At this present moment I work on my half of a presentation for my Thursday class. What am I taking? you ask. The course is called Supervisory Skills for Women. Basically take all the leadership skills in a workplace through a female lens. I did well on my test for the class, now it’s time for the presentation worth 20% of my mark. Did I mention this is a 10 week course therefore it’s presentation, more content, then a final test next week. (Thankfully not a cumulative one. This test will cover content learned after the last test.)
Why take it? May be I’ll be a supervisory, may be not. In case an opportunity comes up I would like to take a good look at my leadership skills, and have a few things in the internal tool box to draw on. I learned a valuable lesson my short time into my career as a library technician:
The thing I think I will least likely do will be the very thing I end up doing.
My current position in media services serves as a case in point. In library tech training, we have a course on non-print and audiovisual. In a nutshell it’s all about equipment from a the slide projector to hooking up a lap top to a data projector. Keep in mind this happened during my time and the Library Tech course at Red River may/will undergo a few changes. Imagine if you will a mature student sitting at a table, listening to her instructor thinking this is really interesting. I will probably end up not using most of this stuff. Ha, ha WRONG! Not only do I use most of this stuff, on occasion I had to provide a slide projector, and teach an instructor how the thing worked.
From that point forward I have learned never to say never.
When I graduated from my diploma program at Red River, I pretty much put this into practice. I didn’t say ‘I will never do another class ever again.’ In truth as a life-long learned I would rather die than not do anything. I have a restless intellect. I know it and made peace with it. Anytime I look at a scene like this and and think Ack!!:
I remind myself I chose the course, the time, and everything else shoved on my plate.
I have one course. I now have friends brave enough to try that final frontier-taking their masters. That’s a degree of nuttiness requiring thought, consideration, and in the end guts. Not me. Not yet. Who knows, every time I have a bit of a plan, something happens to take me someplace else. The other place usual looks a little better than the other one planned a little while ago.
People feel surprised I have a teaching degree. “Why aren’t you teaching?” they ask.
“I never stopped,” I replied.
When I graduated from high school I had this plan. I would get my degree, find a man, set up my career, settle down with said man, we have kids, and everything went happily ever after. What happened? Reality. I liked teaching, but never felt like I fit classroom teaching. I tried my hand at relationships. The guys I went with can’t shoulder all the blame. Yes, some were immature, jerks, and all matter of idiocy. I had no clue about self-awareness let alone self-respect. In my gut I knew grabbing a hold of any guy, putting on a white dress, will not make me happy. I had a good look around at the weddings attended in the past. My past self fretted over singlehood. Now I am not in any hurry. It’s a dress. It’s a day. It’s not the whole package no matter how many reality shows say ‘yes’ or otherwise.
Anyway, back to the present…
This presentation will not come together on its own. I learned a lot about the first two go rounds at education. I worked myself up over nothing at times. I had assignments docked for lateness. I stood rigid in my own perfectionism. I have failed. I also got up. I spoke my truth despite being told good girls do not speak out of turn. (Plus one can do it without raising their voice.) If I had a TARDIS, I would go back in time to my high school graduation. I would tell myself every setback provides the real lesson. People just look like they have it easy. Some do and make sure it stays that way. Let them. Do they ever look happy? Happy are those who plug away after a setback. They learn the most, grateful for the small steps to success.
Unpaused Life 
Life sometimes doesn’t give us what we expect, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong or disappointing, just different. Sometimes we learn more about ourselves. Sometimes we learn skills that we need, even if we didn’t know we’d need them in at the time. Life is an ever-changing adventure, so we need to make the most of it! Good luck with your presentation! 🙂
LikeLike