First of all, welcome to November! Rabbit rabbit!

(Does anyone else do that?)

On Halloween, I teased about how I am going to describe a major, potentially life-changing direction my life is about to take. I’ll admit we’re talking BIG picture here, not small things, even though a lot of small things are involved. Since this is post 1 of 15, then you haven’t missed anything. Pull up a chair. Join us!

I’m going to start off by talking about what I pictured my future would be like when I was in high school.

From about the age of 7 on, I had made up my mind that I wanted to become a doctor. I LOVED biology. I loved gross anatomy. If it had to do with blood and guts, medicine and health… I was all about it. I took every AP science and mathematics course my high school offered (and did awesome at them, by the way).

I make it to college, and I do fair in Inorganic Chemistry. Molecular biology kind of kicked my butt, but… well, I had literally JUST discovered the internet, and even though everybody was on Geocities, a brand new world had suddenly opened up to me. I just didn’t study as much as I should have.

Starting in my sophomore year of college, back in the dark ages of the fall of 1997, I took Organic Chemistry I. I studied, but admittedly, not NEARLY as hard as I should have. Let’s be honest. I should have devoted at least twenty hours a week to this class. I probably spent… oh… maybe three. Per week. If I was having a test that week.

I may be a hard worker now, but I was LAZY then. Young and stupid, what can I say?

I got an F. First F of my life.

I retook it in the spring, but (I swear I’m not making this up), my grandmother died and that week, I got so behind, I ended up taking the class for an audit because I was staring down the barrel of a D. (But on the plus side, I did finally get the hang of Nuclear Magnetic Spectroscopy.)

I signed up ONE more time for Organic Chemistry in fall of my junior year of college. I knew this was make or break. If I didn’t do well, then I had to say good bye to medical school. I got a decent grade on my first test. Not great, but decent.

I will NEVER forget the day that I got my second test back. I still remember the grade. 55 out of 100. I didn’t see the possibility of doing better than a D in the class. Medical school, as far as I knew, was gone. I would not be becoming a doctor.

If I had a magic time machine and I could go back to that moment, I would do one of two things.

One, I would tell 20 year old me, “Dude, a lot of people get a C in Organic Chemistry and still make it into medical school. Don’t give up. And get off the dial-up internet and study harder, dumb ass.”

Or two, “Okay, so you think you can’t become a doctor. That doesn’t mean you have to give up on science or even medicine. Why don’t you consider becoming a nurse?”

I didn’t. I had taken Introduction to Psychology during the previous summer, and I changed my major. I enjoyed the coursework. I hate the field. HATE the field. It took me a while to figure that out.

Oh wait, no it didn’t. I figured that out about a year after graduation.

I briefly entertained the notion of becoming a School Psychologist. I even got into the graduate program, which was fairly competitive. I again learned that School Psychology was not for me, either. It wasn’t bad grades that chased me out. It was the fact that I just didn’t like it.

In the spring of 2003, I enrolled at WKU to become a teacher. You’d think, if I loved science, I would become a science teacher, wouldn’t you? But no. My self-esteem was so tore up by that C in Organic Chemistry that I had myself convinced that I wasn’t smart enough to get a science degree. Therefore, I fell back on my second love.

Writing and literature. I worked hard, and in just four semesters, I completed my second Bachelor’s of Arts, this time in English & Allied Language Arts.

I spent a year as a teacher and got a Master’s Degree of Secondary Education out of it. After I left teaching, I went through a string of humanities-related teaching jobs, literally covering the gamut from birth to death. My favorite was corrections, where I stood in an overcrowded classroom in a county jail and taught GED to orange-suited inmates. Seriously. I really liked that job.

I made some amazing contacts in the field of education and developed some great skills, and that brings me to my current job at WKU, teaching literacy to incoming freshmen. I’m working on completing my graduate literacy certificate, which will allow me to begin teaching upper level literacy courses. I can’t wait!

But… I still miss science. A lot.

Oh, I forgot one little detour. In the spring of 2008, I started nursing school.

No joke. In the fall of 2007, I took Anatomy and Physiology (you’ll never guess who my teacher was – not joking, it was the man who, as a child actor, played Danny Torrance in Kubrick’s The Shining¬¬ – I am not joking – you can’t make that up), because I wanted to get out of adult education and back into medicine. Fortunately, I met Tina, and I dropped out of nursing school. Right after I met her, I knew she was something special, and nursing school is demanding enough that I knew I couldn’t build a relationship and continue.

I don’t regret that decision for a moment. I regret nothing on the path of my life that has brought me to Tina, who is truly the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.

Now I ended up getting the greatest job I have EVER had and I truly intend to retire from WKU. I love my colleagues, I love my bosses, I love my students, I love everything about my job. (I would like a window in my office. Just saying.) But the call of science has never left me. Suffice it to say, 16 year old me would be very surprised at what I’m doing for a living. Teaching was NOT in the game plan.

And no, I’m not planning to go to nursing or medical school. More details on my big decision coming soon.

Related Posts:

• 5 of 15 – Decluttering and Bold Choices
• I’m a Rambling Man
• Happy Birthday to Me, and Gratitude in Pictures