me, so instead of changing majors (for the 4th time), I just dropped out when I started getting decent paying office jobs.  Up until last year, that plan was working quite well for me.  Too well, actually.

My cousin is a teacher.  He's a relatively new teacher, but he and I have been really close (or, at least I think we have) since we've both been really little kids, and I've followed his escapades through his schooling, and through his first few years at his new profession.  It's an interesting story, if you're into that sort of thing.  He was expecting to graduate, and then land some cushy job with a whitebread high school.  Instead, he was launched right into the hell of a middle school, in one of the worst parts of the city.  Worse off...he was pretty much the only white person in the whole building.  So, I got to hear all his stories of success and failure.  ...and there was a lot of failure, early on, but I guess that's just typical "indoctrination" for new teachers.

  Now, I've lived the life of a student, but now I have had an intimate understanding of the life of a teacher.  I hear stories of what goes on in the "war room," where teachers collaborate together.  I've heard what it's like for a teacher to survive in a rough school (well...rough for St. Louis), and it's not anything like that movie with Michelle Pfeiffer.

After a while, I came to the conclusion that this was the course I was going to take.

Now, my cousin likes to think that he should get all the credit, and that I'm just mimicking him.  However, my real influence (ironically) comes from my Father-In-Law.  While I was unemployed, he was very supportive, and had been telling me that I need to find a job, or pick a profession, that relates to some of my personal interests.  Granted, he thinks that all I ever do is play video games, and that I should do something with video games, but I still gave his advice some thought.  It finally hit me when I was watching TV, and I realized that the only things I ever watch on TV are sports and educational shows on the History Channel, or Discovery, or any of those type of stations.  I'm infatuated by these kind of shows.  It doesn't matter whether I learn anything new or not, I'm drawn to them.

That's when I decided to do something that related to what I'm interested in...knowledge...or more to the point, education.

So, I signed back up at the local college, and changed my major (for the last time) to "education."  If life is a battle, this is where I draw a line in the sand, and make my stand. 

I'll try and keep my blog going.  It might only be once a week, or bi-weekly, but I'm sure that there will be enough happening to keep it fresh.  If not, then I'll have to hold off on entries until something fresh happens.  Regardless, if you're not interested...don't read it, and go away.

UPDATE:  Culture Shock of the Week

In my "Survey of Rock Music" class (it's legit!...it's a "humanities" class), I was the ONLY student who knew who Debbie Gibson was!

NO ONE FREAKIN' KNEW WHO DEBBIE GIBSON WAS!!!

The 21st Century
Student's Tools

Lenovo X61 Tablet PC
This is literally the only thing I bring to class, other than a regular ink pen, for spot quizzes.

Canon MP530
Printer/Scanner
All paperwork, including textbooks are scanned, OCR'ed and loaded onto the tablet PC computer