Next phase coming up!

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All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. -Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)
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As you may have guessed, my college career is over! Even though I "walked" (graduated) in May, I still had two general education classes to finish up in the summer. That's done so just waiting for them to officially issue the degree. Somewhat anticlimactic! It's strange to think there's whole new crop of freshmen eagerly anticipating their first taste of college - and they're all FOUR YEARS YOUNGER than the toddlers in my class!

So the door is closing on the school phase of my life. Turns out it is also closing on the retirement/leisure phase - I start my first accounting job next week! Thankfully it is only part time and probably temporary. After four years of primarily being home, it will be difficult to have to report to work every day again. But I'm looking forward to finally learning how accounting works in real life. Turns out college accounting courses only touch the surface of a wide array of topics. It takes real job experience before most of it makes sense.

My new company is in residential and commercial property management - mostly in Arizona, but branching out to other states. I'll start out in Accounts Receivable but they promised I will learn a lot about the other facets of accounting, too. Having only worked as a secretary for a state government-owned university, the public sector is a giant blind spot for me. I'm looking forward to learning a lot!

At a recent family reunion, a very astute cousin asked me some interesting questions about my college experience. She got me to thinking about the key things I learned so I'll try to post some observations in the next few weeks in case you find them interesting, too.