Week 9 – Adventure Fail

Well, this week I did have a pretty exciting evening out with some friends.  We went to this AWESOME restaurant called Chino Latino for a friend’s birthday.  About 20 people or so there, and the main course was a roasted pig.  As in, they roasted the ENTIRE pig.  I tried some pig cheek, skin, lots of weird parts.  It was very delicious.

But that isn’t what I consider my adventure for the week to be.  Nope, my adventure this week was all about failing.

For the past nearly three years, I have been a teacher without a license.  I have taught English as a second language in Japan for a year, and for close to two years I have been a preschool teacher for 3 and 4 year olds.  But my desire has been to go back to school (or alternate license program) and get my teaching license in elementary education.  This year, I applied to a variety of graduate programs, Teach for America, and St. Paul Teaching Fellows, all with the desire being to further my career in one of my dream jobs.  And it just so happened that this week, I would hear back from every program I applied to.

I didn’t get accepted into a single one.

School always came easy to me.  Theater was something I excelled at and that drove me.  I love playing board games, video games, etc.  And I am damn good at those things too.  So failure is a hard thing for me to swallow.  Not really at sports (since I suck at them in general, I accept losing in that regard).  Maybe it is because I have two older brothers who always won when I was younger.  Maybe it is my stubborn nature.  But success has usually a part of my life.  I am not trying to talk myself up or anything.  There are many areas of life where I suck (again, look at sports).  But in the aspects of life where I tried to achieve success, I usually did.  So to have a multitude of programs all tell me that I am not good enough at the moment to move forward with this dream of mine, that fucking kills.

But after talking about these events with my fiance, and thinking about it, I can’t change their minds.  At least, not at this moment.  All I can do is keep moving forward.  One step at a time.  Maybe take a few more classes in college to bulk up my educational experience.  Volunteer at an elementary school, or try to get into substitute teaching.  Maybe next year, apply to twice as many programs.  All I know is that I can’t give up on my dream.  I need to keep reaching.  One day, I WILL be an elementary school teacher.  And the moment I walk into my classroom for the first time, that feeling of euphoria for me will make all of this hardship worth it.

Now, just cause I have a positive outlook doesn’t mean I am ok with their decisions, haha.  I am pretty pissed off at the world right now.  But that is what friends (and beer) are for.  And Spider-man…and my fiance Becky.  And a few more things…like snow boarding, heavy metal music, the Nintendo Wii…man, there are lots of things at my fingertips that can cheer me up.  I think I will go do some of those things.

Advertisement