A Big Decision

I’ve wanted to be a teacher for some time, but for various reasons, I’m not. I hold two bachelor’s degrees, neither of which I use or want to teach with. Finance isn’t typically taught at a high school level and my Spanish is no where near good enough to teach it. A couple years ago I took two different math Praxis tests (middle school – passed and high school – did not pass) to work towards getting my certification to teach.
I’d heard from a few different people that they will hire you to teach with out a teaching degree I applied for a few different school districts.  I had one phone call and that was all, which was disappointing, but at the same time I was at a disadvantage because I didn’t have a degree.

Shortly after the school year began another job landed in my lap.  So I’m now working M-F (which is awesome).  So I kind of decided to just leave everything at the status quo.  I like my job and it’s essentially stress free.

But then I found out about this class you can take to get your teacher’s certification.  Which would be a huge help, but it’s pretty expensive too so I wasn’t sure I wanted to pursue it because what if I did it, paid all that money, and didn’t get a teaching job?  Then it would be just as wasteful as the other two degrees that I am still paying for that I don’t use.

But being afraid to do something, to put yourself out there, is a terrible reason not to do something.  That’s the reason why I haven’t had a date in longer than I care to share.  The same reason why I suck at losing weight.  So I decided that I’m going to do it, provided that I pass the high school math praxis because I would much rather teach high school than middle school.

I know that it’s going to require work.  It’s going to be a lot of studying for the math praxis, something that I’m probably going to have to commit to daily, or almost daily, to ensure that I pass.  It’s also going to mean in the spring when I take the class I will have to spend those few months studying as well (in addition to a couple of Saturday classes).

6 years ago before I moved to Virginia I made a final push to get my finance degree at UWW.  I went to school full time (15 credits) and worked full time just so I could finish in May.  It was one of the most difficult things I’ve done, but also one of the best.  If I can do that, I know I can do this.

I know it’ll be worth it when I finish.

The Beginning

I’ve had a book blog for about 9 months and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed doing it.  I’ve been tossing around the idea on whether or not I wanted to start a more personal blog for awhile now and when I found out that my friend Courtney had one I got that final push to start one.  Plus, my birthday is in just a few weeks, so it seems like the perfect place to start.

My goal is to be honest here.  And hopefully become more honest with myself.

One of my biggest problems is that I am a classic self-sabotager.  My second biggest problem is my weight. Both of which come together to form a circle.  I blame lack of success on my weight and I blame my weight on lack of success.  I’m trying to break that cycle.  and get a refresh on life.

I’m not giving myself any deadlines here (because we all know how well THAT works out) but here are some things that I plan on working on/would like to accomplish.

• Raising my self confidence.  I let my weight decide who I am.  I had a lot more confidence 2 years ago when I was 30 lbs lighter than what I have today.
• Lose the weight and keep it off.  I plan on setting some smaller goals for this but all total I’d like to lose about 90-100 lbs.  I don’t need/want to be super skinny, I really just want to buy normal clothes from the normal women’s section.
• Work on my house more.  There are things I want to do to my house but I don’t have a lot of money, time  or the necessary skills to do the things I want to do.  When I started blogging I kind of put the house aside and I need to get back to working on the little things and saving for the big things.
• Work on REALLY sticking to my budget.  A lot of months I come pretty close, except the categories are all off (i.e. I spent $30 extra on books, but nothing for my house).  As a whole it works, but that wasn’t really want the money was supposed to go for, so I think I’m going to start putting that money into a separate savings account so I can use it for it’s intended purpose when I need it.
• Since I’d like to actually get married someday, I am going to have to make an effort to actually date.  I don’t care for dating, but it’s a necessary evil and since I don’t have a fairy godmother to make all my wishes come true it looks like I’m going to have to suck it up and do it.  I’m not sure where I am going to start with this one.
• Whatever else pops into my head!

I hope that a month from now, a year from now, ten years from now I can look back on this and see the changes, and be happy with them.