FALLing Over

Fall 2011 is over and I survived. Barely. With A's.

Thanks to Jan Schwartz of Education Training Solutions for being such a great Board Governance mentor.

And thanks to Joy Clarissa Taylor, Sustainable Communities Program Coordinator for College of the Siskiyous, for being a fabulous Strategic Planning mentor.

Out of all my mentors so far, I've enjoyed working with Joy the most. She was like a mentor/guide and was more organic in her way of thinking. She taught me to think more with my heart ("how does this make you feel, how do you think this will make the students feel") than my head and I really liked that. Hopefully, I'll be able to continue that thinking during my final two semesters. During my time with her, I had started out with a different study contract. After attending a YNPN Member Retreat in August this year, I instead went in a different direction. Within the first few weeks of the course, I realized I should've stuck with my original plan.

And promptly had a meltdown when I realized that Joy would be out of communication range for 12 days. After calming down, I just sent her an email telling her what was going on, we talked when she got back..and everything was right in my world. LOL. I think I just needed someone to confirm what I was already thinking. Her mantra became "Will this help you? Will you learn everything you wanted to?" and it was something she asked throughout the course. For me, it was like a Post-It note reminder taped to my computer.

It's times like that when I remember why I jumped into this program. It's so flexible that if one way isn't working, then I can change it.

Just as long as it's beneficial to my needs. Needless to say, if I had been going to a typical university, I would've been screwed.

Spring 2012 starts Jan 26th, so I'm going to enjoy this break.

As well as one can when searching frantically for next semester's mentors.