Opening The First Door

In December, I posted this blog after my last job ended. I wrote that while one door was closing, I saw several other doors on the verge of opening. The period has been both exciting and a bit scary – scary, because we don’t want to be (can’t afford to be) a single-income family, and exciting because, as I mentioned in Doors Opening blog, I am feeling very optimistic about some of the possibilities that I see in turning my recently-found passion for writing into a full-time career move.

I had also mentioned in that blog that I was toying with the idea of starting to work as a freelancer – I really enjoy the flexibility that it would allow and the extra time I would have with the kids. I have been exploring this possibility much more and I think that very soon I will officially declare “Self-Employed” status and working on some freelance projects.

I have a couple of possibilities that are on the horizon – in writing and in Sales and Marketing, although until anything is definite, I’d rather not go into details just yet. A lot of very encouraging feedback and suggestions will hopefully be going into play very soon.

I have also completed 4 of 6 meetings in a course to be a guide at Neot Kedumim – Israel’s biblical botanical nature reserve (check out the website here). Once the course is finished and I “tag along” a few times with some of the more experienced guides when they lead groups, I am very hopeful that this will start providing me with a wonderful freelance income – even just few hours each week.

But for all of the possibilities, the potentials, the hopefullys and the maybes looming on the near horizon, today I stepped through the first of many newly Open Doors in the next stage of my life. I have gone back to school to finish my Bachelor’s degree.

Quick background time: When I graduated high school, I did what was pretty much expected of all of my friends, and the kids that I knew and hung out with – I went to college. My grades in high school were consistently underwhelming, so it took the intervention of a family friend to help me be accepted to the University of Maryland, College Park. I had a wonderful time there – I majored in Hillel (the Jewish Student Center where I hung out) with a minor in late-night television and partying whenever I could.

It was the period of my life when I lived on my own for the first time, worked jobs not for spending money but for living expenses, was basically responsible for myself (not as successfully as I wish in retrospect that I had been). More importantly, I also met a number of very good friends with whom I am still very close to this day.

I wouldn’t trade my time at College Park for anything in the world, but the bottom line was that for all of the positive that came out of the experience, I really had no business being in college at the time. I had been an exceptionally mediocre student in high school when I had parents there to sit on my head to get some homework and studying done. Left to my own devices away at college, with my horrible study habits (or lack thereof), attending class simply wasn’t high on my list of priorities. It amazes me to this day that I even lasted the 2 and a half years that I did before being booted.

After my unsuccessful foray into higher education, I worked for a couple of more years in the States (Atlanta, Ga. to be exact) and then moved to Israel. I enjoyed 2 years of learning at a yeshiva (institute of Jewish study) which was great for me because the studies there for not for grades, or degrees, but rather for the sake of learning Jewish texts, laws and philosophy.

After serving for a year in IDF, and working before and after my army time, I decided that it was time to go back to university, and I was accepted to Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan (a suburb of Tel Aviv). My major was Land of Israel Studies, which primarily entails archaeology and Israeli history from Biblical through modern periods.

I was older at this point, and more ready to be a student. My study habits still weren’t great, but they weren’t so bad either. The biggest difficulty that I had was the language. My Hebrew was pretty fluent, but studying in it as a second language – listening to lectures, taking notes, reading academic articles and books, writing papers and taking exams – was a whole new proverbial ball game. To make it even more difficult on myself, I decided to write all papers and do all exams in Hebrew, unless the professor was a native English speaker. Over the first couple of years, my grades were decent, but not great. Then I started really getting the hang of things, and my grades started improving significantly.

After a couple of years, I got married, and started working full-time which allowed me the time just for a few classes each semester, so the degree was dragging along. When I started working in Incoming Tourism, my busy season was from about a month before exams started in June until a month after they finished in August. So I had to choose between doing what was needed to stay in school and supporting my family. Family was paramount, and in the spring of 2005 I simply stopped going to classes.

What made this especially hard for me was that I had discovered a love for the studies in the Bible department, which I had declared as my minor. I had even spent a couple of years teaching TaNaCH, which is the initials for the 24 books of the Jewish Bible – standing for Torah, Nevi’im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (the Writings).

But I had to work, and tour operations – particularly for the American market, is not a “student-friendly” line of work.

Return to the present: over the past couple of months, while I have been looking for work, and especially aiming towards freelancing, Sharon and I realized that this may be the perfect time to look into getting back into school and finally finishing this damn degree which has been eluding me (as though I were the completely innocent victim) for nearly 30 years.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I went to Bar Ilan University, did what I had to to do to request returning to my studies and was told that I would have an answer within 2 weeks. I also determined how many classes I still need in order to graduate, and even looked into switching around my major and minor. In the office of the TaNaCH department, I sat down with the secretary and looked at which courses were available second semester of this year which would help me meet my requirements, and came up with 4 classes, all of which are offered on Thursdays.

The two weeks came and went without an answer, and second semester began this week. I went to the campus today in the hopes that I would be allowed to renew my studies, and I figured that even without having an answer yet, it would be good at least attend the 4 classes that I am hoping to take this semester. The first thing that I did this morning was to go to the office responsible for my request to be reinstated. The woman there told me that I have been approved and went through with me step-by-step what the necessary procedures are now for making it all official – paying tuition, getting my student ID card, etc. I’ll take care of that next week – today I need to get to class.

I have decided switch my major and minor, and the degree that I hope to have after 3 or 4 semesters will be in TaNaCH and my minor will be Land of Israel Studies. I have 4 classes to attend this semester, plus I am planning (hoping) to register for 2 additional courses of independent study. It is very possible that by the end of next year, I will have finished all of the requirements and be a college graduate.

Best if all, I really enjoyed the four lectures today.

Whether or not I ever actually use the degree is irrelevant. There is a good chance that I will, but at this point, who knows? I do know that just having the piece of paper will make job hunting a little bit easier, and I truly love the Bible Studies and would consider going back fro further degrees at some point.

What matters for right now is that what was expected of me and hoped for on my behalf – by family, friends, and most of all, myself – now has a fresh chance to actually happen. When something is really important, circumstances might delay it for a while, but there’s no such thing as too late in fulfilling the dream.