zomg

Yeah going back to become a teacher.
haha on the money - if I had wanted money - I would not have quit being a private client advisor earning 200k a year back in 2001.


Just any advice going back to studying after being more than a decade away from university.

hey?

i went back to uni aged 30 (31?), and am still there atm.

i'm not sure if there's anything really specific i would say. My experience is coloured by my being married, living a few miles out of town, and now having a kid, all of which may be different for you and mean that i am a bit removed from the social side of things (although I do have a decent number of friends in school, i just don't go boozing with them that often).

I found I did a hell of a lot of a better job of the study side of things - I understand just how much you can get done in a day in a way i had no idea of as a teenager, i went to multiple courses for no credit, because i wanted to take them in addition to my assessed options. I do regret somewhat not being able to make more of the social side (especially sport), but whatever. Also, at least in my course/uni/circle, adult/mature students are far from unusual - i was not close to the oldest in the 15 odd of the intake for my specific programme.

archive bump

so cute!

I didnt end up getting any advice from Atak - but still managed a distinction average for my dip. ed.

this makes me sad now

It makes me sad

for slightly different reasons

rly? it makes me sad that apparently atak decided that POG is no longer a fun place

I was about to disagree, but I guess I really can't. POG is still a good place, in that many of the regulars and departed regs are people whose virtual company I enjoy or of whom I think good things, but it seems that "fun" doesn't describe well how I view it any more. Not fun for me, else I'd post here more.

If I were playing the games, of course it would be different, but I've never really liked sheep a whole lot and more importantly, werewolf is now very not-fun for me, and that's most of what gets played. The change wrt werewolf may partly be me and my life, but I think it's mostly the evolution of the game.

_________

Digger: I'm sorry I didn't give you the advice you asked for. No excuses because I don't even remember why; just sorry.

_________

Eventually, I'm going to update this thread with the latest that's going on in my life, but I've been kind of waiting until something worth relating was going on.

it made me sad that my life is 10000 posts more pathetic than yours

and that's saying something

so how many posts do i have

one more than before ziiiiiiiiiiing

yeah but mine has spanned over two more years than yours has

No probs Atak.

I am never around enough to work out why you are unhappy with POG.

I try and spread myself around 2+2 - that way its unlikely I get uber-caught up in the ins and outs of one particular community.

So whats been going on in your life?

Update sensei is asking the question so you better answer

An incentive is the picture below - maybe this rare bird will get me an update.....

no cheating now by looking at the URL Doug.

Time for an update. Unfortunately, though there's some good news the bottom line isn't what I hoped or expected it to be at this point:

As of about a month ago, the rough outline of my life hadn't changed much in a while. 'pup continued to do incrementally better in most important ways, though we've gotten used to the idea that his mother will never give him up (and under the relevant laws, she'll never have to). My family life was otherwise largely unchanged — people get sick, then get well, that sort of thing, but nothing huge.

Professionally, there was nothing. I went into yet another (pretty predicable at this point) depressive cycle after Christmas ('pup arrives —> atak happy; 'pup leaves again —> atak sad enough to get nonfunctional), and my grand plans (I always have some) for completing The Paper amounted to nought. But then ... it changed. About a month ago I found the will to drag myself out of depression (and into mania, but that's how it goes, and in any case it's fine because I can direct my mania — I think this is one of my few truly useful skills). I convinced myself that now, finally, I could do it, and somehow I found myself able to think this thought without getting short of breath and sick to my stomach (something that always had happened in the past, literally every time over the course of sixteen years that I attempted to address this problem).

Moreover, it wasn't just that I could think about it — I could do it. With appropriate assistance (including from ElliotR, as will surprise no one who knows him), I actually chose a topic (actually Elliot chose it for me, but that's what I asked him to do), and started work. I read several cases; I sketched a piece of an outline in my head. It doesn't sound like much, but it was farther than I'd ever gotten. And more importantly, I was sure I wouldn't stop. (There were other, smaller things as well. For example, I started running because I was realized I wasn't as healthy as I wanted to be. No big deal, but a sign that my head was in a different place.)

Obviously I'm writing this in the past tense, so you can reasonably infer that something happened. Unfortunately, what happened was huge. While checking on the exact logistics of what it would take to graduate, one of my professors from long ago found out the worst possible thing: I can't. While Boalt (the UC Berkeley law school) would love to have me graduate, and that's why they've been so patient over the years, the university as a whole will not allow it — it seems that at some point (I don't even know when), I ran afoul of the limit on how long it can take one to finish, a rule imposed by the ABA (which accredits law schools). As the registrar at UC sees it, the rule is rigid and unwaivable (many avenues have been tried). My credits, all 86 of them (85 required to graduate) cannot ever be used toward any law degree.

It is over. I will never graduate from law school, no matter what I do. My three year stint at Berkeley might as well not have happened.

If you haven't read this entire well you could reasonably conclude that that's actually not a horrible thing; after all, it's been sixteen years that I haven't been using the (non)degree, that I haven't been practicing law. And I eventually may find some good in it, as I'll explain. But for now, picture this: For a decade and a half I have viewed everything I did as a temporary detour from the eventual path, which I was always sure would be toward completion of the degree and entry into the practice of law. Suddenly, that is no longer the case. Looking backward, my sixteen years of screwing around doing whatever have amounted to exactly nothing except a wasted young adulthood; in the present, I get to remember than I am where I am, with no prospects for the future, entirely because of my own decisions; looking forward, I have no graduate school at all and no marketable skills, not to mention no idea what to do with myself. My life goal is gone.

So it ain't good.

This transpired almost two weeks ago. Since then I have, fortuitously and fortunately, been occupied most of the time helping with some family matters in Arizona. Fortunately, because this means I've gotten to be numb to it all while occupying myself productively, something that wouldn't have happened otherwise. But I return to Chicago later this week and get to address the issue, or perhaps we should say the decision: What to do with the rest of my life, with full knowledge that I have wasted most of the first half-plus of it.

Maybe being freed of the weight hanging over me will liberate me to be myself and find something (else) that I really like to do. Maybe. Right now it doesn't feel that way. At least I do feel capable of getting moving in some direction, whatever it turns out to be. I've actually kept running (though Tucson isn't the right place to do that for someone who has a long way to go before he can say he's in good shape — altitude matters), and I view that as evidence that I'm out of whatever funk I was in. Given a direction, I think I'll be OK, in the short and medium term. Long term ... well, this is going to take a lot of time to learn to live with.

Any of several hundred different tropical species (look at the vegetation, among other things... otherwise it would be trying to be some northern finch). Except with that heavy bill it's something that has radiated pretty far, I suspect. Maybe one of the Darwin's finches (Galapagos) or something near the Wallace line (Indonesia), but if you say it's rare I'm going with some kind of Hawaiian honeycreeper (no idea what species).

atak,

I think the most important thing to take from this is your outlook at this point. The one thing you've been holding on to is gone. But your mindset in the above post is one of the most positive I've ever seen from you. I'm talking the under currents. You seem more at peace with yourself.

This is just the beginning of the next chapter of the rest of your life. You've gotten rid of that ball & chain that for whatever reason, deep down, you didn't want to do. Now you can find something new that you love and that you really want to do.

Take your time and make sure its something you really want. Or just go out there and throw **** at the wall until something sticks.

There's no way to appeal the decision? Oh well, practicing law isn't all roses anyway.

Good luck!

Mac: I understand. In a way I feel better than I have in many years, not because of recent events but in spite of them. Feels unfair that this had to happen just as I was going to start fixing things, but it actually isn't unfair at all. I'm getting (or rather, not getting) what I deserve for once.

Gus: Apparently it's quite inflexible. A couple people are pursuing it on my behalf but I'm told that the rule is clear and that because it's something that the ABA looks into hard when doing reaccreditation, the university is unwilling to risk bending it. Various ways around it have been sought in the past but these have failed.

As for the all roses part: It long ago stopped mattering whether I'd have liked practicing law (though I would have). It was the fact that it was out there in my future somewhere. Thus, the adjustment is weirder than just not being able to pursue a particular career under normal circumstances.

Atak, that must have taken a lot to put that out there.

Don't have any sage advice, but and good luck. The one thing I do have faith in is your intelligence, it can be put to good use somewhere.

Atak,

I'm sorry to hear that about the degree, but I'm focused on the huge triumph that is emerging from depression via your own motivation to be productive. That is wonderful. That is an improvement more important than a law degree.

From the department of unwarranted constructive suggestions, I don't understand why you can't in short order teach LSAT / SAT / GMAT / whatever else courses and shortly be managing a Kaplan (or likewise) center.

Just 2 cents, I kinda liked that job, I think you might too.