Thoughts on 'portable careers'

A while ago we goat an email from the university Mr. M is attending. It talked about the MyCAA program and how they were a participating provider. Curious, I looked up the MyCAA program to find out more about it. Basically, it provides up to $6000 for spouses of active duty military to pursue training for portable careers.

'Portable careers' got me thinking. My bachelors is in animal science (vet tech, specifically), but I knew I didn't want to work in a vet clinic even before I finished my degree. It would have taken too much time to finish if I had changed majors, but now I wish I'd gone ahead and changed it anyway.

I have also gone to massage school, and while technically portable, it doesn't work real well with an active 3 year old running around. And I'm a little out of practice...

I've also learned Japanese at language school, but that's not terribly useable right now, either.

Thinking about what I want to do with my life: if I had changed my major, I would have changed it to English. I've thought about getting a masters in English, specifically professional writing, but the program's expensive, and I'm not real confident in my writing skills.

I like organizing things, and have thought about being a personal organizer, but I'm not creative enough to do the 'make-over' parts after everything's been sorted and organized. And with the economy like it is right now, most people don't have money to pay for someone to organize their houses for them.

I read a lot of books, and it really bugs me when I find typos, inconsistencies, and so on. So that led me to think about editors. I did some research on book editors and decided that's not what I want to do- they have to keep on their writers to make deadlines, they have to sell the books to the publishing houses, and other things I'm not really in to.

In researching editors, I did run across a job called copyediting. So I researched copyeditors, and finally found something I think I can do. A copyeditor reads a book, looking for consistency in spelling, punctuation, details, etc. It's a job that requires attention to detail, and would mesh well with my OCD tendancies. I even found several colleges that offer online copyediting courses. I need to check on costs of the courses, but they weren't very long, so I wouldn't think they would cost an arm and a leg. Copyediting is fairly portable, too. While some places want you to go in to an office to work, there are telecommuting positions available.

I technically had a couple months of eligibility left when I was doing the research, but I haven't pursued it yet because the timing isn't right. Once we get a real job and move into our own place and get settled, then I'll look into it again. Whether I use the MyCAA option to pay for it will depend on how quickly Mr. M gets deployed again.