Well, now that’s over.

The cliched authors of the past declared spring a time of rebirth, but lately I’ve been racking up closure left and right.  First, I finished my 3/4 of a year as an English teacher, a experience best described as fulfilling and frustrating.  To make a long story short, I taught the first half of the year for tuition money ($8,000 -$10,000-ish, I’m not really sure and I’m not going to look it up) as a long-term sub and then taught January – April for my student teaching (which meant that I technically paid for that experience).  I’ve come full circle on my thoughts concerning that experience; at first, I was over-the-moon excited to have my own classroom and students.  Then, I became perpetually drained – in addition to teaching, I also took three classes three nights a week, so I logged a lot of late nights not just because I couldn’t sleep but because I needed to turn in assignments or come up with something for my students to do the next day.  I was so tired that it continues even after the end of the semester and through December vacation.  I’m not sure I ever really shook it until a couple weeks ago to be honest with you.

After I got tired, I got angry.  I’m not going into this aside from saying that I knew I was signing myself up to work for far less than I deserved and the only way I got through that was through the unwavering support of a few colleagues and a lot of friends.  It’s amazing, however, how people will see you wear yourself out and scoff at you because you didn’t “do enough.”

Enough of that though.  I came to terms with my experience and I’m confident that the positives outweigh the negatives.  Needless to say, I was a bit blindsided by how much I actually miss “running the show” in front of the classroom.  I guess that means that now, many years later, I’ve found a direction I’m satisfied with pursuing?  That being said, I’m also enjoying the freedom from the dual responsibilities of being both a student and a teacher.  It’s nice to be able to do things (like blog!) without having to feel guilty about ignoring other things.

But back to that direction thing.  I’m done with my teaching experience, I just finished all the work for my masters’ degree, and I’m sending out applications to find a school in the fall that wants me to help their students become better writers and thinkers.  I’m not sure that I started to grasp the magnitude of this until a point on Saturday during my final radio show broadcast.  Matt came to keep me company (and “documentarize” the event) and at one point I played the Replacements’ “Bastards of Young,” a song that I’ve declared as “my personal anthem” (or alternately, “my jam”) when playing at the jukebox at Rudy’s or in my car or anywhere else.  Perhaps I liked the richness of the “dreams unfulfilled / graduate unskilled” line, or maybe it was because I shared that jittery uncertainty that the bard Paul Westeberg sang about with defiant grace on the track.  As Matt and I listened to it, I realized that I’m not at the same place I was when I proudly saw myself in the song.  Sure, I’m still full of (what I’d like to think is) righteous anger and constructive cynicism, but I’m not as aimless as I was when I was 16 when I first heard the song, 18 when I graduated high school, or 22 when I graduated college.

Instead, this whole process, one that might reach all the way back to the summer of 2006 but certainly intensified over the last 8 months, somehow managed to change me.  I’m not entirely sure when it happened or how it really happened, but it occured nonetheless.  I think I started to realize this when I was in New Orleans (more on that later, I’m still not sure I have proper perspective on that experience).

So after a long tenure of professional growth, I’ve personally grown as well.  Don’t get me wrong, a part of me will always identify with “Bastards of Young” and its bold assertion of uncertainty.  I guess, however, I’m in need of a new anthem/jam because, for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel “stuck.”  I’m moving – I’m not really sure where I’m heading, but that’s ok.  I’m content to be in motion and enjoy the ride.

For now, I’ll throw this one out there as a potential “jam”