ed·u·ca·tion
–noun
1. the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life..
2. a degree, level, or kind of schooling.

I come from a family of doctors and lawyers so naturally the first word that comes to mind for E was Education. As soon as I started thinking about who I knew that was an expert on education I knew of course I’d ask my blogging friend who is currently in law school. I stumbled across her blog pretty close to the time that she was first starting law school and I have been a consistent reader since.

This guest post was written by Janet Wallace, a twentysomething law student with a love of cupcakes and peppermint. Janet can be found blogging at Slice of Pink.

My name is Janet Wallace and I am a schoolaholic. 

I will turn thirty during my last year of law school. This means that I will have spent the majority of my twenties in school. I took a few years off between earning my bachelor’s degree and entering law school but, even then, I was a high school teacher. So technically, if you are counting, I’ve been in a classroom for twenty-five years straight. 

I’ve learned about a lot of things during my formal education–statistics, gothic cathedrals, osmosis, federalism–but, if truth be told, I don’t use any of this information on a daily basis. I don’t break out my calculator at the grocery store to figure out the area of a frozen pizza or sit at home considering archetypal patterns in poetry.  Occasionally, when I am visiting an art museum or watching a television game show, my degree in Art History serves me well; but, for the most part, knowing gobs of information about French Impressionism isn’t very practical in real life.  

So, why then, you ask, would I choose to spend $150,000 and the entirety of my twenties sitting in a classroom? 

There are the obvious reasons: all of this schooling will get me a better job, more money, nicer shoes. There is definitely that–and for a lot of people, that is enough. 

For me, though, education is a drug.  It is a powerfully addictive stimulant. Every day, I ride my bicycle down to campus to learn something new–sometimes something that I didn’t even realize existed–and it envelops me and makes me crave more.  

Lately, I’ve been studying the law. My classmates, a competitive and eager bunch, are ready to finish up with their educations and enter the job market as soon as possible. Me? I’m not so sure. It seems I have a long list of things I’d  still like to learn–Spanish, library science, how to make the perfect soufflé.

Sometimes I think of all the things I know these day–things that were completely unfathomable to my teenage mind–and I realize how fortunate I am to be able to spend my twenties learning. But, of course, that thought has a sister: although I’ve spent the last twenty-five years in a classroom, the things I know are only a tiny glint of ice in a vast tundra of the incomprehensible.  In the grand scheme of things, my education really hasn’t taught me much at all, but it sure has given me an unquenchable thirst for some more of it. I’m totally hooked.

The good news is, we don’t need some classroom in a fancy institution to get an education.  All we need is a hunger for knowledge and, more importantly, the resolve to satisfy that hunger.  There is such a wondrous world of information available to us, things unexpected and astounding, and we owe it to ourselves, to our children and grandchildren, and to each other, to expand our horizons and deepen our character.  Make it a point to learn something new every day this month and I predict you’ll get addicted, too. It’s one hard habit to break.  

I am also schoolaholic. I will most likely be starting on the next step in my education in the next year. I found that people are usually one end of the spectrum or the other on this topic - there are schoolaholics and school of life folks. My family and my upbringing have pointed me towards the schoolaholic side. Where do you stand on the topic of education?

If you’ve missed any of the other ABCs you can find them here.

I found a great post today through sk*rt of The Magical List of Outstanding Women Bloggers. I am always excited to find new blogs to feed my addiction (and my reader), especially women bloggers.

There are over 150 women bloggers listed. One issue I had with this thorough list - it’s not categorized and there is no way to know what each blog is without visiting each one individually. I guess that’s two issues. So …

Here is the continuance of the outstanding women bloggers list, with blog descriptions. I look forward to making my way through these new blogs.

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I certainly would not consider myself the spelling expert but I often see yeah and yay misused so I thought I’d have a little education session.

• Yeah - pronounced ye-uh as in yes
  "Hey Jen, are you going to with us to the mall."- girl a; "Yeah, I’ll go"- girl b
• Yay - rhymes with and is a synomym of hooray. It’s used in cases of excitement.
  "Did I tell you I won an ipod?" - girl a; "No! Oh that is exciting. Yay!" - girl b
• Yah - is also an expersion of agreement but there is no excitement.
  "Hey are you ready to go" - girl a; "yah" - girl b
• Ya - means you
  "How are ya?"
• Yea - is a very old-fashioned formal way of saying “yes,” used mainly in voting. It’s the opposite of—and rhymes with—“nay.”
  "All in favor say yea, all opposed nay."
• and if that wasn’t confusing enough yay can also refer to height, as in "when I was yay big" [holding hand up]

Did you catch all that?

Suddenly, the tenets of success we’ve followed since kindergarten don’t apply, because getting ahead in the business world often has nothing to do with intelligence or exceeding a set of defined expectations. Since they don’t teach corporate in college, here are six tips to help you win at the business world’s game.

What you didn’t learn in college

GenGreen - COLLEGE: Going green at graduation? Turns out showing eco-solidarity at graduation just may be a theme that catches on this season. As one example, more than 100 of the 560 graduates at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania signed sustainability pledges promising to recycle and conserve resources as part of graduation day
- College Grads Go Green on Graduation Day!

How would you like to travel the world and have someone else pay for it? I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty nice to me. Well, Tim Ferris the author of 4-Hour Workweek is giving away this opportunity.

He is holding a contest that compliments his book. If you can answer the question “How would you use 36 extra hours per week?” in 350 words or less, you could win a roundtrip anywhere in the world, a private consultant with the author and $1,000 for the cause of your choice.

I haven’t read the book yet (it’s on my to-do list) but I certainly have heard a lot of buzz about this book lately. Not too long ago I read a few articles about the Four Day Week Challenge and it wasn’t too long after that the 4 Hour Workweek book followed. From what I have heard the idea of the book is cut out all things that are not productive and reduce the amount of time you are spending on unnecessary tasks. Would taking the time to enter his contest count as something unnecessary?

Enter here: Writing Contest

Photo Credit: bizior

I would consider myself to be an intellectual person. I love learning new things and I did well throughout all of my schooling. I was an honor roll student in high school. So, I was intrigued by something I came across today.

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