That's Right

...it's The End.

Monday, January 23, 2006

so who's joining my commune??

Today I found out that one of my friends has an internship with a wedding planner. I could totally do that! I have the experience...why have I not taken the initiative to get a wedding planning internship!? Then I found out that another friend of mine basically has a job becoming a spy...or something like that. What? How are my friends doing such interesting things with their lives?!

I don't know where to begin; I have such big goals. I want to own my own drive-in movie theater. I want to be a tour guide on Globetrekker. I want to plan weddings, live in a commune, and maybe go on staff with Habitat or something. I want to live in New Orleans and Africa and also Maryland, cause that's where the drive-in will be.

Why have I committed my life to teaching??? It's not that I don't want to teach; I do have a passion for development and kids. But...I also like lots of things! I'm getting terrified of the commitment. I've never been able to handle the idea of doing one thing indefinitely. When I was 8, I got a job walking my neighbor's dog, Buster, with my friend Mandy. Every day (or was it every week?), we'd go up to their house, and we'd each hold the leash for 15 minutes, as we strolled along the Columbia footpaths and I kept time on my Beauty and the Beast watch. We each got 75 cents at the end of each walk. It was fine for awhile. Then one day, my neighbor asked us, "How long are you planning on doing this?" I didn't know. We had never set an ending date. Were we supposed to continue like that forever? Was I stuck in a lifetime of dog-walking!? Quick Anna, bail out now while you still have the chance! The next day, I didn't show up. I let Mandy go by herself. My days as a dog-walker were officially over. To this day, I still feel a little guilty about it.

One day, I'll be sitting in my classroom, and I'll snap at a kid, and suddenly I'll envision myself in my 50's, hunched over a desk, yelling at kids to be quiet and wearing mom jeans, although I have no children or family of my own. I'll panic. The next year, I won't come back to school. Okay, so I'm being melodramatic...but seriously, what if I just decided that I'm done teaching after a few years? I'm afraid that will make me one of those girls who only teaches until she can get married and have kids - one of those girls who just chose teaching cause she really had no clue what she was good at and wasn't creative enough to come up with anything else. I'm NOT one of those girls!!! I do want to teach. I just...don't want to sign my life away to one thing!


I was discussing this with Elizabeth, who said she has an aunt (I think) who is a professional morpher. She does something, then every couple of years...morph....she's the CEO of a company...morph...she's a dolphin trainer...morph...

That sounds pretty good to me.

I've decided what I want to be when I grow up: EVERYTHING!

5 Comments:

At 1:48 AM, Blogger Bertronium said...

First of all, you probably won't be wearing MJ's unless Jayme succeeds in making them trendy. But really of all the people I know in this world, you'd probably be the least likely person to be stuck in a job rut. People don't tell you that you should be a __(insert major)__ for nothing. You're good at anything you put a little bit of yourself into. And then there's the combining thingy. You can run a drive-in where there are Habitat projects on site, or plan safari weddings while teaching at a local charter school in Africa.
Lastly, I want to be a spy.

 
At 9:02 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Love,
You can do whatever you want... someone once said "but you're a teacher, what does that have to do with being a spy?" and i laughed. Cause really, what does a major mean? Its not a binding contract that you can never get out of, its just a really nice option that you know you have some intrest in, it sets up a path to get you on your feet. Then you can decide if thats what you want to do... if not, maybe you can be a spy with me ;-)

 
At 12:00 PM, Blogger Taylor said...

Lol Anna I just wrote like an 8 paragraph letter to you on this thing, then decided to just e-mail you instead!!!

 
At 9:06 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Az,
I often run into this dilemma myself. Here's the depressing truth from a sister who's jaded by the real world, but still wants to be adventurous: no matter how many times you switch your job to something more "exciting," it still becomes your daily life and I'm sure you'll still whine about it. I mean, don't you think there will be days/weeks/months on end when you hate managing the drive-in movie theater? At some point we all have to realize if our dreams to do more then "just" something (being a mother I guess was your example) is really just gonna be jumping around from adventure to adventure just to avoid getting bored. Basically, you have to make the most of each day wherever you are, cuz people get burned out and bitter doing all kinds of fun and exciting stuff. It takes more character to be a joyful and exciting mom I think. The other stuff just sounds cooler. (sorry if that whole response was nerdy)

 
At 2:03 AM, Blogger Änna said...

Brit, you misread my post. I wasn't talking about being a mom at all.

I was just saying that I chose teaching, and now it feels like it's gonna define my whole life, when there are still a ton of things I want to do...teaching is just the easiest to get into, and sometimes I panic like that's the reason I chose it. That wouldn't be a good reason to choose something. I just want it to be okay if I decide I want to do something else.

I'm not saying I want to do different things just to keep my life exciting. I know all those things could get boring and hard. I still want to do them. They sound like they'd be worth it. And I think there is a problem if you hate your job for months on end. That's way too long to hate something.

And you are not "jaded by the real world." You're young and doing lots of good, worthwhile stuff, and you are still invited to join the commune.

 

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