Monday, May 11, 2009

Update

I graduated this weekend! I am now the official holder of a Bachelor of Arts in English. Yay! My plans for the near future have been changing about as quickly as my outfit over the last couple of weeks, so here is the current, affirmed plan: I am staying in Abilene to get my teacher's certification. McMurry University has a Post-Baccalaureate Fast Track certification program which requires me to take 5 summer courses, and to student teach in the fall, and then--I'm done! After that, I may move up to Chicago if I am able to find a job up there mid-school year, or move back home and substitute teach until August 2010, by which point I should be able to secure a teaching job in Chicago.

I'll be getting certified to teach Secondary English/Language Arts, which I am SUPER excited about! A lot of people have been asking me if this is a default plan. To be honest, it is. If I had been able to secure a job in Chicago right out of school, you can bet I would have taken it. However, after applying for 20 or so jobs, ranging from basic retail to entry-level youth counseling/mentoring, I did not hear back from anyone--and it was two weeks before graduation! So I started to re-evaluate. I firmly believe in doing work that one finds meaningful, so I started to think about what I needed to do in order to put myself in a position to be offered jobs that I truly wanted--felt called to, even--work in. Since I was in high school, teaching has been a possibility that I've thrown around, but never committed to. I can't explain it without making it sound trite, so I'm just going to simply say it: I believe the Lord has placed a love in my heart for the written word, and a desire to positively shape the lives of young people, and teaching seems like the most natural culmination of these gifts. So I decided to do it. And its great, because I can teach anywhere. It can take me down the street, or around the world. It puts me in a position to serve and love young people who may not get what they deserve from other people in their lives. So is this really a default plan? No way!! I think its what the Lord wanted me to do all along; I was just too thick to see it.

Still, this in no way means that I will stop writing, or stop pursuing creative writing. I'm going to keep writing for myself, or for those who are willing to read and offer suggestions for me. And hopefully, someday sooner, rather than later, I will be in the financial position to go back to school for my MFA in creative writing. But until then, I'm excited about continuing to nurture that budding talent on my own.

So, if you are in Abilene anytime during the summer and fall of 2009, we should hang out! Cause I'm still going to be here, and I'm actually really excited about it!