I really love school. Part of it is probably because I have an obsession with educational methodologies (sort of like some people do with Star Wars or Dyson vacuums) and love to learn in the first place. I think I am the only person alive who geeked out while reading Lave & Wenger's Situated Learning. But much of my love for school (and this gets highlighted in the wake of the holidays) is because it gives my life some of the structure I need to thrive.

I mean, I can be a "self-starter" and "my own boss" - proof enough for that is hopefully in publishing books, blogging, and running my own company. My bosses in super-flexible jobs have written me great recommendations. But while I love the creative license that comes with flexibility, creating the structure myself is actually really hard for me. I guess that's a good thing - hard things make me learn. But I spend so much time in my life trying to create structure out of the chaos inside my head that it's really, really nice to have a school schedule that can guide the rest of my day.

Part of me wonders if this is the autism speaking. If the clinical reports of "people on the spectrum often have trouble finding and keeping employment" are going to jump on me and doom me to a life of endless job seeking. If I'm choosing my profession just because it's so much easier to imagine than anywhere else my talents could take me.

Or maybe they just happen to line up. My passion for teaching with my passion for learning and the tenuous relationship with structure it provides. I don't know.

What I do know is that, of the five classes I'm taking this semester in the MBA, four of them will hopefully give me the good feeling to make it through the fifth. Training & Development, Social Media Marketing (my missionary work class - I'll tell my teacher about GMG on day one and use it as a test case), PhD prep, and Educational Psychology (which is in a different department, but whatever).

Class 5 - Power, Influence, and Negotiations, has already given me nightmares. There are lots of people who don't like negotiations, but... I had to confront an internal paradox while selling cub scout popcorn when I was 7 years old - before I was even a cub scout! I'm probably not being rational - once I solved the dilemma I won a national sales competition. But people scare me because I know I don't understand them nearly as much as I should. And the thought of having to negotiate anything makes me want to just curl up in a ball.

Which is why I took the class in the first place.

Love. Hate. School.
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