How it all Started

When I was a kid, I loved to play school. As the oldest child, I was always the teacher. All through elementary school, if you asked me what I was going to be when I grew up, I always said "a teacher."

I loved school. Even in high school, when you're supposed to hate it. I loved my teachers, my friends, afterschool clubs, football games, everything. But, by the time I started to apply for college, I no longer wanted to be a teacher. It was the 80's and everyone was all about making money. Why would a smart girl like me want to teach?

I went to college with the idea that I'd graduate with a decent-paying job. I loved English and writing, so I gravitated toward the College of Journalism, and ended up choosing Public Relations as my major and an English minor. Public Relations never really did it for me, and a summer internship convinced me that PR was not the career for me. But by then it was too late to change majors. So what was the logical next step? Law school, of course!

I made it through law school and went on to practice criminal law. At first it was great...and then it wasn't. I started thinking about alternative careers. I kept coming back to teaching. But the DOE didn't make it easy. My law degree was worth nothing. In order to teach, I needed to go back to school first. I just couldn't see it.

Then one day I went to the FL DOE website (as I'd done many times before) and lo and behold, the criteria had changed! It looked like I could get a teaching certificate without going to school first. Because of my English minor, I could be certified to teach English in secondary school. I thought, what the heck, and applied. Sure enough, a few months later I received a temporary teaching certificate, good for 3 years. All I had to do was get a job.

The thing was, by the time I received the certificate, I was not hating my job. I hung the teaching certificate on the refrigerator, and forgot about it. Then, a year later, I was miserable again. I couldn't take the practice of law for another minute. I started applying for teaching jobs.

So here I am, almost 2 years later, in the middle of my 2nd year of teaching. Many days I am just as miserable as when I was practicing law, and I'm making less money! I created this blog because I needed an outlet. My husband is definitely tired of hearing me complain. I'm hoping that writing it down will help me figure it all out.