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FEATURING NEW!! AND IMPROVED!! CAREER GOALS :(

I can't handle the amount of flip-flopping my brain is doing right now. It's like I'm earning back all of the identity construction I missed out on when I put a moratorium on my career and said TEACHING. YEP, TEACHING! And now I'm getting added interest too. For three months I was dead set on librarianship the way I was dead set on teaching for years...and then I did what is actually the Smart Thing and thought it through beyond how I can do this. Being a librarian is problematic in a lot of the things that led me to problems with teaching. For the most part, it's a horizontal profession. Once you're a librarian...you're a librarian. While I have always treated this sort of stability with respect and wanted the relief of getting a degree and knowing exactly what to use it for, dearest girlfriend sat me down and talked about how that is not necessarily a good thing. (Add to that the severe dearth of good librarian jobs for anyone not overqualified, and I was off this train rather quickly.)

NEW PLAN: The ever terrifying spectre of grad school. Yes, I want to be Clever Moniker, M.A, Women's Studies. I wish I'd have come to this conclusion years ago, really. My parents never anticipated that I'd want an advance degree or discussed it as something that might happen, and I had no real idea what kinds of careers a person can have with a Masters in liberal arts. It's unclear whether I will go straight to grad school right after I graduate (HIGHLY UNLIKELY), or take time off to work in the field and do something worthwhile with my time. AmeriCorps is an option, but so are many other things. Any way that I can work as a women's advocate is something I would like to do!

I really need to slow my roll though, because I have to graduate first. Ugh. I am going to have to buckle the fuck down and finish my major (and specialization) in the spring, because the class I need is not offered in the fall. My goal is to work a job that pays my rent and living expenses so I don't have to feel guilt toward my parents anymore (well, less guilt...). Considering I moved to an apartment that is much nicer and yet $200 cheaper per month (THANKS ROOMIE, YOU THE BEST). That's off the bat, not taking into account utilities. This makes me much happier, especially the part where this apartment is not a step higher, but a whole flight of stairs higher than my last apartment. ..And I guess I mean that literally? I lived in the basement after all.

I owe a lot to my favorite monster, who helps in ways she doesn't even realize. Also, she bakes.

HAHAHA SO I GUESS I WILL GET ON THAT JOB SEARCHING THEN. Except I will not. Because there is nothing I can really do until after Lollapalooza.* Hopefully things will be okay?

* OH NO WOE IS ME I AM GOING TO LOLLAPALOOZA FOR THE WHOLE WEEKEND AND AM GOING TO SEE MOST OF MY FAVORITE BANDS AND DO SO WITH MY GIRLFRIEND OH NOOOOO

Current Music: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Skeleton

identity, privacy and profession

I know from the title you can tell this is going to be a real barn-burner!

In the past few days I've been seriously consider library school as a contender for My Future. And while I always thought I'd make a kickass librarian, it's been a backup plan instead of the first goal (though I'm not sure why). The thing is, the more I think about it, the more librarianship sounds like a better fit for me.

Being a librarian does not have the same moral imperative and scrutiny that being a high school teacher does. One of the things that has always made me uncomfortable about teaching social studies from a social justice standpoint is that in order to do it well, I would have to out myself to students. It's questionable whether I would be able to teach in a district that is friendly to gay teachers, considering the job market. And more than that, the public considers teachers to be inscrutable. Any public actions teachers take must be above reproach, and I don't know if I want to live like that. I want the ability to live openly as a lesbian, to attend Pride parades if I want, to be as political as I want. (In Michigan it's still not illegal to fire someone just for being gay!) If I taught at all, it would have to be as a progressive, lesbian social studies teacher with an eye toward social justice. Can I really do that right now?

The second big issue is my disability. I still have trouble calling it a disability and not simply calling myself fucked up. A lot of my anxiety problems are tied up in communication with others. (In fact, it is the reason I'm not interning next year. I made a boo-boo and didn't return an email to my mentor for next year for a week.) Yes, being a librarian requires a lot of communication to patrons and the public, but I can't help but feel that it would feel less pressuring. I feel like right now, I deal better with things than people. LOL BUT TRUE. Working in a public library is still a public service, which is what I ultimately want to do in whatever capacity I can.

Honestly, right now it looks like if I can get in to a decent LBS program, I'll do it.

OTHER EXCITING THINGS!
1. I am still having problems with the writing thing. More than anything I'm using Tumblr nowadays. I'm brainsquish over there. It's a visual medium, and that's so much more manageable for me right now. I can post something pretty, annotate it a bit and leave it at that.
2. This is the first icon I've made in...at least four years? I really like Pixlr.com's browser-based image editor. It's pretty awesome.
3. I have finished watching Avatar: The Last Airbender. IT WAS COMPLETELY AWESOME. See my Tumblr for related flailery.
4. Great movies I've seen lately: An Education (Carey Mulligan broke my heart) and Moon (best sci-fi I've seen in awhile).

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So, I haven't posted in half a year?

Hello, and greetings from summer session! It seems like my life keeps getting turned upside down (without the privilege of moving to Bel Air), and here I am. After three classes this summer, I will be all graduated and stuff...but not interning next school year. My options are as follows: get a job and wait around another year and intern 2011-2012, get a job and use the year to take the GRE and apply to different library science master programs, or do none of those things and move back home. I've ruled out moving home, because there is no physical space for me in my parents' house anymore. But other than that, I haven't the faintest clue what I'm doing with My Life. Besides uh, getting a job? Tomorrow afternoon starts the application bonanza. If I'm lucky I'll land secretarial work.

Instead of worrying about my rapidly approaching real life, I've spent most of the last day watching Avatar. I've just finished the first season. And ASDLFKJSADLFJAL;SDJF;ALSDKJF. I know I'm crazy late to the party on this one--I avoided it because 1) anime, 2) on Nickelodeon and thus for children, 3) seemed like it was a show about dudes. Major fail, self. I've just finished up the first season and *_____________* THIS SHOW IS KIND OF REALLY AMAZING AND KATARA HAS A TEMPER SOMETIEMS AND WILL TURN HER GIRL RAGE ON YOU AND SOKKA IS FUNNY (albeit voiced by kid from Hannah Montana??) AND A BADASS NORMAL AND AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG <3<3<3. Honestly, the only character I've been slow to warm up to is Zuko. Not because it took awhile for the show to explain how he's so tortured (I expected that), but BECAUSE OF HIS STUPID HAIR. I desperately need him to cut off that stupid ponytail and do something else with his head.

Needless to say I'm pretty far gone and will be spending a lot of the evening watching season two. Netflix on the Wii is the best summer present in the history of ever.

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Uh, I forgot this even existed. Considering the ever-decreasing time I spend on livejournal, combined with nastiness for the management, I might as well make a fresh start here. I've had my LJ account since 2002 (!). I don't say that to brag about how long I've been a user, but because most of my painful adolescent experiences are contained somewhere in the archives of LJ (along with a lot of flailery and squeeing, obvs). Not to be maudlin--there have been more positive experiences in my life than negative, I am incredibly privileged and so on--but lately I feel an increasing need to make a symbolic break. So, that's what this is.

With that, I'm going back to crafting and watching Avatar. See you round the bend, Dreamwidth.

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