The ever-present forked road.

I am always thinking about the future, now more so that I will be graduating from college soon. At this moment, I am in somewhat of an odd place in my life. I have always been able to balance work and play quite well, but lately I've had to also balance constant ruminative thought about what I will be doing in these upcoming years.

I decided that next year will be my year off. During this time I would like to work part-time, and indulge in things I have not necessarily had the time for. This includes creating more art, writing pieces, and finally making time to take piano lessons. I will probably end up reading, playing a lot of video games, and working on my overindulgent health somewhere during that time as well.

There is an alternate route in this year off; I could study abroad for a year in Japan if I so wished, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to pay for living abroad or if I care so much about a double major.

What has been troubling me the most, more than anything, is what I will do after this year or two off. I have always planned on being an elementary school teacher; I love working with kids, creating lessons and teaching them, and I wanted a job where I could help people in some way. I did not care about the pay or the amount of work. However, after doing many hours of fieldwork I have been turned away from teaching by school politics and by the state the schools are in. The fact that there are few jobs available is pretty off-putting as well. Classrooms are overcrowded and the focus of teaching has shifted from helping students acquire knowledge and learn to interpret the world to preparing them for high-stakes testing. It is disheartening to see that schools are no longer the institute I remember them being.

Although I still may pursue becoming a teacher, what I've been considering more and more these days is becoming a researcher and college professor in developmental psychology. It is the area of my field that is more interesting and comes naturally to me. I realize now that children's development is what makes them interesting to me. Though if I do choose this career... it means six more years in a PhD program. Not to mention I will have to take the GREs and a few more core Psychology classes. Yikes.

I decided to complete more fieldwork and volunteer in developmental psychology research projects during my time off, and then make a real decision. I am considering gender issues across the lifespan and media influence on development as my concentration, but only time will tell.

I will say, though, that the title Dr. Gram does sound very appealing. Haha :P