…which is what I have done often both professionally and personally – with no regrets whatsoever.
The changes have been big and little, easy and hard, happy and sad; but all of the stops and starts have been part of a journey that now has taken yet another twist in the road. Forty years ago (March 1972), I graduated from the University of Georgia. Now it is Spring Semester 2012, and I am enrolled in the Masters of Journalism program at The University of Memphis – and all the course work is done online.
Granted, none of that is too extraordinary – starting over at 60 is becoming fairly commonplace. Just do a search and see how many books have been written on the subject. The extraordinary fact is that I, or perhaps more appropriately, we, are so automated that I can sit in my office at Jones Crossroads, Georgia, take a class from a professor sitting in Memphis, Tennessee, and converse with classmates scattered all over the map.
For the more technically savvy, this is not something that charges your excite-o-meter; but for someone who resisted getting a microwave, it is event-changing. I am one of those dinosaurs who prefer talking to a person face-to-face over tweeting, e-mailing, “friending”, or speed dialing, but I realize super sonic communication is the way of the world now. I may prefer personal appearances to blogging, but there were plenty of copyists who did not want Gutenberg’s printing press to catch on either…and look how stupid they look now. And stupid is not a trait for which I wish to be remembered.
The media revolution calls me now just as the Civil Rights Movement did in the 1960’s and continues to do so in the 21st Century. The medium by which the message is sent has changed, but I am still Pam Avery, Printed.