beginnings

July 27, 2006

Well, here goes…I haven’t journaled in a few years! Why? Well, I just haven’t wanted anyone to run across any old “spiral notebook” and read it without me knowing it. Yes…this has happened to me and the consequences of leaving a personal journal just lying around are great. So this is how I will record my thoughts. Plus, after reading a friend of mine’s blog, I thought, well, I can do that! I’m a writer and I have about 18 years of journaling to prove it! Ha, Ha…and I’m damn good at it too! At least that’s what I’ve been told by a few of my college professors. One of my college professors at Concordia University by the name of Trish Lichau, liked to read what I was learning from week to week and thought if I wasn’t already published, I should be! What a shock that was to read. At the time I was studying to be a teacher and thought that, that was what I was supposed to do, but the farther along I got into the program the harder it was to picture myself locked up in a classroom with 25 to 30 kids. In fact, what changed my mind fast was when I was taking a Principles of Education class this last year at Concordia and was required to tutor 2 to 3 hours a week. So I called a couple of schools to see if they needed anyone to tutor any of their kids? I heard back from one school. And this is where it ended for me. I was put in charge of about 14 “troubled” kids for an after school reading program. Ugh….It was an hour long class that felt like an eternity! Some of the kids, if not most of them didn’t want to be there. And that was pretty obvious by the way they were behaving! I lasted only one week. I called the Reading Specialist and told her that I wouldn’t be coming back and that there were some kids that were really horrible to me and to some of the other kids in the class. And then I went on to tell her that this experience pretty much sealed my fate; meaning, that I would not become a teacher! She was shocked and tried to encourage me not to let this one experience keep me from becoming a teacher. Then she went on to tell me how her first year of teaching was really hell and that she thought she would never reach again. I had pretty much made my mind up thought and went to class that week and dropped out of Concordia’s teaching program.

I was very sad….depressed and I felt that I had somewhat lost my way after making that decision. How could I have been so wrong about the decision to become a teacher? But I felt like I wanted to only work with a few kids, not a classroom and I didn’t want to have a classroom in the first place! I just wanted to only work with a few at a time! I thought that I had to get a degree just to do that.

So I took my credits and transferred over to Portland State University! Wow, what a positive change that was for me! I absolutely love it! Yep, it’s a “liberal” college!

Speaking of liberal, I feel like having a beer….I’ve been craving one all night long…and there are 4 of my favorite one’s sitting in the fridge at the moment…and I think I hear one of them calling my name…..

Gulp…gulp….gulp…girggle….ahhh, that tasted really good! Glad I listened to my urge to splurge and have myself a cold one!