working on work skills

[Zoe Girl]

I am working towards increasing some of my specific and verifiable work skills, there is almost too much to think about doing! I am a person who would win the lottery and go back to school. So I have on my list of things to do and make some choices about:

* pass the French praxis test, meaning I would be eligible to teach French in schools, I took an on-line test and I am at imtermediate level without study yet, the study materials were about $50 total, I am kinda impressed, I took 4 years of French in college 20 years ago and sometimes work on it but I have not truly studied. I have access to a conversation group and on-line support as well
* take a paralegal course, the idea being I was very good at helping represent myself during my divorce and have an interest in the law,
* take a mediation course (probably after the paralegal course and working) to use the skills I have in working out courageous conversations
* continue to study Spanish, I am hiring teachers to teach ESL and Spanish on the same nights under my grant and facilitate conversation by intentional partnerships between the classes, I am very excited that I have teachers now and in about 2 weeks we will have a class! I can also sit in on the classes and work on my Spanish.

Now just the decisions, I am still applying for jobs in education however if I do not have a living wage job within the next 6-8 months after all this time I think I need to consider switching gears. No matter what the Spanish will eventually be a goal, it is important where I live and I love languages. No matter what there is no guarantee any of this will turn into a better paying job however these are actually good ideas without going to school full time, compared to my retirement dream of being a tri-lingual meditation instructor and my idea to start a non-profit to teach mindfullnes meditation in the schools.

[SteveinMN]

ZG, have you considered the opportunity present in combining a couple of these, say, being a paralegal who could speak Spanish and/or French? Does that expand the number of jobs and/or compensation available to you?

[Zoe Girl]

I think so, There are more African refugees here now and some of the state languages are French. Of course I would have continual study but I like that. There are so many people who speak Spanish that I haven't considered as much doing legal work in Spanish, I was more thinking of education where I can speak to parents or students. Still I think it still sounds like a good idea overall. I am working on renewing my teaching certificate today.

[Tussiemussies]

ZG, sounds like you have some great ideas as to where you might want to go. I'm not good at foreign languages, so I am a bit envious.

You could also come upon jobs as an interpreter. Mt mother once studied court reporting, it is intense but you might be able to that with your translation skills. Just a thought.

Good luck in finding out what works best for you!

[MissMandy]

ZG, have you considered the opportunity present in combining a couple of these

This is a great idea and my initial thought when I read your post. It seems like you are ready to expand into your professional career on what you really would like to be doing. When I was in college, I took a Stress and Stress Management course over winter term. One of our requirements was to choose a meditation program to do throughout the length of the course, and to record the progress we were making day over day. If you incorporate meditation into your new career venture I assure you that you will benefit greatly from it in so many ways. There are plenty of different ways to meditate and you can even buy prerecorded relaxation tapes to use until you can talk yourself through your meditation sessions.

Good luck!