Know Your Adult Education Center (AEC)

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A few months ago, longing for the familiar feel of a classroom and the excitement of delving into something new, I decided to take a class. Offerings at the nearby community college proved too costly, but the prices at my local adult education center (AEC) fit nicely in my budget - and the center was in walking distance to boot. Poring over the course listings, I ruled out anything centered on cooking (I almost made my pastry partner cry when I accidentally ruined all 3 of our confections in "Vegan Baking 101"), language (6 years of Spanish and all I can muster is an "hola"), or self improvement ($126 for "Choosing the Right Look for Your Hair"? I hope it comes with a professional foil). Still, I was left with plenty of possibilities - music, dancing, computer skills, writing, theater, and crafts were all up for grabs. In the end, I settled on the 6 week, "Introduction to Graphic Design".

Now I have to admit, as excited as I was, I had some preconceived notions of what the AEC would be like. The building looked cool enough, but I imagined its patrons would be of the silver haired variety, or the younger nerdy lost soul type (not so unlike yours truly). The inside would be a little sterile and depressing, a weird sour smell emanating from the Cheese Making Workshop down the hall, the relative quiet punctuated on occasion by a happy exclamation from "Predicting Your Love and Marriage: Workshop with a Psychic" in room 201. On my first night of graphic design I couldn't help but arrive a little early to scope out the scene.

Before entering the center I could see that I couldn't have been more wrong. The crowd in the demonstration kitchen filled the floor length windows facing the street. With a twist of the door handle came an outpouring of happy chatter and cheers that would rival a taping of Emeril Live. And while I did see a group of cute old ladies exiting one of the computer labs (my guess, "Introduction to Microsoft Word") my class was filled with young professional types looking to add to their skill set. My class was taught by a talented graphic designer with a proclivity for demi gothic typefaces who mainly teaches at the Art Institute. 6 weeks later, I was really happy with my experience and significantly more confident in my ability to make a kick-ass invitation.

If you haven't ventured to your local AEC before, it's absolutely worth checking out. You might surprised by the breadth of course offerings, the affordable rates, and the cool people you'll meet. If you're a commitment-phobe, most centers offer one-time classes or day-long intensives to get you started. Just Google your city + "center for adult education".

Moving Day Dress

Can you tell where my mind is today? I won't be moving for another week but I am anxious to have everything packed up and ready to go. As a result, Apartment 303 is looking pretty bare these days. Studying is not going quite as planned - my "work 50 minutes break for 10" plan has reversed itself and it turns out working in 10 minute chunks does not a final paper make. Earlier I went to vigorously shake a nearly-full bottle of soy milk only to discover I hadn't closed the cap first. So I'm off to delay my scholarly productivity even longer and clean drying white puddles from the floor, the counter, the stove-top, the cabinet doors, the fridge, my shirt, my hair...

Finals Week

Hello everyone! Blog posts may become a bit sporadic this week as it is my last week of school - ever! Final papers, presentations, studying, and packing have sucked up every last bit of free time I once had. I hope to get fresh content up shortly - but in the mean time why not have something pretty to look at? Enjoy these photos - taken by yours truly - from Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.

Small Victory

One essay, one case, and one exam into the week and it’s finally time for some relaxation. I celebrated the end of my second-to-last midterms (a small victory, but a victory nonetheless) with a fresh coat of raspberry polish and a shiny new purchase – a bright green water bottle suitable for homemade smoothies.  Maybe I’m just justifying my desire to buy, but being able to make my own smoothies and not buying them in styrofoam cups from Jamba Juice - as good as they are - seems like the right choice for anyone trying to decrease their waste output. My favorite mix to fill it with? An all-fruit frozen cherry smoothie, straight from my little Magic Bullet blender. It's the perfect morning treat's that easy to digest and full of hydrating, nutrient rich juice. 

Attack of the Midterms

Wondering what I'm up to this week? You can rest assured that my view for the next several days will look remarkably like the picture below. Midterms have crept up on me stealthily this quarter, but today the pressure of what's to come finally hit. Only one more week to go till the onslaught of exams, papers, and project due dates.  My planner is covered with scribbles of group meeting times and haphazard to-do lists...which I hardly have time to jot down, let alone complete. 

Passion

Image found here.

We had an interesting class discussion the other day and it made me think about the buzzword of many a leadership program, passion, in a whole new way.  The term is thrown around so often in the business school that I've been weary of using it too frequently myself. So when my professor started talking about passion at the beginning of class, I admit, I started to tune out.

I am glad that I didn't completely lose focus, however, because he was not talking about passion in some sort of grandiose manner. Rather, he addressed the issue of passion in such a realistic and applicable way that I left class that day feeling refreshed. His point was that the reason so many people are unhappy and unproductive in their working lives is because they are not doing what they're passionate about.  

Ok, so far this is probably old news to most of us. But what really struck me about his lecture was that he took that idea one step further - the reason so many people are in jobs or living lives they are not happy with is because they do not even know what they are passionate about. That means they might go to a job that makes them miserable everyday from which they receive no sense of satisfaction, but they do not even know what would excite them enough to pursue a different path.  That's powerful.

So how does one wind up in such a predicament?  From a student's perspective, I can understand the pressures to obtain a job right out of school.  We are taught to justify taking employment that does not reflect our true ambitions because we need security.  Our passions can come later, after we have a stable income and food on the table.  But wait, then comes an expensive wedding and the expectations of having children.  By that time you have already established a quality of life that would be compromised by the risks associated with a major career change or lifestyle transition.  And perhaps, over enough time, we have been so busy trying to maintain the lives we have built that we no longer know what we are truly passionate about.

The truth is, I do not know for sure what I am passionate about anymore either.  I have been so busy with classes, work, taking on leadership roles for the sole purpose of bulking up my resume, and pragmatically searching job postings, that I have less and less time to pursue my own interests... if I could remember what they are.  

Have you run into this problem?  Perhaps you are in the minority of people who wake up excited to get to work each day and disdain the sun's fall in the sky as it means you might actually need to stop for sleep.  For the rest of us - do you know what passion you would pursue if you could? What is preventing you from making a change and going after it?

I think my most prominent passions are purely delicious foods, finding new ways to decrease my own ecological footprint and encouraging others to do the same, animals and animal rights, bicycling, and getting people to laugh.  In an ideal world, I turn these passions into my life's work. If anyone has suggestions for how to do that I hope you will share. In the meantime, you'll have to read on to find out whether or not I can figure it out on my own.

After a Long Day

Flowers by Andy Warhol found here

"I'm afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning." Andy Warhol

I am quite certain that Andy was not referencing my graduate marketing case paper when he first uttered these words.  Nevertheless, after 5 hours of writing, rewriting, formatting, and editing, it too began to lose all meaning.  I like to think of Andy and other eccentric artists and thinkers after I have had a long and stressful day of schoolwork and ponder what they would have to say about it.   Well, since Andy was one of the best marketers of all time, known mostly for his pop-art prints of Cambell's Soup cans, I'd like to think he would tell me to quit worrying about a silly marketing paper and get back to him when I had something of consequence to discuss.  

A Discussion of Sustainable Viability

We had a two-hour long discussion in my Creating Sustainable Enterprise class today about whether or not sustainability is good for business.  As our professor facilitated the exchange of endless information regarding how a company's bottom line is affected by the nebulous buzzword that is "sustainability", my mood quickly deflated from excitement to something resembling hopelessness.  

We have had this same discussion for the past three quarters.  At one point I was confident that I would eventually learn how businesses create sustainable models, but I am losing faith that the discussion will ever reach that point.  

The issue of sustainability is one I find incredibly interesting and challenging.  It is a topic I look forward to writing about more in the near future. For now, however, the words of E. O. Wilson, one of my favorite authors and theorists, will have to do.  After four years of drowning in business information, statistics, and industry reviews, I could really use some good old fashioned wisdom.