Old Thoughts Churned Up Again

I once went to college for website design. I greatly enjoyed most of my classes. Math was never a strong point of mine, so those classes really sucked. But aside from that I loved it. Funny how that is, given the fact that I hated school when I was a kid. But in college it's different. You get to pick your schedule, you're doing it not because you have to but because you have the drive to do it. It was just a great experience. And while I did not graduate (I needed a full time paying job more than I needed a degree at the time) I learned a lot of valuable skills.

Skills that have helped me get the job I have now. I wouldn't know half of what I know about computers if I hadn't had some of the classes I had when I was going to college.

And while no part of me wants a degree any more, I sometimes think about what it would be like to design websites as a side business. The down side to that? I'm only good with HTML and CSS. Anything beyond that and I'm fumbling and frustrated.

So it's not like I could put together a very complex website, because I can't. But for someone who just wants a simple website (a small business, a charity organization, etc) I could totally handle that.

Well tonight HG stopped by for a little bit to drop something off, and she was saying how she is leaving one of her current jobs (she has two) and is going back to school part time to get a certificate. And she said she was going to use said certificate to open her own business in a year or two. I congratulated her, as did Master, and then I said, "If you ever need a website let me know."

She seemed shocked. I just smiled because immediately Master started praising me and talking me up about my skills with HTML and CSS. She said she would keep that in mind and seemed very pleased that now she knew someone who could handle that.

I would of course still charge her something for it, because it doesn't make good business sense to do otherwise. I wouldn't charge her much, honestly, because she's going to be marrying Master's best friend. But still, something.

And so that whole conversation churned up old hopes and dreams. Like I said, I don't want to go back to school to get a degree. But one thing I wouldn't mind doing is getting a certification for Microsoft Office. That would be awesome. And it would look really good on my resume. Not that I'm looking to change jobs, I love my job.

But it may help me in getting a better pay rate at some point, or a promotion later on down the road. Who knows.

So I'll have to start looking into that.