The Blog That Came in from the Cold

Good morning. I'm blogging again, and happy to be back. For the last month or so, it's been too cold in my apartment to type much. I'm not talking 'freezing to death'; more like 'wear a turtleneck, a sweatshirt on top of that, a couple more layers on top of that, and wear a hat to bed'. This is conducive to answering the odd email, but not to writing. (Whenever I paused to ponder, my primary thought was, "Dang! I'm cold!") But it's finally gotten cold enough outside that the building thermostat seems to be working again (my apartment was not 65 degrees, whatever its thermostat said). It feels positively balmy this morning.

Now if I could just write (or finish) any story, I'd be happy.

Career Day

I'm starting to think seriously about becoming a teacher. I'm a reading tutor at the local elementary school at lunchtime. It hasn't escaped my attention that I enjoy this half hour more than my real job. Back in the dark ages, I remember how much I got absorbed in teaching boating skills and safety when I was working one of the county's day camp programs. There's a real fascination to the way kids' minds work, and a lot of satisfaction to helping those minds grow.

This still strikes me as odd, because I've never really thought of myself as a people person. I got teased and hit too much at school to believe that. But in adult life, I've never really had any problems dealing with either adults or children, and I've slowly come to understand that I'm not really an introvert by nature. Basically I'm a performer, outgoing, and very interested in other people. I just got harassed enough to beat that out of me -- for a while.

Also, since my parents are teachers, they went to great lengths to let us know that being a teacher was not exactly financially rewarding. Eating all those cheese sandwiches and wearing hand-me-downs as a kid sorta hinted at that, yes. ;)

The other problem is that I'll have to go back to college for at least a year to get certified. From what I've heard about education classes, this could be...interesting. *Makes a face* But I can nod politely and jump the hoops as well as anyone, and it's only a year. The real trick will be getting admitted. I seem to have the gift of _not_ getting into grad school, despite my good grades and test scores. But there are a lot more spots available in grad programs not being used by the universities as sources of indentured servants to keep overhead low. Instead, I just have to go play unpaid apprentice as a student teacher.

I don't know how I'll live, though. I don't have a lot of savings. I don't know if I'll be able to take all my classes at night school or on weekends (somehow I doubt it). Certainly I'll have to quit my job to do student teaching, which means I'll have to get some kind of night job that pays enough. God knows how I'll even get there, since I can't drive and the buses stop running here at midnight or earlier.

Still, I have the prospect of making at least ten thousand dollars more, starting out as a teacher, than I've ever made at my current job. Of course, I'm also not in debt currently, while I'm sure I'll have plenty of student loans to pay off when I find employment as a teacher. If I do.

OTOH, I think I'd be good at the job and enjoy it. I'm willing to work hard. I can't possibly be worse than the worst teachers I've had. Also, my eclectic assortment of knowledge will actually come in handy. Also, it's pretty obvious that linguistics and neuropsych have education applications.

I really should take a day off soon and go talk to the admissions people over at Wright State.