back again??
2007-11-02, 7:54 p.m.

It's time to starting writing again, I think.

I guess I can't make any promises of writing consistently, but I'll ... uh... promise to try. Yes.

I'm going to have to kind of just start in media res, I guess. There's to much to retrace since I last wrote in here, but I'll try to give the gist of things:

1) This semester I'm Fake Student Teaching (hereby referred to as FST). It means that I wake up at 6:15 and read Othello with 17 and 18 year olds until 11:15, then for the rest of the day I run around campus like a chicken with its head cut off until I finally retire to my townhouse and plan for the next day until I pass out, still clothed, on top of my laptop keyboard.

2) FST is truly FAKE student teaching because I'm about 65% certain that I won't be continuing with my education major after this semester. It's too much to go into right now, especially when I'm still not entirely sure, but when I make the decision, you guys will be the first to know.

(Well, not really. Probably my professors will be the first to know. Then CMSB, most likely. But THEN, you guys. Definitely.)

3) On the 16th, CMSB and I will have been dating for half a year. Yikes. But also: Yay! A functional, lasting relationship! Knock on wood!

***

I've been behind for a couple weeks, and I'm just starting to gain my bearings this week. FST is going fantastically, compared to how it was before. "How was that, meloog?" you might ask. Well, reader. I shall elucidate.

On my first day, my cooperating teacher quite literally greeted me with a grimace of annoyance--vague, but detectable annoyance. And, up until this week, I believe that is how she perceived me: as an irksome little hobbit that followed her around for the morning and offered no services. She deposited me in other classrooms during her prep and Reading Lab periods. She acted like I wasn't there when we would sit in the computer lab together. In class, she acted like I was invisible and didn't even introduce me to the students until my second day of teaching.

She asked me to teach a lesson once, then, when I showed her my instruction plan, she told me that it wasn't what she asked me to do and made me create a new one in twenty minutes. She also "allowed" me to create and grade a reading quiz, which, oh ho, what a barrel of laughs that was.

I started skipping days around Fall Break. I've really only missed 4 days, but that's really kind of unacceptable, and I think I knew that in the back of my head.

And besides the tenuous relationship with my co-op, I had all these doubts about teaching silently lurking the back of my mind. I guess I was starting to feel like jumping ship--why do all this work to train for a career I'm not sure I want anymore?

((side note: I'm sorry to take you on this weird, boring, hindsightful journey, but I can't stop myself and now I HAVE to finish))

Anyway, the shit hit the fan on Tuesday. I got an email from my co-op and one from my professor, as well. That's when a switch really flipped. I had an a-ha moment, as Oprah called it. It consisted of two realizations:

One, that I really had been treating my Fake Student Teaching like a fake job--and that I needed to grow up and act like a professional and finish what I said I'd do, and that I couldn't quit by simply shutting down and refusing to do it.

And Two--this is the big one--that obviously, if the mere idea of teaching had created such a sense of despair and... um... trapped-ness.. in me that I didn't even want to face the school or any of my classes, that it's probably not for me. I'm a firm believer that you should do what you love--or, as CMSB would say, do what makes your heart bounce. And teaching, of late, has not been making my heart bounce. More like... palpitate.

Okay, so apparently I am going to go into detail as to why I've decided to drop my education major. But even that I wrote all of that, it's not that simple, and it has nothing to do with the requirements of the profession itself. Again, it's very complicated--I'm sure I'll get into it more in later entries.

***

Anyway, the point of all of that was that the relationship with my co-op and my involvement at school has suddenly changed for the better. Man. If I had been keeping up with this diary, all I would have had to say was that sentence. Yeesh.

***

Well, that completely bewildered me. I have no idea what else is going on in my life that I wanted to talk about.

Hmm. What am I doing now? I'm alone in the townhouse. Nash is off cavorting with Kyle--it's their 2 1/2 year anniversary, an amount of time I both can and cannot fathom at this point in my relationship with CMSB. Danielle's boyfriend, Alex, is here for the weekend; they're having dinner and seeing a movie. CMSB is hanging out with a buddy, talking geeky computer talk and playing guitar.

And I? I am finally taking a break from work, a break which will probably put me severely off-track. But I need it. I really do.

I'm also weighing my options for my remaining three semesters here if I decide not to teach. I register for classes next Friday, and I need a game plan. In my Shakespeare class on Tuesday I had an epiphany: all I have ever wanted to do in my life is write. So let me make a career out of it! I'll write the description on the back of the Cheetos bag! I'll review bedsheets for JCPenney's! I'll create the little blurbs in catalogs! Anything! I just want to write, in a professional or non-professional setting! Does that HAVE to mean that I'm going to die alone and destitute?

(Yes. Probably yes.)

And if I decide I don't want to teach anymore, that opens up a whole world of experiences I never considered: studying abroad, internships, minors, double majors, honors theses, graduate school--the sky's the limit! I think that's why it's so appealing to just decide once and for all that I don't want to teach anymore, but something tells me to hold off a little. I have the aptitude to be a teacher--my planning skills are good, I'm good with the students--but just because you're good at something doesn't mean you have to make it your career, does it?

Oh, screw it, let's just pretend I'm definitely dropping my Ed major. YES! Brand new start! I'm so excited!! LET'S LIST ALL THE THINGS I CAN DO NOW BECAUSE I'M FREE!

Things I've always wanted to do that I might be able to do now!:

• learn sign language
• learn to play the harp
• learn French!
• Go back to Spain
• Go to England!
• And Australia!
• And Ireland!
• And Italy!
• And Japan!
• And Morocco!
• And--

Okay, maybe I'm thinking a little too big here. And maybe it's not healthy for me to jump the gun like this. I know for sure: I'm going to teach my unit, wait out the semester, and see what clicks and what doesn't click for me when it's all over. If--and there's a very real possibility this could happen--I decide teaching is still what I want to do, then that's what I'm going to do. But I'm no longer afraid of the idea that at the end of all of this, I might decide that teaching's not for me.

***

Ummmm.

This entry is too long and REALLY boring.

I promise that when I don't have 8 months to catch up on, they won't be so serious and life-crisis-y. Promise. Well. I'll promise to try.

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