Change of Plans

I did have a post all ready to go all about my favorite Christmas movies, but I'm not really feeling in the mood for that. I realized several things tonight, a few of which I don't really need to post for the world to see (I really need to do laundry), and a few of which I am still processing.

I am getting more comfortable with the "idea" of grad school, and all the procedures and routines that go along with it. I never really thought about what grad school would be like when I decided to continue on with school. I knew that I wasn't ready to be done with school yet, and I knew that I enjoyed my English major as an undergrad. I just jumped in, basically looking for an extension of my former English classes. I wanted to know more about literature and improve my writing.

Now that I am more than halfway done, I wonder what it is exactly I am doing. I find myself wanting to be very competitive, and have papers published, and make friends with the professors. But the whole point of getting another degree is to feel more comfortable teaching in a high school classroom; and principals in Texas could care less about whether I have a paper published. If I was really in this just to teach in the public schools I should have gotten a master's in education or something (although, yuck!). I sometimes really regret not being a teaching assistant for many reasons, and I'm not even really sure why I didn't do it. I also want to read any and every book that anyone mentions in class so I will know exactly what they are talking about.

I realized this semester that I have been holding back. To be metaphorical, I've got one foot in the program but I haven't really put my heart into it. There are aspects that I get really involved with, but there are a lot of things that I haven't really participated in (I know, what kind of English major ends their sentence with a preposition?). I haven't made a whole lot of friends in my classes, I haven't really attended any events, and my job has almost nothing to do with my any of my degrees, past, present, or future. I feel like I am missing out on a world that I would really enjoy being a part of, but I'm also scared that I won't fit in there - that I'm not "scholarly" enough to sit around and discuss things with my peers.

My friends do read some, but the only people I can really talk about books with are my parents, and their taste in books is very different from mine. I'm not saying that I'm unhappy with my life (or my friends), but I would like to expand myself a little.