The Beginning

All throughout my childhood and adolescence, I remember hearing, "Get an education. You can be whatever you want to be. Dream bigger than the stars. Just do it!"
"Okay," I thought to myself, as a 5th grader, "I can do this." So I did. Graduate High School with good grades-check. Get into college, take it seriously, get good grades-check. Do a semester abroad to "live a little" and of course, spruce up my resume--check. Choose a career path in which I loved and felt passionate about-check. Student teach (pay the college to work for free) for a whole year-check. Okay! Graduation! Graduate with honors with high recommendations from professors and teachers-CHECK! YEAH! Time to begin the next chapter of my life.
There was just one small little problem. While I was busy being a rockstar, the economy fell into a deep, dark abyss. So here I am, a fresh-faced, young adult ready to a)take care of myself and b) have some money, but I cannot get a job. "Just wait," I was told, "you will get a job soon. You just need to wait out the summer." June. July. August. September. Hmmmm. I had a few interviews and their answers were always the same, "We hired someone who had more experience." School has started and I am NOT a new teacher, setting up my classroom. Some of my friends are, and I am looking at their pictures on facebook and crying myself to sleep at night. This is NOT what I signed up for. I want a refund, or a do-over, perhaps.
This is the reality:I have food stamps. Starbucks will not hire me. Looking back on that day in 5th grade, if my thought bubble had gone up into the air and I thought, "When I graduate college and 'grow up', I would like to not be able to get a job at Starbucks and be on food stamps," then I would have conducted my school days a little differently. I would have gone out on school nights and studied less, or perhaps not at all. I would have actually missed class and not e-mailed my professors a week in advance if I was going to do so. WHY WAS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?!?! (And thousands of others around the country)
So....here I am: smart, funny, compassionate, responsible.....and unemployed, and now--even more neurotic than before. Stay tuned for my next blog on Substitute Teaching.