Afterwards

After my experience with the whole internship situation this semester, it is hard to know what exactly will be happening after this year, and even after this semester. After all of the struggles I have had to overcome in adapting to the internship and being in front of the classroom, it is easy to see that, if it does work out, I can still see myself with my own high school classroom, or maybe even a second floor office in the English department building at some small liberal arts college.

After this year, I just want to be as good as I can be, meaning I want to be very good at whatever I do. If I do end up becoming a teacher, I want to be known as the "cool teacher," the teacher whose class is challenging yet still fun, and one kids want to come to every day. If I end up with some sort of  desk job, I want to be the employee that is good at his job.

After one of the hardest semesters I've experienced here at Lyon, I can honestly say, with a good amount of shame and embarrassment, that I had no idea that teaching was this hard. I came into this internship thinking that I would be able to overcome my fear of speaking in front of people and would automatically gain that "cool teacher" status without even having a job yet. Instead of all that happening, the opposite happened. It was quite a wake-up call to me, telling me that I need to get my priorities straight or my life could very well be ruined. It has certainly made me think a lot about my future and look back at all the opportunities I have missed due to my lackadaisical lifestyle.

After I figure out what is going to happen, I am not going to treat it how I have treated every other situation and put off my initiative until the last minute. I am going to jump on it as soon as I get it figured out, and I am going to make the best of it. I am tired of being a procrastinator and watching everyone be better than me. I want to be in those ranks, and be a role model to students, or prospective employees.

After all these years, I am now figuring out that slacking all the way to the bottom as I have done is for the birds. It's time for me to rise to the top.