The Sunday Salon: Back to School Books

I recently went back to school. I don't think I've mentioned it here on this blog because to be honest I've been dreading it more than looking forward to it. I love learning, I think the degree I'm pursuing will help my career, but gosh-darnit, I'm going to have to cut back on my writing and blogging time.

It was a lot easier to handle when school was this far-off thing, but all of a sudden the summer ended and before I knew it classes were starting. So now my usual reading style is going to be a little more cramped by business books. I just got a stack of them in the mail and since I was kind of in a lull with my usual reads, I decided to try skimming through to see if any of them were worthwhile.

The first book I tried was actually a pretty nice, quick read with lots of practical advice. Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, while geared towards the CEOs of large businesses, had plenty of good advice for leaders at any level of how to create concrete business plans that succeed.

It also included the one thing that keeps me reading an advice book: plenty of good examples. While I get lost when a non-fic author goes on and on about theories, if they can give good examples of their ideas in action, I'm a lot more likely to remember.

The second book I skimmed through was Strengthsfinder 2.0, which also included a test to find your strengths. The book was an okay reference, but I'm getting kind of tired of personality tests. Okay, really tired. Okay, I was ready to start telling the computer screen I really didn't care about whether I relate better to people or ideas and I sure don't care about whether I study the history or the future, whether I like organization or creativity, and so on and so on.

I really think my results were skewed by the fact I started talking back to the computer half-way through. Oh well. I've done two personality tests for school, and I've got another one to go. Sigh.

Other things I've been doing this past week include catching up on the final season of Battlestar Galactica. So far I'm ranging from just being grateful my most hated character, Gaius Baltar finally has less screen time to loving the action-packed episodes, to wondering if the writers ever even had direction for the Cylon plotline or if they made it up on the fly, to falling in love all over again with my favorite characters.

Two more discs to go and I'll finally have to say goodbye. I haven't decided whether I have the self-control to space them out so I can savor the end or whether I'll just gobble the whole thing up as soon as possible. We shall see.