What I'm Here For

Today, I was reminded what I'm here for.  The last few weeks, I've just been really down about grad school, and I even started questioning if this is something I should be doing.  It's been a really rough couple of weeks.

And no, I don't have any baking or cooking to share with you.  I just haven't had the time.  But I really wanted to just kind of mumble on about what happened today.  And that's what I'm doing.

The major occurance that reminded me what I'm here for had to do with the teaching side of my life.  And I must say, I feel like the teaching side is the side that's been constant through these last few weeks.  I mean, not that I haven't questioned that when I've looked out on closed eyes and all the open seats from people who just chose not to come back when I was nice and gave them a break.  But today I had an anonymous student come up after class with a list of questions.  The last one was, "do you know what you're going to be teaching next semester?"   When I admitted that I probably won't until August, he or she figured that would be too late.  "You're not teaching this summer, are you?"  Nope, not so much.  "Do you have any other subjects you have expertise in?"  Uhhh, education maybe.  No other sciences.  And it just made me feel like someone really does appreciate my teaching and understands what I am talking about.  This is why I'm a teacher.  Really.  This is what I've always wanted.

Also this afternoon (though, if it had been isolated, I may not have even thought much about this), a professor I've done a little work with came in and asked me if I'd thought about my minor project.  The answer to that is, well, no, but yes.  I've thought maybe math ed would be the way to go, but nothing official.  But he suggested it.  And he suggested I try a math ed class next fall.  Hey, it would be something different.  Maybe it would give me a little more balance.  And the whole conversation just gave me a little motivation as to why I'm in these classes again.  It was very needed.

I'm very thankful for both of these people.  Neither of them probably even realize how much they influenced my day.  But I actually feel like maybe I do want to be in grad school again.  And, well, honestly, it's been a while.  

So yeah, no cooking.  No baking.  Hopefully soon.  But lots of thoughts.