Cut to 2012. I am a credentialed teacher with no job. I am back working at movie theaters, the same job I had in high school, and college. I see the dream slowly slipping away. I get an interview to be a long term sub, I get offered the job, then get it yanked away from me. I turn my attention back to the idea of a Master's program. Nothing better than going back to school when you want to run away from reality.
Cut to July 31st of 2013. I am a credentialed teacher with no job. In June of that summer I interviewed for a teaching job in Aptos. Martina and I talk about the possibility of living apart for a year or so. I get offered the job in Aptos, only to see it yanked away less than 24 hours later. I wake up on July 31st determined to stop looking for high school jobs and begin looking at Graduate programs. As soon as I fire up my laptop to begin my search, I get a call from a principal of a school where I interviewed in early June. He tells me the job came down to me and one other person, and the other person seemed a better fit for that job, but that another English job opened up, and they wanted to talk to me about it before opening up the search again. A few days later, I was offered the job, and a full week later I had my first signed teaching contract.
As Martina and I grew as a couple, and talked about what we ultimately wanted from our lives, both independently and as a couple, there was this idea gnawing at the back of my brain. I had been deferring this particular dream since I gained acceptance into every Master's program to which I applied in 2010. It turns out, that as much as I love teaching high school, and I do love it. I want more. I want to teach literature. I also want more freedom to pursue creative avenues. More importantly though, I crave more learning in a formal environment. I always loved school, especially specialized programs full of people like me, who want to learn the same things.
As we thought about the next steps for us, the reality of a relocation began to materialize. Martina also has specific things she wants to do, and those specific things may take us to New York, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, or the Bay Area. I searched for Master's programs in all of those cities and the deferred dream was pushing itself to the front of my brain. It was getting impossible to ignore. Ultimately Martina decided to put off her next step for a another year, which has allowed us to know that for one more school year, we will be staying in the Sacramento area.
With that knowledge, I figured my plans for my further education would be put on hold as well. Until I got an email letting me know that Sac State's deadline for spring 2016 admissions was approaching. I was unaware they were doing spring admissions and I sprung into action, getting my application in the day of the deadline, thanks to a friend loaning me some money for the application. I did not have high expectations for getting in because the application was rushed, and the second set of transcripts I had to send in would arrive after the deadline. I was not checking my email daily hoping for admission.
When I got my acceptance I realized: This Is Happening. I am going to be a full-time teacher and a full-time Grad student in Literature. I am going to be reading multiple books a week while teaching a full load. The next step is here. When I was 16 I never would have thought my life would still be in such a transitional period in my mid-thirties. Of course, in the search for happiness, transitional periods are the only constant.
I register for classes in four days, and it looks like I will be taking a Minority Voices in Literature from the smartest professor I ever had in my undergrad, and 19th Century Sex and Literature from my all-time favorite professor, and then a course centered around the works of Henry James, an author about whom I am totally unfamiliar. Life is going to get a different variety of exciting!
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