Saturday Upsides: Back to School

Bonnie at Recipes Happen came up with the brilliant idea of Saturday Upsides blog posts. Because every situation should have an upside, otherwise, just keep looking for one! 🙂

Wanna share your Saturday upsides or read more about everyone else’s? Just click on the image below!

Although it’s not food related, one of the biggest bummer for me in the past few years has been to have to go back to college to get a Bachelor’s degree. Long story short, my early childhood education degree from Quebec isn’t quite good enough to work in preschool in Virginia. I was lucky enough to be able to study full time and finish faster instead of prolonging it forever while working. It was still a very difficult lifestyle change as I love working with the preschool munchkins. I went from chasing and teaching toddlers to driving up to school (40 minutes away) three times a week and sitting at home all day to study. It was quite a contrast and I still spend a lot of time complaining about it.

But going back to school had its good sides too! It might sound silly but I forgot how much I like reading. I hadn’t been reading much since I moved to the US. A few books once in a while but I definitely wasn’t the kind of person who would have a book by my bedside. Well, as much as I first complained about all the books I would have to read for school, especially in my French classes, it reminded me of how nice it is to sit down with a good book and get wrapped up in a story. And, I can’t deny that most of the books picked by my professors were actually pretty interesting.

(Photo: Fattie loves French grammar…apparently more than I do!)

Well, thanks to this rekindling of my reading habits, I did something I never thought would be possible: I joined a book club! A few friends of mine suggested starting a book club which seemed like a ridiculous idea to me at first. Don’t I read enough for school already? Well, there is apparently a big difference between assignment reading and fun reading! AND I get to discover books that I would have never picked up at the library, sometimes because I had no idea what they were about or because I just assumed I wouldn’t like them. A lot of the books we’re going to read in the upcoming months are definitely out of my “biography and non fiction” comfort zone but I am definitely looking forward to the challenge. For example, this month, we’re reading The Help. I had heard of it (and the movie) but had absolutely no idea what it was about. Well, for a book that I might have never thought of picking up myself, I love it so far!

(Photo: Enjoying a good book from Quebec in my free time)

So there you have it kids, going back to school might make you join a book club…or something like it. 😉