[BLOG] When I grow up I want to be an ice skater

GnomeQueenGnomeQueen The Lulz QueenMountain Dew Mouth Icrontian
edited November -1 in Community
I've been giving a lot of thought lately to what I'm going to do with my life. As many of you know, I've been pursuing a major in English with a minor in secondary education. I'm currently student teaching, and when I graduate in May, I will have a BA in English with a certification to teach English Language Arts on the high school and junior high level in the state of Illinois (that is, provided I pass all of my tests and student teach alright). For a long time I haven't been sold on the idea of teaching. It was always something that sounded good in theory, but it was never something that I knew for sure that I wanted to do. Now, I'm fairly sure that I don't want to be a teacher- or at least not an English teacher on the high school level. I'm just not feeling it on a gut level. It's just that most of my peers describe how they LOVE being in the classroom, and I've never felt that way. I'm still going to give it the good old college try and do the whole student teaching thing this semester and give it my all, and I'll probably end up teaching at some point professionally because that's the job I'll be qualified to do, but right now, I really don't think I want to be a teacher as my ultimate career.

I've been talking to Primesuspect, and I twittered about it a little, and he said that he thinks that you should love what you do, and that when you do, it doesn't seem like work. Now, I definitely think that this is the ideal, not the norm, and that there's a good chance that like most people, I will be very lucky to end up with a job that I even just like. But I guess I feel like teaching is something that you have to really like to do a good job of it, and a good job is what our students today need. I don't want to be just another mediocre teacher perpetrating the continual academic downfall of our students. And honestly too, I think that I'm lucky enough to be in the position where I can get closer to my ideal job. I have fairly good grades (I could have better ones naturally, but mine are alright), I think I'm smart, I'm going to graduate from school without any debt, and I think that when I put my mind to it, I'm a hard worker. I think that I am in a good enough place in my life where I can risk a some debt to do more schooling or training if I need to. I also don't have a problem right now with moving and changing my life- in fact, I really, really want a change, for a variety of reasons. And since I'm single and I have no kids or pressing familial obligations, I can do that easily too.

But that begs the question- what DO I want to do if I don't end up teaching? I guess I should just think about what I love/like to do, and see if I can form something out of that. I've been thinking lately about becoming a librarian or some sort of crazy museum curator, but those are very new ideas. Towards figuring these things out, I've decided just to sit down and record all of the things that I like and love, in an effort to direct my thoughts a little. This list will probably be continually changing as I think of more things.

I love:
Reading (I love reading literature and fiction, works of non fiction and philosophy aren't so much my boat)
Creative Writing (When I have a specific goal, I rarely write creatively just on my own)
Singing (but not enough to make it a career)
Acting (But not enough to make it a career)
Directing
Discussing Literature
Drawing
Playing Video Games
Creating worlds in my head
Old places- I think that I really should have been born in Europe, because I ADORE old architecture.
Cathedrals (The architecture thing)
Old things- artifacts
Libraries (I especially love old books. When I worked in the main library here last year and I wandered through the stacks, I used to stop and pull out the old looking books and just marvel at their age, and how many hands must have touched them before me. When we got to go into the rare books library and see books from the Renassiance, I thought it was the coolest thing ever)
Watching TV
Eating
Having conversations with all of the cool people I know online :D
Investigating how games influence education
Investigating games as literature
Celebrity Gossip
Making people laugh
Music
Shakespeare
Fantasy literature
Being around other people
Webcomics
Writing creatively about what is real and what isn't, and whether or not that matters

I'm not quite sure where this list takes me so far, but I'm going to think about it. I'd appreciate any input you all had.

Comments

  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    You need to work for a video game company. You should be a game writer.
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    Don't worry, I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.

    Or is it I just don't want to grow up?
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