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The day I submitted my letter of resignation after twenty-three years as a teacher and then a Head of Department was the happiest day of my life. As I sat alone at home the day after, to nurse a sprained ankle, I was overwhelmed with joy at the thought of finally being able to look after my own son's learning needs, instead of neglecting him and tending to the needs of other kids. I was finally going to be there for him after school. He did not have to wait for me at his godmother's home which he went on the school bus while I stayed behind to look after the children whose parents had arrived late to take them home.

In the quiet of the afternoon after limping home from the doctor's and while watching Ellen on television, I realized how many more days I would have, to have the luxury of being home to watch television while my son was in school. I realized then that I would finally have the time to write all the stories that I wanted to in the past few years and to do the writing course which I had always wanted to but was denied in my capacity as Head of the Mathematics Department.

"I don't think a writing course is relevant,in your capacity," my supervisor had told me a few months back when reviewing my training plan for the year. I remember being taken aback - she, a former Head of the English Department not understanding why a writing course is relevant for any Head of Department? It was beyond comprehension.

Today I laugh as I recall once again that session with her. I was glad, in a sense, that she was ignorant of the power of the pen, or perhaps she feared the power of the pen in my hand, a Mathematics teacher who delighted and always found success in teaching low ability kids to write. The fact that I was denied my heart's desire probably pushed me towards the dream of becoming the writer I had recently come to discover in me.

I went online and typed 'writing course' in the Google Search window. As I perused a course outline, the bright reddish brown logo of Helium.com caught me in the corner of my eye. Curious, I brought my cursor over it and clicked. In a daze, I signed up for an account. I was intrigued by the four words in the then red bar. I clicked on Rate. I read the two essays which popped up and figured out how to rate. A few days later, I discovered the Write icon and wrote my first article after I returned from a visit to my thyroid specialist's clinic.

In four short months, my writing muscle grew from hundred odd word scribbles to solid

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