Crickets

Well. It's been quite some time since I wrote anything here. I never really wrote anything of substance. We'll see if the leopard can have a go at changing her spots.

When last we left our intrepid heroine, she was on her way to study abroad in Dublin...

I did that. I spent the 2006-2007 school year at Trinity College in Dublin, alma mater of Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Beckett, and numerous other great people. It was amazing. I loved it and I want to go back for my post-graduate work. Yes, that's right, a PhD. In English. I fully intend to be that crazy-passionate-about-her-subject college professor. My forays into other fields have done nothing to sway me from that intention; the more time I spend outside my ivory tower, the more I realize I want to go back. I thrive on dusty books, dark espresso, and over-involved conversations with other over-educated people. It makes me happy, okay? STOP TELLING ME TO BE PRACTICAL, DAMMIT!

Okay, end of tangent. After Ireland, I finished my degree (with highest distinction) in Literatures in English from UCSD. Wrote a huge honors thesis about stuff I studied in Ireland. Very proud. Further confirmation of my need to go to grad school. I was pleased to graduate and get my degree and leave San Diego. Not so pleased to leave my friends, and my fabulous job as a literacy tutor for a local educational nonprofit. Mixed feelings, that one. Contributed to a very stressful summer and a difficult next semester.

That brings us to the present. The difficult next semester. Currently I'm working on a single subject teaching credential (in English, duh) at Cal State Long Beach. I'm having mixed feelings about that too. The classes aren't what I'd hoped for; lots of legalese about how not to get sued, which makes me pretty depressed about the state of the educational system. It also worries me that a lot of my fellow English credential students don't know the first thing about the English canon or English grammar. How these people managed to get BAs in English I'll never know. I'm still excited about teaching, don't get me wrong. But...I don't know. Another thing is that I've pretty much come to the conclusion (aided and abetted by several professors and my mum) that I'm meant to be teaching at the university level. The current plan is to finish my credential (next December) and teach for a few years (possibly doing a Master's at UCI during the summers) before going on to get a PhD and hopefully start publishing and getting professorial type jobs.

I'm enjoying having my first apartment on my own (no roommates) and my first pets all to myself (two kittens). I had a shitty job at a restaurant for a few months and then got really lucky and got a great job as a social media intern at a local ad agency. Having a great deal of fun with that and it's helping with the dearth of interesting people to talk to and interesting places to go. Through this job I'm meeting some very cool people and getting to know a whole new (and much cooler) area of Long Beach. 

Mostly I'm working on fixing the things about myself that I personally don't like and that cause problems when I try to make meaningful relationships. This includes a period of self-enforced semi-solitude; I can't ask new people to take on my issues, and I don't have the energy to try and make people like me when I'm having trouble liking myself.

I realize this kind of trails off but that's pretty much how I feel at this point...unfinished.