Jumping In

The past couple of weeks have been pretty crazy for me in all areas surrounding my pending career in TESOL and future plans. In one sense life is pretty simple right now. I am going to school to get my M.A. in TESOL and working so that I don't have to take out as many loans. Next year I am going to live with my parents in Vista since they'll be on home assignment, so I don't have to stress too much about that. Still  there are a lot of decisions to be made, changes to take in, and dreams to dream.

Currently I am on the hunt for a job. After working in the cafeteria at APU for the past 4 1/2 years, it is finally time to move on. I've tried to move on a few other times, but I think now it's finally going to happen! A part of me is sad to leave the people I've built relationships with there, but if I'm being honest I am more than ready to move on to another phase in life. I have a couple of other part time jobs that I'll probably keep on, but what I'm really searching for at the moment is a job teaching ESL somewhere. I have a couple of leads and interviews lined up, so I'm slightly encouraged, but it's also an overwhelming and somewhat discouraging task. See, it's hard to get a job teaching if you don't already have teaching experience. Because of this, chances are I'll have to take a lower paying job (thus slightly damaging my budget) just so that I can get the experience I need to get those other jobs I'll want in the future. This also probably means long commutes. Bummer. But while I am a bit discouraged about this, I'm also excited to finally be doing it. I'm finally trying to get into the field I am studying, and I'm excited to apply all I've been learning in my classes! I'm about half way done with the program so I think it's about time I actually jump in to the field!

Another exciting and extremely intimidating opportunity I have is to design a course curriculum in one of my classes. Most students do this for a somewhat hypothetical setting, but I've chosen to work with Mary Wong, Ph.D. (the head of APU's field based and online TESOL programs) on developing a course for a new university she is involved in starting up. Medes American University is going to be an American Christian university located in Erbil, Iraq (or Kurdistan depending on your political persuasion). I've already done quite a bit of research on the location in order to get a feel for the context of who I am going to be designing this course for and I am excited to jump in and get working on this course. Like I said, I'm incredibly intimidated by the possibility of actually designing a course, but I am humbled and excited to get the opportunity to work alongside Mary and others in order to gain this valuable experience.

While I'm busy jumping in to those two areas of my life, I am trying incredibly hard not to get ahead of myself with the future. The truth is I'm antsy. I'm tired of living in Azusa, and I just realized this week that I have lived more consecutive years in Azusa than anywhere else in my life. Of course, I left for most of the summers, but still... There are so many other interesting places in the world that I want to go. I want to travel home to Congo and Cameroun, I want to visit all sorts of other places in Africa, I want to go to Korea to visit old friends, Japan to see where some of my best friends grew up, and many other places in Asia as well, I want to go to South America (and especially to Bolivia), I want to go back to Europe and explore places I have never been as well as return to Romania (a place that captured my heart 3 1/2 years ago), I want to go to Egypt and experience life there (and see the pyramids), I want to go to the Holy Land, and now I want to go to Kurdistan too! Basically the more I meet people from different places and friends of mine spread out over the world the more places I add to my "to go" list. And yet here I am... still in California. I'm sure there is a reason for it, and I know I'm learning a lot, but sometimes it's hard.

Sometimes I just want to jump in to that next phase of life and forget the preparation... and then I remember something I reflected on this past semester and summer. I am in a preparation phase and it is important. If even Jesus had to prepare 30 years for 3 years of ministry, then I think I can do with a few more years of preparation. The trick is to make sure I actually use my time of preparation and don't just let it pass by. So as I'm waiting to travel the world and see how my life turns out I'm trying to jump in right where I am. Most of the time it goes really well, but right now it's a bit difficult to keep that perspective. Oh well, I guess I'm allowed my moments :)