Colby got Susan Woodward '64 so into trying new things that she packed up and left two years into her stint on Mayflower Hill. It's not a typical story, but the 59-year-old mother of two still considers herself a Colby alumna, and she says she's still trying new things. "I had the chance to go to New Zealand," recalls the one-time art major. "I just couldn't turn it down."

It's just one of many slam-on-the-brakes-and-spin-the-wheel turns she has made in her life, and she says she wouldn't have it any other way. "I love learning," she said. "I think I would make a wonderful full-time student if it were a viable career option."

Instead, she's doing real estate and dabbling in learning. In fact, just a few years back, she closed shop and did a study abroad program in Italy. In her 50s and decades removed from Mayflower Hill, Woodward toured Italy with a gaggle of twentysomething college students. "It scared me a lot," she said.

But it's a fascination with new things that prompted her to choose Colby and to keep moving in the years since she left. Her latest success is digital. She decided to learn HTML--Hypertext Markup Language, the Internet programming code--and take her real estate business to the Web. That, of course, required a few classes, which she was happy to take.

But it appears to have paid off. Just recently she finalized a deal on a house in her home state of North Carolina. She was actually visiting friends in New York City at the time. The buyer was in Idaho and the seller was in Tokyo. Her site brought them all together to seal the deal.

Now that her real estate company is taking off, she says she's thinking about hitting the brakes again and leaning into another turn. "Change is so exciting," she said. "I want to try things. I mean, I'm not going to jump out of airplanes, but I'm always ready to make a change."

From traveling to advertising to sales to marketing to real estate to Web programming--with painting and studying thrown in there like seasoning--Woodward's resume reads like the job pamphlets they give out Career Services.

All that with no regrets. Sort of. "I really should have finished Colby when it cost all of $2,300 a year," she said with a chuckle.

She hasn't decided what her next move will be. Maybe west. Possible north. The housing market is good these days, and she should know. So maybe, she says, she'll dabble in real estate a few months out of the year. Anything's possible.

And retirement? "Oh boy, I should start thinking about my retirement," she said.

Not that she's ready to retire, although it would be something new to try. She's got a few more turns ahead, she said, before hitting the brakes for good. "I haven't minded getting older one bit," she said with a laugh. "Though I don't particularly like the sound of sixty."

--Matt Apuzzo '00