Once I finished my culinary training-or cooking school as my older brother so kindly referred to it-I was ready to get back to teaching.  My sister was about to graduate, and I was ready to move on from home.

Unfortunately, I had missed the boat on the English teacher shortage of two years prior, when just about everybody from my secondary English teaching program got a job exactly where he or she wanted to teach.  For instance, Jack Roberts had somehow managed to get a job in Hawaii-I would have liked to teach in Hawaii-and Nikki Dominique found a teaching job in the suburbs of New Jersey, the best public schools in the country-I would have liked that.  The only openings this year were low paying jobs in the rural south or in the inner city.

Those were not exactly my dream locations, so I did some research and found out that the next school year would probably have a lot more opportunities, so I began looking for something around home.  Unfortunately, the non-shortage had also affected home.  I needed something in teaching, though, so I put my brain to work.  What could a secondary English teacher with a culinary arts degree do for a job?

Home ec.

And so I traveled to the depths of the culinary world, hoping to emerge strong in a year.

Thanks sis.

Technorati Tags: cooking school, Culinary Arts, culinary training, English

It’s often said that men reach maturity later than women. I have seen evidence of this in my nephew who is nearly twenty one and has never had a full-time job. The part-time jobs he worked for a few weeks and then bailed. I worry about him; I pray for him, I write encouraging cards for his birthday. Mostly, though I remain a little angry. I see his aimless lifestyle of watching soccer, partying with his friends, and bumming money from his grandfather as a sad existence.

My nephew has tried community college several times, and is now pursuing an online associate degree, two classes at a time. Although I appreciate his college attempts, I also see it’s breaking his mother financially. I wonder about my role. I wonder about his self-esteem. I wonder about the emergence of a man from teenage angst. I hope one day he gets an MBA business degree in economics, or web-design, or green technology.

Waiting for maturity at times is painful for the observer. I hope my nephew takes his online education seriously and one day pursues a masters degree program online. Whatever his journey, I pray that I can be patient and remember the last days of youth are not a permanent condition.

Technorati Tags: masters degree program online, MBA business degree in economics, online associate degree

After 7 years in the real estate industry maybe it is time for a change. It’s not that I’m tired of being a Realtor; in fact I have really enjoyed it. It is a very rewarding feeling to help people when they make the biggest investment they will ever make. It is also a “feel good” job when you help somebody negotiate the best deal when either buying or selling a home. And you really can’t argue that the financial rewards are phenomenal if you work hard. Of course we are talking about commission sales here, so there is the potential of completely starving if you don’t find clients. The biggest problem for me in that regards currently is the economy and the (I hate to use this word) collapse of the real estate market.

Needless to say, I have had a lot of free time. That of course has meant I have had a lot of time to enjoy my favorite pastime: golf. It seems I have traded in my dress shirt and tie for a Greg Norman polo shirt! And it was in that shirt that I came up with the idea of a career change that might just work for me.

So after giving it much thought, and waffling back and forth a bit, I think I’m going to go to golf school. Now I’m not talking about a school where they teach you how to play the game, but instead one where they teach me to teach golf. Imagine that, me in a professional golf career.

Technorati Tags: golf school, Greg Norman polo shirt, professional golf career, teach golf