When I grow up.

When I was a little girl, I always wanted to be something new every week. At the beginning of college when "major picking" time came around, I chose English. I didn't pick this major with a goal in mind, but just let myself fall into this area because that is where I excelled. However, I changed my major about 8 times over the next 3 years (anthropology, philosophy - you name it, I declared that major) and eventually ended up...back in English. After 4.5 years of college, getting married and moving to New Orleans, I still had no clue what I was going to do with that English degree. The only idea that I consistently entertained was being an English professor. I even took the GRE and scoped out grad schools, but for some reason I always felt like some internal "brakes" were applied every time I tried to go forward with this plan. However, a few months in New Orleans and a series of life events led me to a potential path in nursing, which I am still very happy/freaked out about. I do every once in awhile get a longing for that English PhD, especially when I talk to my friends in grad school.

I just finished my first semester of nursing pre reqs, and I think my performance this semester indicates that I'm going in the right direction. I'm trying to find a full time job while finishing up class and (possibly) starting nursing school. So while I'm at home trying to (for the thousandth time) figure out what to do with my life, I get an email from my husband about an urgent need for an English professor for a 3 week enrichment program for high schoolers in a college setting. While I only have a PhD in my wildest dreams, I find out that they are really in a jam and an English degree will have to do.

In an interesting twist of fate, I got a job intended for an English professor.

We'll see how I feel after the program, but I'm still want to go forward with my nursing school plan after all of this is over. I'm also giving myself back up plans for nursing school, one of them being to not freak out if it doesn't work out and to be incredibly open to all sorts of other possibilities. Another being to write a bunch of professions on scraps of paper, throw them in a hat and pick one. Who knows? Maybe "English professor" will make the cut. If not, it'll be nice to play pretend for the next few weeks :)