student/teaching

these past couple years one of my biggest challenges has been finding a good balance between being a successful student and a successful teacher. having my own classroom, albeit one where the rules and curriculum were created for me rather than by me, was amazing. i loved teaching writing 150 and interacting with students and figuring out who i am up in front of them. but, teaching is time-consuming. it's not as time-consuming once you've done it once or twice, but there are always things to worry about and tweak and grade. in the course of becoming a teacher, i forgot about myself as a student. i've taken a lot of graduate seminars, and they never seemed to really capture my interest like so any of my undergraduate english classes did. i felt dissatisfied with my coursework, so i started thinking of myself more as an instructor than as a student.

this semester, i'm not teaching. i guess i'm kinda sad about it, because, like i said, i love teaching, but this also means that i can remember what it means to be a student. i am determined to be the best student i can be this winter semester, my last at byu, my last as a student for what i hope will be a long while. it's easy to have good intentions at the beginning of the semester; this i know. but my primary job this time around is to be a student, and i want to excel in that job rather than just get by, like i have been for the rest of my graduate school experience. i'm pushing my cynicism aside and taking my education back into my own hands.

if anyone wants to reach me between now and april, i'll be in the library. and if i'm not in the library, you should probably steer me in that direction :)