Student of Life: You Never Know Where Life Will Lead You

Published on Ciao

I guess you can say that I am a student for life. I love school and I always have. I had gone through no less that 26 years of official schooling and then of course there is the school of life. You can't breath without learning something in your daily life on a continuous basis; turning on the news, conversing with people of different cultures across the internet or engaging in conversations with people from the same or different background in your day to day real life helps your to learn new things. Travel is another way to see new sites and learn new things; you can travel the world or revisit your own city or town and view the sites, learn the history and places that make your town special on this planet. When was the last time you went to an art museum, film festival, international food festival, botanical gardens, opera, Nascar or whatever your town or city offers?

However of course when we think of learning we think of book learning and so we come back to school and college and university. College has many new experiences to offer a young person starting their journey in life.

When I was 20 I was going to CEGEP, which is a college here in Quebec. It represents roughly grade 12 and 13 elsewhere. I did not have a chance to complete the pre-university studies because I got pregnant, got married and had a baby in that order. I was so close to finishing but I was also a working mother at the time and it was beginning to be become too much, working all day, going to school five nights a week and seeing my baby really only on the weekend. So I quit at that time.

I did do other things like go to a different college for secretarial sciences and medical technology in my early 30's. I changed jobs then and worked as a secretary but never a medical secretary. It was always my dream to work in the medical field.

Years latter, at the age of 37, I with the help of a very good friend, I did go to university as a mature student and I got a bachelors in arts under psychology. It was at a time when there was a recession here in Canada and I was having trouble keeping jobs. While I was getting my degree I was still working as an advocate for families of juvenile delinquents and still juggling being an advocate university student and mother.

I went on to a one year of Family Life Education while waiting to get in for my true dream, counseling psychology. I did the counseling psychology masters program and then I found that I just could not go on for my PHD, I was starting to get sick then and did not even no it. I was only diagnosed about six years later.

I never had an opportunity to work in my field but I did enjoy a full year internship in one of our mental institutions here in Montreal. The experience was intense, challenging, and exhilarating just as the challenging masters program had been. I rejoiced in all my patient's breakthroughs.

After the program ended I went back to work in the private sector because that was the work I could find. Then it was official, I got sick and now I am disabled. I haven't given up though. My years of college and university taught me a lot and I have transferred what I know into writing. I have written two books, I run an E-Zine, and I freelance write. I sell my stories and I work as a research writer for a ghost writing organization who offers to research and write articles for website owners who either do not know how or do not have the time.

I am still learning, I have researched and have written on so many different topics and I thoroughly enjoy my work. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to know what we really want.