The difficulties of growing up

So what am I doing know?

Nothing much.  Just busing children around from home to school.  Can you believe that!?  I who anticipated being successful by now am shuttling children around from home to school.

It's a sad life I lead now.  Can't seem to catch a break.  Although I realize that I caught one before, it seems that much more difficult to catch another one.

Everyone keeps telling me that this is just to make ends meet.  That I won't be doing this forever.  That as soon as I'm able, I'll be right back in there, striving and succeeding.  But who's to say what will happen.  Who's to say that somehow, this is my luck.  I can't pay my student loans and my 36 months are up this January.  Won't be able to afford those.  I can barley afford the mortgage and living expenses.

I've turned into one of those people that buys lotto tickets and wait for the bad news every Wednesday and Saturday.

It's a sad life.  A Masters degree and it means nothing.  I did the worst thing possible:  I got an education in the most unemployable field imaginable.  The degree I got, most Upper Middle Class housewives get in order to say that they have a Masters degree.  There's nothing out there for a Masters in Liberal Arts.

I look back at my time at Epic and I squandered my chance.  I was loyal to a firm that ultimately didn't have to be loyal to me.  While the other employees were "networking" (something I deemed inappropriate), I was happy working for them.  They gave me a chance when I needed it and every trade I placed, I placed to make them money.  I made money from it too, but it seems I didn't do such a good job at the end of the day.  I was kidding myself, thinking that I was good at what I did.  That ultimately, I'd go where they'd go.  But that's not the way the real world works, I guess.  In the end, I wasn't good enough to move on with them.  Lesson learned:  Get a foot in the front door and jimmy the back door, just in case.  Or you can call it Network.  That works too.

And now I'm a bus driver.  After 250+ applications I submitted to just about any place that paid over $10 an hour (and some that were near the house that paid minimum wage) I get a call from a private school that needed a driver ASAP.  Of course they asked for a resume, but it meant nothing to them because they were down a bus driver and they were happy that I would be willing to go to the interview on a Sunday.  Mainly because school started on Monday.

The people are nice.  The principal seems firm but fair.  The teachers seem young but good.  The hours suck.  I'm back to customer service, something I thought I had put behind me after the museum.

I'm thinking about going back to school.  I'm thinking about submitting an application to U of H and Rice for their PhD programs in History.  Both have "US History to 1877", which had been the plan.  Not the PhD, but teaching History 101 in a community college somewhere.  But alas, no junior college hire MLA students as Adjuncts.  We have to at least have 18 MLHIS hours.  MLMLA classes don't count, even if they are History related.

Inevitably, it was my fault.  I made assumptions and moved forward when I should have been patient enough to consider my situation.  I didn't.

So, if you have loved-ones that don't seem like they know what they want of their future, tell them that a plan is necessary.  If you want to fly planes, go to flight school.  If you want to be a business person, get an MBA.  If you want to teach History, get a BA in History and get certified.  If you want to teach English at a community college, get a BA in English, get a Master's degree in English Literature.  Just don't let them be like me:  Impatient, presumptuous, headstrong, stubborn and callous.  I was just dumb.  I thought I could do with what I had but what I had wasn't the right thing.

Steer them right.