To New Beginnings.

I have always been better at keeping up electronic diaries/journals more than a paper diary. I still do keep a paper journal, but write in it so sporadically that it jumps from year to year, big issue to big issue. I generally save it for the moments when I really need to be in my head and sort things out on my own. I do keep another online journal, which is updated daily, but I keep it realitively private-to save myself embarassment and further explanation of my innermost thoughts.

Anyways, the paper journal has been retired as I move on in my life. For my college career, I filled 2 different paper journals with my "big moments," but when I went to write about graduation and the feelings I am going through now, nothing came out. I need to go and get a new paper journal, to my new beginning. I'm not "Technically" in college anymore, so I need to start over...

I have a theme in my life of starting over, of wiping the slate clean to begin again. I do it often because I feel a need to continuously change, reinvent myself and move onwards in life.

In other words, I am also restarting my place here. I always found this place kind of awkward. Mostly because it was open to everyone-linked in my profile and all. But I also felt that it was a good way for people to get to know me on another level. People who rarely speak to me could read my thoughts, comment if they wished...and those people who have taken a step out of my life could decide if they could ask to be let back in...

It's also a space and time for reflection. Coming out of college, I realize I made a lot of mistakes in terms of letting go of people I shouldn't have, of distancing myself from others, from not doing as much as I wished I would. There are a handful of people I am not close to anymore and I can't decide if that's my fault, theirs, or some natural progression of life and friendship. One of those I kind of miss, but its not surprising we haven't talked. I think we both, in our heads, decided that our friendship was scarred and we needed to separate for awhile...but that doesn't mean I don't miss it...

I don't really know where I am going with this. Perhaps only that I admitt I made a lot of mistakes in the last 4 years. Some bigger than others, some only minor. Some I regret, some I don't (I mean, all mistakes are great learning experiences). I do wish I had done things a little differently.

But most importantly, I need to look forward...I'm student teaching next year, In Detroit Public Schools, which will be an experience in itself. I'm looking forward to it, being in a high school with those kids, I should learn more than they will. ;) It's just another step forward towards my eventual future...

It's still hard to see myself as a teacher. When i was in high school, I would look at my teachers and sometimes think, how do they know so much? And I look at myself and think, how can I possibly teach these kids? I've come to the conclusion that teaching is not really about what I know, but about what I can get my students to learn about themselves. In the long run, having students learn about themselves and their capabilities as people is more important. Shaping them into good people is more important than teaching them what genre or a 5 paragraph essay is. In knowing themselves, they can succeed in anything.

I think this is long enough for one night....