Sue Modray

I have a friend I have asked to contribute to this blog, so here are a few words of introduction.

I met Sue Modray when I returned to BSU to get my English degree. She was in one of the first classes I took, and after chatting a bit, we realized how startlingly similar we were. We could not help but become soul mates. She is very nearly my mirror image.

Look at the similarities:

Sue had never finished college when she got married, started a family, and started working on getting old. After a few kids, she settled in to a nice little career quite by accident. Sue had recently moved with her family to Idaho from Alaska when she got a temporary job through one of those staffing service companies. What started out as a little data entry to make a few bucks turned into a career. Her data entry job was at a company that designed websites, and after a few years grinding up the ranks from temporary data entry clerk to secretary to website contributor, she soon was designing websites herself. She had managed to get this (fairly decent paying) job not from experience or schooling; she simply rubbed shoulders with others doing it.

She parlayed this experience into another job with the state department of education--a totally sweet job. No supervisor breathing down her neck, freedom to come and go as she pleased, and good pay. Sue soon realized she was at liberty to return to school and get the degree she never got. An English degree.

Like me, Sue had not originally studied English at college, but had found an author she loved (Austen, as it turns out; there are precious few who revere Maugham the Master) and wanted to study more literature. So there she was at BSU starting to do it in 2004. And I was there, too. We followed a similar path toward our degrees and saw each other in many classes. Her literary tastes are nearly identical to my own.

We had many discussions about the education we received in the English department at BSU, and we share many of the same ideas. I have asked her, as her first contribution to the blog, to talk about her journey. Hopefully you find it entertaining. If not, stay tuned, and Phyllis will post again soon.

[I have asked Sue when she posts to leave her name at the beginning of the post, so readers can know right away without scrolling to the bottom of the post who is writing. I will also try to do the same. But I might not; it is my blog, after all.]