Back to School?

I've been spending some time lately doing some shopping. For graduate school programs, that is. I want to teach English to Tibetans but one thing I learned while I was doing that for the first year is that I'm not that good at it. Especially not if I wanted to do anything beyond basic, textbook-led conversational English classes.

So with the freedom to dream big and to actually go for accomplishing some of those dreams, comes discipline. Lots of it. The way I acted as a kid and as a college student both point to how I am not necessarily "wired" to pursue discipline in any shape or form. I like being a student, but not getting up at 7:30am for class or doing homework. I like to read books, but not to finish them. I like to have purpose, but not when it takes too much work.

But now I am thinking through how both job options and just general knowledge would open up if I go to grad school, which would open into ways I could serve the community of people where I want to live. So now I'm looking into programs where I could get a Master of Arts in teaching English as a second language. They are more elusive than I expected. But I am convinced that the work of finding a school, the application process and all that is in between will be worth it if 1) it is in the plan of God (he does have one) and 2) I don't chicken out when things get frustrating/overwhelming/hard.

The current frustration is that to get into either of the programs I'm most interested in require some sort of prerequisite that the education department, in their infinite wisdom, didn't include in my undergrad program. (Or maybe the problem is that I in my infinite wisdom decided on an education degree at the U of A...) I'm waiting to hear whether certain classes qualify as "English classes" but I think I know the answer. So just to be considered for admission into one of the 2 programs, I will either need to take 12 hours of undergrad English classes or 6 hours of Chinese classes. I wouldn't feel like that was a big waste of time, but it isn't free, so.....back to shopping for grad schools, and now for tutoring jobs...