Rayni Learns

The Rayni Learns blog will follow Rayni on her journey to learn to code, write, review books, and work on crafts as she prepares for retirement. I am Rayni and I will take my readers through each step of my learning processes, including the resources I find and my opinion of the quality and usefulness of the resources.   

I have experience writing academic articles and creative works for my personal use. But now that I am nearing retirement, I want to improve my writing skills so that I can use my new found time write fiction that readers will enjoy. I also want to learn more about technical writing so that I can write useful and informative non-fiction. 

I also have experience coding but have not used my coding skills for practical applications for quite some time. On this blog, I hope readers will follow and join me as I attempt to get back into the coding world and write simple software for my own use. I hope that coding and programming activities will help keep my brain active as well as provide hours of fun. Coding and programming exercises are like solving puzzles!

To make these things happen on a blog, I will first need to learn to blog. While that seems obvious, it is not as easy as one would think. I want my blog to be a successful blog. So I need to know how to get people to read it because my definition of a successful blog for me is simple to have people read it. I may broaden my definition of success as I work on the blog, but at the time I am starting this blog that seems to be a very daunting task. I must confess that I did not realize how hard I would need to work to get people to find publish. I hope you will bear with me as I learn. Maybe you will be inspired to start a blog of your own. 

Finally, I want to share my experiences in crafting, particularly beading, needlepoint,  and sewing. I believe my skills doing these crafts are very good, but I know there is always more to learn. I hope to share some of the crafts I have produced in the past, as well as sharing my current projects.  Now that I am so close to retirement, I am trying to sort through all the crafts I know and love to decide if I want to concentrate on one or two or if I want to just have fun doing a little of everything. 

I always enjoyed school and learning. Nothing made me happier than the instant gratification I received from taking tests and exams in school.  I decided in eighth grade that I would be a college professor one day. Unfortunately, my circumstances were such that I could not attend college immediately after graduating from high school. Life happened. I was blessed to have two wonderful children and a very good life, but I always knew I had a dream I needed to fulfill–the dream of becoming a college professor. 

In the early 80’s, when I was in my early 30’s,  life gave me an opportunity to pursue a college degree. So I did. I worked hard and earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Statistics. I took enough courses to pass the exam to become a Certified Public Accountant. In those years, one could take the CPA examination without completing a graduate degree in accounting.

After becoming a CPA, I went back to school to earn a graduate degree, an MBA.  After a few years of working as a CPA/MBA in industry, I returned to school to earn a PhD, Accounting. 

I was fifty years old when I completed my PhD and accepted my first teaching position. I had made it. I was a college professor. I was still relatively young and healthy and I had fulfilled a dream that was formed when I was in eighth grade. 

Along the way to becoming a professor I learned many things. But primarily I learned that I love to learn. I am not even particular about what I am learning. I learn crafts with the same enthusiasm I spent learning programing languages, statistics, and accounting. I spend time reading and writing because I believe that one learns through reading and solidifies that learning by explaining it to others–which I do through teaching and writing. My writing mantra is “I write so that I will know what I think.”  

I believe I have many years ahead, as I get ready for my retirement years. I want to be set to enjoy the years I have to the fullest. To me, that means learning and doing every day. Mostly learning. Come join me.