It's been a long time, blog land. I want so badly to have more time to post, so I've asked the boys to figure out how to expand the length of one day to 30 hours. We'll see how that goes.
I had trouble deciding what I wanted to do with myself after high school. When I started I had planned to get a business degree because it seemed the sensible thing to do. I switched at one point to History, and considered English literature and even Music at various times. In other words, I was just drifting. And since I was drifting it was hard to stay committed. My grades were pretty good the first two years. But my junior year I started missing days here and there, for no particular reason other than I couldn't find a parking place, or it was raining. Then I just quit going. Somehow I managed to only flunk one class, only because of the professor's attendance policy.
My parents were really upset, since they had been footing the bill for school. They made me find a job. I had worked part-time during my freshman and sophomore years, but had been laid off during the summer. I got a full time job as a receptionist/accounts receivable clerk. Then I moved up to be a cost accountant. I had heard horror stories during those college years about accounting and how difficult it was, but in the workplace it came easily to me. When I decided to go back and finish my degree I picked Art History for half a semester. Then I realized I would never ever ever ever ever ever find a useful job with that degree, so I switched to accounting. I enjoyed it, made excellent grades and was even able to bring my dismal grade point average up. I graduated and have been working in the accounting field ever since.
Around 4 years ago I realized I had a new dream job. I wanted to teach middle school science. Science had always been a so-so subject for me. Girls were not supposed to be good at or interested in science back then. So since I was a rule-follewer, I really didn't like science much. Until I took Geology when I went back to college and LOVED it. I couldn't get enough. All of that stuff I dreaded hearing about each day in Earth Science (7th grade) came flooding back, but in a new and exciting way. How could I have not found it interesting back then?!?!?!?!?
When I investigated what it would take for me to become a middle school science teacher, my heart fell. I would have had to take many science hours to make up for my poor science showing in college, along with getting my Teaching Certificate. I looked into those fast track "Get Your Teaching Certification quick" businesses, but soon found out the market around here was flooded with people like me, mostly folks who had been laid off, hadn't found anything else for a good while, and felt teaching might be a viable option to start bringing some income in. So I gave up on the dream and resigned myself to part-time accounting work. It has worked out. I recently was trained to do weekly Payroll and got a nice raise.
The crazy thing that's happened is that I'm beginning to live out my dream anyway - through cub scouts. When I volunteered to help I had no idea I would instantly be a Den Mother, and this year have by default become the 2nd in command when the Scoutmaster can't make it. At first it was difficult for me to get in front of the boys and hold their attention for an entire hour (how sad). But now I really get into planning a whole month's adventures, and all of our Den (the Bears - 3rd grade) are coming week after week. Maybe they are getting something out of it! The last adventure was on Nature/Food Chain/Conservation, all subjects near and dear to my heart. And guess what - it's SCIENCE!!! Kind of a mixture of Physics, Biology and Geology. MY DREAM COME TRUE!!
Wait patiently, pray a lot, and watch what happens.
