I Wonder Where I'd Be...

Sometimes I look back on things and wonder how my life would be different if I made different decisions. I think everyone wonders what might have been if another path was chosen. Not saying that this means I, or anyone else who wonders is regretting the choices made, but it is just something to think about. What made me think of this today? Well, I went to see Dolphin Tale (good movie, no need to see it in 3-D though...) and I thought about how much I would love to work with animals. This is different, maybe actually a step beyond my want to be a veterinarian. I have always loved animals, dolphins in particular. They fascinate me. Since I was little I always wanted to swim with them. That dream became a reality my senior year of college on spring break in Mexico. It was pretty cool. I don't want to say I was disappointed, but...I had always kind of hoped to actually swim with them, like swim around in the same pool. We got to pet them, have them kiss us and go to the middle of the pool, put our feet out and have them come up from behind and push the bottoms of our feet until we were practically air born! Now that part was awesome. However, I wanted to swim with them, spend time with them. I'm sure there's somewhere you can pay to do that, but this place was get in, meet and greet, get out.

I digress...the point I am getting at is that there have always been things I wanted to do, and lots of them. And most of them are a career. Which you can really only choose one of. I wanted to be a marine biologist. I wanted to be a veterinarian. I wanted to write screenplays. I wanted to be a teacher. The writing, I can do on the side thankfully, even if it would be nice to have as a full career. But the others? You can't really be a vet or a marine biologist "on the side." In high school, I applied to a school near the water in North Carolina because of their marine biology department and internship opportunities. I was wait listed...in the mean time, I accepted my early decision acceptance into Longwood. I liked the school, I liked the distance from home, the quaint town, the promise of an education where the professors actually know who you are instead of lectures of 500. As I have mentioned before, I went into Longwood as a Pre-Veterinary Med major. That changed pretty quickly (before classes even began) to Communication Studies. I thought I would get what I needed there to work behind the scenes in TV and/or film. While I learned a lot about the how and why people communicate, I got little in the department of actual broadcasting, film making, etc. I did, however, take every single creative writing class Longwood had to offer and was even given my own class, one-on-one with a professor my senior year for Advanced Screen Writing. That was pretty cool. One of my creative writing professors passed along one of the scenes I wrote to another professor who taught the advanced class. I had a scheduling conflict and wasn't able to enroll in her class. She loved my writing so much that she offered to meet with me twice a week for my own advanced class. It was an amazing opportunity and I learned a lot that semester.

Anyhow...off topic again? Weird. So, I just sometimes wonder if somewhere along the way, if my decisions were different or things worked out differently, where would I be today? If I had gotten into that school and gone for marine biology, what would I be doing now? That opens up a whole world I know nothing about, so who knows where I would be?! What if I had kept my pre-vet med major at Longwood and never known the wonderfulness of the Longwood Comm. Studies Department? What if I had stayed at Ascent Media, working "behind the scenes" in TV? What if I hadn't applied to grad school or spent that summer in Italy? Again, these aren't regrets, just questions. I know that parts of my life are solid, as solid and wonderful as they could be. I have an amazing husband (who, if I had not moved to CT would never have met) an amazing best friend (who Longwood brought me) an awesome group of friends who mean the world to me, a beyond amazing family. I just wonder about my career sometimes. I love teaching, but would I have been better at something else? Just feeling a bit reflective this evening.

Butterflies

I still get 'em. The night before the first day of school has always been a night for butterflies for me. I love everything that has to do with going back to school. The back-to-school mall shopping, new shoes, new backpack, new school supplies! I love it all and always have! I could spend hours at Staples, the back-to-school section at Walmart, Target, you name it- I'm there. There's just something about new notebooks, new pens, a box of newly sharpened pencils or crisp new crayons. And the brand new, blank calendar just waiting to be filled with important dates for the school year! Man I just get so excited even thinking about it!

This mild obsession with all things school supply could be a reason I went into the teaching profession. Now, my days leading up to the start of school are spent browsing at the Educational Warehouse, the dollar bins at Target and the same wonderful aisles of Staples and Walmart. And now I get to buy teacher things too, like a lesson plan book and books full of bulletin board ideas! I don't need a new backpack, but I browse through them anyway:) I get to decorate my classroom with bright colors and inviting posters. And I get to use my teacher handwriting, which I love doing. Perfecting each curve and line to form the perfect letter. Nerd, party of one.

I just thought that I would blog about this very exciting day. The first day of school is tomorrow for us, today was open house and my butterflies woke me up at 5:00 this morning. Those were more nervous butterflies because parents come to open house too. I'm not nervous about speaking in front of people (thanks COMM 101) but these people are entrusting me with the care and education of their children, their most prized possessions. So the "what if they don't like me?" question teeters in the back of my mind. The kids I am not afraid of. I love kids, I love teaching them and watching them soak everything up. The butterflies that will wake me up tomorrow will be pure excitement:) So whether your first day was yesterday, today, tomorrow, whenever, good luck to all my teacher friends! Have a wonderful year!!