business time...

no...not the flight of the conchords song...this is the crunch time of the semester for me. one of my professors made an excellent point that right now, we are nearing the end of the semester. he proceeded to point out that halloween is actually the end of the semester for the higher ed program because after halloween, it's pretty much just presentations and finishing things that were already assigned (i wish all of my profs would've been notified of this). i've come to the realization that take home midterms....not a great idea. i have found that over the past few years it has been very frustrating to me when i have profs who have not been taught how to teach a class. with a teaching background i pick out everything they do incorrectly when they teach. like assigning busy work, or lecturing for 2.5 hours straight, or not giving clear instructions as to what you're supposed to do on a test or assignment...luckily in the higher ed department i won't have too many of profs like this because most have some sort of education background. unfortunately, i have a finance manager as one of my profs right now....absolutely breaks every teaching theory ever written and it drives me nuts.

but as far as just about everything else goes life is going smoothly here. i do miss my fall weather in PA though. yesterday was the 1st day that it wasn't in the 90s here in about 2 weeks. it's been a productive week and a half. i've worked a few nights, i've gotten a lot done in the office, kat came up for the weekend, i got some resources for my research on pepperdine, i've gotten other homework done...so overall a good couple of weeks plus the pens, steelers, and nittany lions haven't lost in a while (although some games have been scary). i'm definitely ready for thanksgiving break to get here to see my best friend get married and enjoy some cooler weather not to mention eat some amazing food!!

Changes

i find it very interesting that as one goes through life his or her goals change pretty drastically. from the time i could walk i had a bat, ball, & a glove and my only dream was to be a professional baseball player so that i could have my own trading card...that dream lasted until i was in little league and realized that i was not good enough to rely solely on my athletic abilities to develop a career in baseball. so i had to come up with a backup plan. when i got to Jr. High, i saw that our trainer got to come in and be around sports all the time, so until i was about 16 or 17 i wanted to be an athletic trainer, then i found out the crappy hours and crappy pay (not taking into account that my trainer had an affair with the volleyball coach while he was married w/ 2 children and another one on the way...that was probably a factor in me changing my mind as well). so it was time for another back up plan...or plan c, which consisted of me becoming a history teacher. i had 2 really good history teachers in high school, so i took every social science class that my high school offered and felt fairly well prepared to take on history education in college at Freed. this goal lasted until about July or August between my Jr. and Sr. year of college (yes i know...not exactly a convenient time to realize that you don't want to do something). i realized after spending some time in different classrooms and studying about all of the policies, crappy pay, realizing that teaching isn't just a 8-3 job, that i didn't want to spend the rest of my life with immature, unmotivated, and hormone filled creatures. so my mentor at freed told me about a degree in higher education. so plan d is now the path that i'm on. plan d though involved getting into grad school...which for some may not be difficult, but for me, it was very difficult for many reasons.
1) i had to take the GRE....and get a decent score on it.
2) i had to spend just about $700-$800 on application fees, transcript fees, and other grad school stuff
3) for higher edu, you have to go to interview days to try and get an assistantship for your program
4) student teaching doesn't give you "days off" to let you go to the interviews

it was definitely a nerve racking experience, luckily a higher power exists, and somehow and for some reason, God gave me an opportunity to go to FSU with an assistantship (even if i didn't get an offer until the end of april) and pursue a degree in higher education.

what inspired me to write about this was a class on tuesday in which the VP of Student Affairs here at FSU came and spoke to our class about her path to where she is now. it's funny how i don't think anyone grows up thinking "i want to be a VP of student affairs when i grow up" yet people who have all sorts of different goals growing up earn these positions and most are very successful at it.

it's funny how things change...