Wednesday, November 28, 2007

postcards from further away

I attended an information session tonight about the Masters program I want to do. Immediately before leaving the school, I received a fax from The Powers That Be informing me that even with a Masters degree and two undergraduate degrees I would still be unqualified to maintain a permanent teaching certificate in this province. Absurd, but I am not surprised. I am thinking I will do the upgrade their way and still do the Masters degree too. So there.

Taking this program will hinge upon the sale of our house back home which has been sitting on the market for two months now with no bites. The market has cooled down considerably and while we are supporting two mortgages simultaneously and buying a new roof and a new kitchen... there just isn't money to live like this. So we'll see.

In the car on the way to the information session I made a decision to be un-neurotic at this meeting. Behaviour is habit-forming, for me, right from the start - and when I start something off the wrong foot it usually feels impossible to change that midstream.

Throughout my last Masters course, although I was enjoying it and learning a lot, I was extremely quiet. I didn't ask questions, I didn't speak up much in big group discussions. This behaviour is something that I have to actively to avoid, because once I spend the first class in a session being quiet, it becomes hard to speak ever again. And not speaking comes easily to me.

So I decided, in the car, that I was going to speak tonight. No matter what, I would ask a question or make a comment or say something to get myself going in the right direction. And so I did. It's astonishing, to me, how once that first hurdle is jumped, the rest becomes so much easier.

My close friends who know me well find it hard to believe that I could ever be shy, and still be a teacher, an actress, and an occasional loudmouth. I find it hard to understand myself, that I can be both. Speaking tonight was something I felt was a bit of accomplishment. Which makes me laugh.

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