I sit here this morning reflecting on my age, and what it has done to me, if you will.

My first foray into post secondary education was at UCLA nearly 35 years ago.  My second was about 25 years ago.  If you had asked me then if I would be going back to school again at my age, I probably have laughed at you.

I've been unemployed now since my birthday, 1 December, or about 4.5 months.  I have been looking for work; I've had plenty of interviews; but I'm STILL unemployed.

The state of Washington, desiring not to have to pay me my paltry $420 a week ($380 after taxes) unemployment benefits (which are running out in 10 weeks anyway), has determined that I am probably not going to get a job in my current field and need to be "re-educated" into a different career path.

To that end, I am back in school.  My updated career path is that of health informatics (in English, that translates to computer geek/nerd, with a specialty in the health care field).  I started last Monday, and I am already exhausted (and I'm supposed to be in school until June of 2008).  I have 500 pages of reading to do this week, along with designing and posting a web portal page, learning how to take my computer apart and put it back together the same way it started, and how to build a new one from scratch.  Not a bad amount of work for one week, right?

I haven't gotten to bed before 3:00 am the last ten days, and I have to be back at the school (luckily only 10 minutes away from here by bus) by 10:00 am Monday through Thursday.  Friday is my housework and finish the homework day, so I really don't get any extra rest that day either.  And this is my EASY quarter. 

My final destination is database design and administration.  My hardware instructor says that is where all of the money is nowadays (I have a couple of friends who do it, and they clear six figures a year, work from home and pretty much only work about six months a year, but they are a few years younger than I am, too).

So, whaddaya think, can you teach an oooooollld dog new tricks?  Am I going to survive this or not?