Going "back" to school.

I loosely use the phrase "I'm going back to school". Mainly because my last school experience was high school and I'm not going "back" there. I've never been to college but I still refer to it as if its something I've done before.
Anyway, here is the story of how I got here today:
After 8 long agonizing years in retail, I lost my job for not meeting the sales quota 3 times over a 12 month period. Did they take into account 7 years before that? No! Did they consider the economy? No! This debate is a whole other story worthy of its own blog but I won't go into that. The goal now is to move on. Unfortunately the work experience I gained over 8 years was enough to qualify me into any other minimum wage retail job. (the retail work I did was unique and paid much more than minimum wage.) So a career change was imminent. Not that it was much of a career anyway. I took many things into consideration while I was planning what to do for the rest of my life. If going back to school and racking up student loans was in the plan, I knew I had to pick a career that would pay off (and not take 10 plus years to get there). I also know that I should do something that I really enjoy and just as important, something that would always be "in demand". I thought back to when I was younger and when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always said: a nurse. And so it begins!!