Congratulations

I got home from a trying afternoon with the preschoolers the other day to find an email with my Student Teaching 1 placement, and it literally was a breath-taking moment. The first line of the email congratulated us on getting to student teach, and that made me tear up. I read my assignment for a 5th grade classroom in a nearby town's public school, and then I proceeded to cry for a spell. I've been looking forward to student teaching since the day I started education classes as a freshman, but it felt like I'd never get to this point. Now it's merely months away, and I sat there trying to figure out how I made it this far and having that mental argument about how ready I am for it.

What got me, though, was that simple "Congratulations!" in the email. I've never stopped to really consider student teaching as an accomplishment. Survival of student teaching resulting in a diploma? Yes, that one's easy to see, but not this.

It really clicked, though, that this is what I have been working toward for the past 4 years. This is it. This is my future becoming the present. These are my goals becoming a reality. This is the point where there's no turning back, gotta plunge in head-first and prepare for the bumps, bruises, and learning along the way.

Those were tears with a myriad of emotions behind them: elation for actually getting a placement, a few for fear of the unknown (and those 5th graders), laughter at the ironic timing (when I felt pretty low after a rough day), joy for the wonderful things that will come with the experience, and some melancholy ones that came with the recognition that college as I know it will never be the same as the past few years.

Hello, again, adulthood. Thanks for giving me constant reminders that you've arrived for good. I'm ready for the adventures you have in store for me. Bring it on.

~"Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity." [-I Tim. 4:12]~