Teenage Angst I

A few weeks ago, I went back home to Little Rock for a friend's wedding.  I arrived a few days early so I could get some quality time with my parents and catch up with a few friends before the craziness started.  I am also writing a book, as you probably are aware, and made a huge mess trying to get to letters and emails that I had sent/people had sent me.  In the process, I came across this bit of angst that I had written my junior year of high school.  I thought it was hilarious and overly-dramatic.  If I have learned anything from subbing at a high school last week, it's that EVERYTHING is overly-dramatic and only adults find it hilarious.  

I will also say this:  I had clearly read too many essays in Seventeen and YM.  

However, I am trying to get a post ready for your reading pleasure (or bathroom-time reading).  In the meantime, I leave you with this bit of fluff from a sixteen-year-old Ms. Pixie.  

Cheers.

I feel like love is some mass Monopoly game, only I'm stuck in jail while everyone else goes around 5...30...105 times and gets to collect their $200, but I can't because I'm stuck on this stupid square and can't roll 1 dumb six.  It's almost as if the dice are loaded [against me].

The first time I felt like this was when we visited my cousin and his gorgeous friend Robert.  He was the same age as my sister Margaret - a year older than I was.  He was well-educated, tall, had nice hair and teeth, and a cynical sense of humor that seemed to frost his virtues perfectly.  The only problem was that he worshipped Margaret as if she were Hera herself.  And she was beautiful with her auburn hair that was thicker and and longer than mine; her eyes were just as big as mine, but green.  She had a more olive skin tone and an interesting nose that made her look as though she were some exotic princess accidentally left behind.  But I'm digressing.

One night I went with my cousin, his girlfriend, Robert, and Margaret to Taco Bell.  I made the mistake of riding back with my sister and her ever-devoted-love-slave.  Of course I ended up in the back seat while in the front they discussed poetry about the moon and how magical it was and had she ever read T.S. Eliot's work?  Why of course she had!  It was her favorite!  Really?  His too!  And so it went on and on and on.

Finally, there was a break and Robert threw, "So, Laurel, what colleges are you applying to?" casually over his shoulder, much as one would last September's features section of the paper.  I told him which colleges and universities, and really wanted to add something along the lines of "Screw U," but I didn't.

Instead, I rode the rest of the way home wishing I could be on any star I wanted, any planet, any place but here.

We got home and I mumbled, "Thanks," and got out, while Margaret stood on Love's Threshold, passed "Go," and collected her $200.

When I Grow Up I Want To Be a Teacher

The year after I graduated college, I taught German to junior high students.  I had my Exploratory kids (7th graders who took it for nine weeks), my German I (mostly 8th graders) and then German II (mostly 9th graders).  I taught at one school in the morning and then drove to another school for the afternoon.  The teacher whose place I took didn't seem to teach the kids anything other than how to read train tables.  This is a very helpful skill, but if you don't speak the language and can't ask to buy tickets, it's not quite as helpful as it could be.

Eleven years and six jobs later, I have decided to come back to teaching.  As my friend Paul put it, "You're always saying that you need to get back in the classroom.  DO it already and stop bitching about it."  Paul is wise and right.  No matter what job I've had, I've felt the pull to be a teacher.  When I worked for my member of Congress, part of my job was distributing constituent mail.  However, I would take a red pen and correct grammatical errors before handing them out.  Years from now when people want to look at their letters to their Congressman, they will see my red corrections on them.  This isn't something I'm particularly proud of, but at the same time it's about as big a sign as I can get that I need to go back to teaching.

Moose Man was active duty military until last year.  This meant that no matter what I chose to do professionally, I would end up having to pull up stakes and start all over again.  It wasn't the way I wanted to have a career like teaching.  If I got certified, I would be given the crappiest classrooms and be the basic low person on the totem pole.  Plus, I figured anyone who got certified in Hawaii wouldn't be accepted anywhere else.  I had heard horror stories about the public schools and how the kids refused to accept authority of any "haole" (mainlander) teacher, which I took with a grain of salt.  The one thing that made me not want to get certified, though, was that some of the local universities lost their accreditation while I lived there.  I was very thankful I hadn't started the process.  Moose Man is now a full-time reservist and we are settled in a cool house and the area is now a permanent home.  So now I feel that I can start my teaching career.

When I taught in Little Rock, I had been offered the position of German teacher permanently.  They were going to hire me and give me all my wonderful benefits and salary and whatnot in exchange for my starting to get my emergency certification.  Had I taken them up on this, I would be a certified teacher.  (With my luck, though, Arkansas would be one of the states Illinois does not accept for certifications.)  Instead, I chose to chase dreams of working with international issues and ran off to DC to get out of Little Rock.  I don't regret this choice at all.  It's what brought me to my husband and I've had wonderful life experiences as a result of it.  But like with most of my choices, it's not without its repercussions.

So I have made this decision to go back to school and found out that the O'Fallon schools are really good.  Therefore everyone wants to work in the district.  

Understandable.  

I will not be given a class of my own until I have a certification.  

Okay.  

To get your certification, you basically have to get your master's.  

Whaaaaat??  

That's right.  Ms. Pixie is going back to school.  I always thought I'd get my master's...someday.  But I never wanted it to be in education.  I thought it would be in something like European history or international studies.  However, by doing this, I will get my master's and (hopefully) make more money once I have it completed.  Added to this is the prestige of having a master's.  Let's face it - it doesn't matter what your master's is in as long as you have one.  You could have a master's in cheese-making or animal husbandry or coffee-brewing and as long as it's from an accredited school and can be tied to your career field, no one gives a rat's patootie.  

There was a bit of freaking out and wondering, "How the hell am I going to get this done?!" and, "Dear God, why am I thinking of doing this?!"  I will have to take a class called "Philosophy of Education."  Does this mean I will learn in the way of Socrates?  I don't like philosophy, I prefer to deal with absolutes.  Theory doesn't really work when you have 28 kids who are squirmy because it's the last class of the day and they won't pay attention to the lesson on Accusative Case Verbs and can't even tell you what a predicate nominative or gerund is. 

Naturally when I find all this out, my husband is out of town.  Luckily Stacey1 was around and I could talk to her.  She went back to school a few years ago and told me that if she can pass statistics, anyone can.  She also gave me the lowdown and what to expect.  I felt much better.

A plus to getting my master's in Education?  I don't have to take the GRE.  (PRAISE JEEBUS!)  It seems I will be taking four standardized testes, though, along the way to get my certification.

For a state that seems to be hurting for teachers, they sure don't make it easy.

So I'm starting to feel better about this.  I will start up in the fall as soon as I apply and talk to someone at the local university.  I am getting focused and realizing that if I want to at least have a draft of My Great American Novel, I need to kick it in gear and get it done before the summer ends.  I am planning - huzzah!