A new era has begun: today was Brayden’s first day of full-day kindergarten. I finally have both boys going to the same school for the same number of hours! Brayden did great — the kid seems to be made for kindergarten. And he’s totally stoked about going to the same school as his brother.

I hardly knew what to do with myself today…until the school called at 2:00 to say that Justin was in the office with a head wound (in their words: “It’s not bleeding profusely, but you might want to come down and take a look.”) He fell during recess and got a small scratch on his head, but he’s fine. The irony is that we didn’t have time to go home cause I had to pick Brayden up at 2:30 — so instead of sitting in class, Justin played on the playground for 20 minutes. Nice.

The technical writing course I’m taking is supposed to teach me how to take complex information and break it down step by step, using clear, precise language that cannot possibly be misunderstood. The other day it dawned on me that that’s exactly what I have to do with Justin every single day. Detailed written instructions are the best way to get through to him, and since he takes everything so literally, you can’t have any ambiguity. No wonder I’m acing this class. Huh.

One thing that really annoys me about the online courses I’ve taken so far, though, is that no one actually teaches anything. They basically just give us an assignment and set us loose to figure it out for ourselves. (If I knew how to figure it out, I wouldn’t be taking the damn class…but whatever.) What ends up happening, of course, is the students all pool their knowledge and learn from each other, so fine. But that is one overpaid instructor. My last two assignments came back with perfect marks and not a single comment — the grades are nice, but how am I supposed to learn anything from that? Argh.

I don’t know if it pays much, but it certainly doesn’t take too much effort. I’m talking about being an instructor who “teaches” online courses. If the one I’m taking is any indication, all the instructor has to do is hand out the textbook he wrote 15 years ago, put everybody into work groups and tell them to get busy on the assignments. The idea, of course, is that we’re learning from each other, which is valid, and I’m still enjoying it (although group work takes on a whole new dimension when people are scattered around the country and discussions are all online). But the instructor has been a non-entity from the get-go. Must be a nice life.

So things are humming along. Justin came down with a cold this week and the school actually sent him home sick just after lunch on Monday — although by the time he got home he was laughing and running around, so it seemed like a bit of a scam. Brayden has been coughing again and is back on his inhalers, but I think overall everybody’s OK now. Thanks to a couple of PD days and the Thanksgiving holiday, the next three weeks are four-day school weeks for Justin…sigh.

My parents were here for a quick visit this past week — now that Mom’s retired, they have all the time in the world, so they took advantage of the beautiful weather and decided to do one last big road trip before packing the RV away for the winter. Call me selfish, but it was nice to have them here while the kids were in school. We got more kid-free visiting time than ever before, so that was a bonus. And they got a taste of the schedule they’ll be dealing with when they babysit for us while we’re on our cruise next June.

Speaking of the cruise…we just arranged our flights, so things are really getting exciting. We paid an extra premium to get a really good flight schedule — some (like my dad) would say we’re crazy, that we should just take the cheapest option, but we wanted to make sure we wouldn’t have to overnight anywhere en route. We’re already going to be gone 18 days. I’m sure Dad will see the wisdom of it by about his tenth day of babysitting.

Time to start thinking about turkeys, pumpkins and costumes, I guess…

Maybe it’s true that with age comes wisdom. When I was in high school/university, I was focused on getting good grades, not on learning whatever it was they were trying to teach me. Like most students, I took all the shortcuts I could to save myself any extra work. While it led to a good transcript, it didn’t necessarily give me a good education.

Fast forward 15 years…I just started my technical communication course, and I’m loving the whole learning-something-new process. I’m engaged in what I’m doing because I see value in it (I have real-world experience now) and want to develop new skills. I’m soaking up all the information like a sponge cause I haven’t been intellectually challenged in oh so long. If everyone went back to school after a few years away, think of the progress our society would make.

Back to school was sort of anti-climatic last week, as it took a whole week for the school to figure out which class everyone was in and the preschool didn’t start back until this week anyway. But we are finally on track: Justin seems happy with his grade one class (and his CEA, who I finally met yesterday) and Brayden is enjoying being one of the older kids at preschool (one of his best buddies is also in his class this year, so that’s extra cool). Justin has adjusted amazingly well to a longer school day, and eating lunch at school, and changing teachers three times in a week, so kudos to him. Even the CEA says he hasn’t really had any issues, so we truly are blessed. Take that, autism!

I keep thinking about that old Staples commercial where you see a dad dancing along pushing a cart laden with school supplies, followed by two sullen-looking children. I think I speak for most parents when I say: thank God it’s almost back to school!

Actually, the kids aren’t the only ones who are going to learn. I’ve been pondering future career paths and I think I finally came up with one that should be a good fit: technical writing. I’ve dismissed the idea in the past because it’s deadly dull, but it involves editing, organizing and logical thought, so it should be right up my alley. Plus it’s in demand, which is not something you can say about most writing specialties. Anyhow, I signed up for a technical communication course (it’s online through SFU), and if that goes well I could go on to do the full certificate program, so we’ll see. I’m excited!

Chalk one up for positive thinking. I was getting slightly stressed at the thought of coming to Vancouver for this editing workshop (the idea of working in a big city often makes me feel overwhelmed and inadequate, like the small fish in a big pond who’s about to get eaten by a shark), but I’ve been focusing on the joy-of-learning aspect rather than the parlaying-this-into-a-career aspect, and so far so good. It helps that there are no assignments this time around (she talks, we listen) and thus no pressure to prove anything.

The weather is surprisingly beautiful, the instructor really seems to know her stuff and the class is small enough that it’s easy to ask questions and frame the discussion around things we really want to know. Plus it’s amazing to be in a room with people who love and appreciate words as much as I do. In short, I’m loving it. It’s a shame it only lasts for two days. At the end of tomorrow’s class there’s supposed to be a talk about career options and other courses and such, so hopefully I’ll get some ideas about where to go from here.

This whole experience rocks!