{"id":10512,"date":"2015-09-08T10:31:51","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T00:31:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/?p=10512"},"modified":"2015-09-08T10:31:51","modified_gmt":"2015-09-08T00:31:51","slug":"how-your-community-can-help-you-find-your-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/how-your-community-can-help-you-find-your-way\/","title":{"rendered":"How Your Community Can Help You Find Your Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Saturday I spent the afternoon at my local community college, the fabulous Mosman Community College<\/a> in Sydney. For the past three years I\u2019ve been a tutor there, teaching creative writing<\/a>, blogging<\/a> and social media<\/a> several times a term. It\u2019s great! I get to meet the most interesting people, talk about stuff I love, and share what knowledge and experience I have.<\/p>\n

But the open day was another thing altogether\u2026 what a lovely bunch of people! Tutors, students, and administration staff \u2013 we were all there for one purpose: to spread the joy of learning. In fact, that\u2019s the college motto: Dare to Learn.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Zena<\/a><\/p>\n

There is so much to learn in life and humans are so diverse and multi-skilled. Talking with some of the other tutors, I quickly discovered that I wasn\u2019t the only one who found their vocation and true passion through an indirect route. A wine maker had once been a communications expert. A photographer had once been a financial consultant. A jewellery maker had once been a high court judge\u2026<\/p>\n

\"Image:<\/a>

Me at the Open Day (Image by Christopher Maait, cmphoto.com.au<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n

Okay, so I\u2019ve exaggerated a bit there, but you get the point. These people had come from a variety of backgrounds, and found their way to contentment by changing or slightly shifting careers, or as in my case re<\/em>-changing careers<\/a>. I went from reading English at the University of Birmingham, to taking the wrong turn of retraining as a solicitor, then getting back on track by becoming a writer. I like to think of it all as telling people\u2019s stories, because when you\u2019re arguing on behalf of your client as a lawyer you are in fact representing their story. Even so, I\u2019m much happier now telling stories through fiction rather than fact, and that\u2019s why I love teaching at the college\u2026<\/p>\n

People don\u2019t always fall into the right career early on in life, but at your local community college you get to do a taster course, or a beginners\u2019 course in something of interest. You get to make sense of the basics in a subject, to see if you enjoy it as much as you thought you would. You get to try before you buy and make a more permanent switch in your life.<\/p>\n

At Saturday\u2019s open day there were artistic demonstrations in pottery, drawing, photography, music and jewellery; informative displays in wine making, travelling, iPads and financial planning; linguistic discussions in French and Russian; and there were creative lifestyle demonstrations in Nordic walking, cooking and baking \u2013 hello to free samples of pancakes, quiches, beef masala and spring rolls!<\/p>\n

Humans are so diverse and multi-skilled!<\/p>\n

Naturally I bought chocolate with me \u2013 see the box of Celebrations on my table?<\/p>\n

\"At<\/a>

At the Mosman Community College open day.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Have<\/a>

Have a chocolate! Just answer a question first…<\/p><\/div>\n

To get students excited about writing, they had to answer one of three questions to get a chocolate:<\/p>\n

If you were to write a book, what would it be about?<\/em><\/p>\n

What do you love most about reading and why?<\/em><\/p>\n

Why is writing important?<\/em><\/p>\n

I got so many different answers, but the funniest answer was from a young boy.<\/p>\n

“If I were to write a book,” he said, “it would be about my dad.”<\/p>\n

“And what would happen in your book?” I asked.<\/p>\n

“He would go to work.”<\/p>\n

Ha! Later in the day another father was reading through the answers and chuckled to himself. “That would be a very boring book,” he said.<\/p>\n

It was a really fun day, with a focus on expanding minds and horizons. So if you’re interested in a skill or activity and haven\u2019t yet pursued it, look up your local community college to see if they have a relevant course. If they don’t, you can always ask them to provide one \u2013 with enough interest they’ll design the exact course you want!<\/p>\n

\"mcc_logo\"<\/a>Whatever you do, don’t wait. Life is too short to have regrets, and most community colleges offer courses in the evenings or weekends to fit around your lifestyle.<\/p>\n

As to my courses, next term I’m offering a blogging course and two creative writing courses. To attend just book here<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Saturday I spent the afternoon at my local community college, the fabulous Mosman Community College in Sydney. For the past three years I\u2019ve been a tutor there, teaching creative writing, blogging and social media several times a term. It\u2019s great! I get to meet the most interesting people, talk\u2026<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[1358,1345,727,1357,731,1350,1353,1354,1352,1347,433,1066,1356,1344,1348,1349,1355,579,1351,1346,712],"class_list":["post-10512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-news","tag-baking","tag-blogging","tag-chocolate","tag-cooking","tag-creative-writing","tag-drawing","tag-financial-planning","tag-french","tag-ipads","tag-jewellery","tag-mosman-community-college","tag-music","tag-nordic-walking","tag-open-day","tag-photography","tag-pottery","tag-russian","tag-social-media","tag-travelling","tag-wine-making","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10512"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10531,"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10512\/revisions\/10531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}