"Change" has been the theme of the summer services at People's Church ever since the minister announced she was leaving to take a new post. It's ironic because that is what has been happening in my life as well. I should be quite used to it by now since change seems to be a buzzword where I work as well--just as soon as I master a process, they decide to adopt a new one and I start all over again. My training record runs to 9 pages and that only covers about half the time I've been there.
People's is like no other church I have been to. Some would say it isn't even a church. I don't know, all I know is that I feel at home there. In June I took the formal step of joining, so now I am officially a Unitarian. Which I haven't told my family because they would not understand what a Unitarian is. Short answer: about anything you want it to be. Officially they call themselves a "liberal religious congregation of seekers." Anyway, because the minister is leaving they have been working through this whole change process, letting people express how they feel about it and giving practical steps how to deal with it. I even took one of the handouts to work (How People React to Change) and showed my boss and she was impressed. Anyway as I said I am an old pro at this. But now there are more changes to come.
Lately I have been taking walks in the afternoon with a coworker as part of a program to get us up and away from our desks and on one of these walks she asked me why I never completed school. I told her it was the money. She said I could get financial aid. I said I would consider going back on one condition--that she go with me to the financial aid office. I said I had had it with having people tell me that I qualified for this and that only to be told by the person in charge of handing out aid or loans that no, I did not qualify and whoever led me to believe otherwise was sadly mistaken. So she said she would go with me. In the meantime she goes to the boss and tells her that I was thinking about going back to school and the boss comes to my cubicle and says "I hear you are thinking about going back to school and I think that is a good idea." Now when the boss says something is a good idea it is not a good idea to contradict her (or him.) So now I am stuck with going!
So first we went to the admissions counselor and to both of our great surprise the counselor (who was an older woman and not some young student who didn't know anything) asked me if I knew how close I was to graduating. I said about a year and a half. My friend said six months. It turns out I only need two classes to get my associates degree! And there is a good possibility I can use my work experience to get out of one of them. So the next stop is the life experience counselor and then financial aid. If all goes well, I plan to graduate in April. So, I won't be able to play around online so much because I will be busy attending class and studying!
People's is like no other church I have been to. Some would say it isn't even a church. I don't know, all I know is that I feel at home there. In June I took the formal step of joining, so now I am officially a Unitarian. Which I haven't told my family because they would not understand what a Unitarian is. Short answer: about anything you want it to be. Officially they call themselves a "liberal religious congregation of seekers." Anyway, because the minister is leaving they have been working through this whole change process, letting people express how they feel about it and giving practical steps how to deal with it. I even took one of the handouts to work (How People React to Change) and showed my boss and she was impressed. Anyway as I said I am an old pro at this. But now there are more changes to come.
Lately I have been taking walks in the afternoon with a coworker as part of a program to get us up and away from our desks and on one of these walks she asked me why I never completed school. I told her it was the money. She said I could get financial aid. I said I would consider going back on one condition--that she go with me to the financial aid office. I said I had had it with having people tell me that I qualified for this and that only to be told by the person in charge of handing out aid or loans that no, I did not qualify and whoever led me to believe otherwise was sadly mistaken. So she said she would go with me. In the meantime she goes to the boss and tells her that I was thinking about going back to school and the boss comes to my cubicle and says "I hear you are thinking about going back to school and I think that is a good idea." Now when the boss says something is a good idea it is not a good idea to contradict her (or him.) So now I am stuck with going!
So first we went to the admissions counselor and to both of our great surprise the counselor (who was an older woman and not some young student who didn't know anything) asked me if I knew how close I was to graduating. I said about a year and a half. My friend said six months. It turns out I only need two classes to get my associates degree! And there is a good possibility I can use my work experience to get out of one of them. So the next stop is the life experience counselor and then financial aid. If all goes well, I plan to graduate in April. So, I won't be able to play around online so much because I will be busy attending class and studying!
