What I did on my summer vacation

As you may have noticed, I haven't blogged in a couple of weeks. Ironically, I just had eleven days off from work with mostly nothing to do, and I could have blogged a lot. However, I just filled all that free time with other things - well, mainly one other thing (hanging out on Facebook), though I did manage to squeeze some schoolwork in there too.

Wait a minute, what? Schoolwork? As in, Stan's in school again? Actually, yes. I am taking six hours at Missouri Southern, as the beginning part of an effort to finally earn a degree. After enjoying my 17th year of my year off, I decided that it was time I tried to finish my education.

When I started college in the fall of 1990, I didn't really have any direction. I planned on just taking core classes toward an Associates degree until I figured it out. Problem was, I never figured it out, and so I really didn't put an effort into doing well. So that lasted one semester. I tried it again a year later, and I even tried taking art classes, but even still, I wasn't sure that was the career I wanted to pursue. Plus, I was starting to work more, and my crazy late hours weren't helping me find any time to study. So I flopped again, and have been in the working world ever since.

Then this year something happened. I tried this little experiment called 366 Days of Creativity, which got me thinking about that art career again. And with the encouragement of my beautiful wife Nicole, I got off my butt and applied to MSSU. Because of my absence from academia, my strategy is a little different than a normal returning student's would be. I need to start out a little slower. And I am working full time, during the day, so my options are 1) take time off from work to attend classes, 2) take night or distance-learning classes. Nicole is already using option #1 for her school, and her degree is of higher priority (she's much closer to finishing), so I am taking Internet-based classes for now. And that means it's back to the core classes, even though I am planning to declare a major in Graphic Design.