Back to school.

If you haven't heard about Coursera, you need to check it out. It's a site full of college-level courses you can take for free. You can't apply them toward a degree or anything, but there are tracks you can take for a small fee that give you a certificate or something in case you need proof that you're learning stuff.

I don't need the proof, so I'm just going to class.

There are courses in every subject you can imagine, and I've been browsing the site since my last days in Argentina. I didn't take a class then because we were getting ready to leave the country and I figured I would have other things on my mind. Over the last couple of years I went back and forth between forgetting about the site and not being able to find a class that interested me enough and started in the time frame I was looking for.

Until now. Three weeks ago I joined a class called Better Leader, Richer Life. It's not so much about studying as it is about reflection and self-critique and growth, which is more up my alley nowadays, anyway. It has forced me to think of a few things in new ways, and we've got some challenging assignments coming up.

Oh, and there are like 30,000 students in my class. Wild.

More recently, I discovered the Denver-based site Craftsy.com. They offer classes in a variety of artsy thing, from cake decorating to painting, weaving to gardening. They have a few free mini-classes, but most of them you do pay for -- though it's much less than you would pay to take a class at the studio or community center, and you don't have to go out in the snow. (Not so much a problem for me anymore, but definitely something I would have taken into consideration while living in South Dakota or even Denver.) I haven't taken any yet, but it's on my radar.

Yes, I am scouting real-world learning opportunities, as well. I'm taking a private salsa class tomorrow. I had found a fantastic dance -- and pole dance! -- studio to try, but it's a long walk from our apartment and in a sort of warehouse area. Not really a place I want to be walking home from at night, at least not yet. Of course, there are a variety of yoga studios and gyms to check out, too. We'll see what I land on in the next couple of weeks.