Living a LearningLife

Navigating major transitions, especially in the second half of life, can be difficult, but it can also be joyful and rewarding. If we see transition as such, our journeys become positive and purposeful, offering time for review, rediscovery, retooling, and re-emergence.

Enter LearningLife's Transition Workshop series, which kicks off on October 17.

Transition Workshops are designed to help participants prepare for the next stage of life by allowing them to take a step back, rekindle their sense of purpose, make new connections, explore options, move toward meaningful "encore" work, and embrace community engagement.

These half-day workshops feature lively interaction with a community of learners, presentations from outstanding experts, and practical strategies and tools attendees can employ in their own lives.

The Transition Workshops kick off with Blueprint for a Successful Retirement on October 17! A previous participant said of the class, "I loved the process that Katherine guided us through, and I gained tremendous perspective from the openness of the group." Check out the LearningLife Web site for more information!

Also upcoming...

Your Next Chapter: Exploring Life/Work Options (Saturday, October 24: 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m.)

Financial Planning for Life (Thursday, October 29: 4:30-8:30 p.m.)

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®: A Tool for Taking Charge of Change (Monday, November 9: 4:30-8:30 p.m.)

Exploring Self Employment: Start-Ups (Tuesday, November 17: 4:30-8:30 p.m.)

Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter: Making Them Work for You (Saturday, November 21, 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m.)

From Andy Gilats, LearningLife director
Have you ever noticed that numbers seem to dominate the titles of great books? We all remember A Tale of Two Cities, Slaughterhouse 5, Catch-22, and One Hundred Years of Solitude. And of course, we can't forget The Three Musketeers, The 39 Steps, or The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins!

With all due respect to Mr. Dickens and Dr. Seuss, I believe that seven is the most storied, and frankly, the most feared, of all famous numbers, even if you throw in heavy-weights like Twelve Steps, Nine Lives, or Five Tips to Lose Stomach Fat, which was the first result I got when I googled "famous numbers."

Why seven? How about the Seven Days of the Week? Or more to the point, how about the Seven Deadly Sins: pride, anger, envy, greed, gluttony, lust, and sloth. I cannot tell a lie, so here I must admit that by the time I was 30, I was guilty as charged on all seven counts. In fact, just last night I was listening to John Fogerty singing a song called "Heaven's Just a Sin Away." If all it takes is just one, a whole bunch of us are in real trouble.

The University's student-run radio station, Radio K, is moving to the big-time world of FM radio. Radio K is Minnesota's oldest radio station, broadcasting since 1922 at 770 AM. Due to FCC regulations, Radio K was unable to broadcast during the night hours on their AM frequency, so the move to FM broadcasting is also a move to 24-hour broadcasting. Listen to them at 104.5 FM in Minneapolis and 100.7 in St. Paul, or online at radiok.cce.umn.edu.

October can mean many things: falling leaves, Halloween, a steadily falling thermometer...but to a dedicated group of U of M students, it means only one thing--Solar Decathlon competition month! In our August issue, you heard about the U's solar house entry, the ICON house. This month, keep an eye on the University's Solar Decathlon team Web site, as well as the Department of Energy Solar Decathlon Web site for results. The winner will be announced on Friday, October 16!