Possibilities

When I look back at the last 4 years of my life I'm disappointed. College was supposed to be hard work but it was also supposed to be fun and exciting, a new adventure. There was plenty of hard work but where was the adventure?

December of my last year I had my heartbroken. I thought it was the end of me. It was an end but not the one I thought. It was the end of being held back. And it was the beginning of a whole new adventure. Sure I lost a boy. But I gained back my freedom, my independence, my zest for life, my thirst for adventure.

When I look back at the last 4 years I see so many missed opportunities. When I look ahead, into my future, I see a second chance. I see possibilities. And I intend to hold onto them no matter what. I intend to take advantage of every opportunity. I intend to enjoy myself and have the most fun of my entire life.

After all, you only live once, right?

Dream Unit

Dear Sir,

At my interview you asked me what I would teach if money were no object, if I could teach anything in the world. Realize now that my answer was lame. Yes, I would certainly love to teach the Hunger Games but now I don’t think I was thinking big enough. If I could sir I would teach a unit on Romantic poets. The unit would have students reading Wordsworth, Clare, and Shelley while traveling the English countryside. We would stop at all of these poets’ favorite outdoor haunts and while at each spot the students would be required to write a journal entry recording their thoughts and feelings. At the end of the trip they would be required to submit their journals and 5 poems, each poem written on a different stop on the trip. The trip would give the students a chance to see what it is these poets were feeling when they wrote their poetry. It would open them up to the changing landscape and the never ending struggle by conservationists to save it as well as the life of the everyday person.

Once we returned to school I would follow this unit with a unit over American transcendentalism. This would show them how this movement grew out of the English Romantic poetry but also the many differences. We would read Emerson, Thoreau, and the more modern transcendentalist, Annie Dillard. If I had the money still this unit would be followed by a trip to Waldo Pond, Mount Katahdin, and Tinker Creek so that students could compare this countryside to the English one. Perhaps they would see that the differences between transcendentalism and the romantics have to do with the differences in landscapes.

Sometimes to grasp what we see on paper we need to see what inspired it for ourselves.

Sincerely,
Ms. Danielle Terrill

Fear of the Unknowable

I’m scared. Plain and simple, I’m afraid. I have spent so much time working on this dream of mine and now I feel stuck. I can’t seem to take the next step. I’m afraid to move forward. I am afraid to leave behind the comfort of what I know. I am afraid of that great big expanse of unknowable space that stretches out before me.

At the same time I am afraid to stay where I am. I am afraid of becoming stationary,
comfortable. I am afraid I will no longer push myself towards that goal. There is so much in my life I want to do and I have only just gotten back so many opportunities. I am afraid I am not doing enough to take advantage of them; to push for them.

And I’m tired. I have been battling this fear for so long now. Everything before was new. New town, new school, new job. How many times have I moved? How many times have I set out somewhere new? How many bright new beginnings where I was nervous?

The fact that I have thus far beaten back that fear every time and have faced down the new challenge before me only makes me more afraid. Maybe this will be the time I’m not enough. Maybe this will be the time I fail. Maybe this will be the time the fear wins.

Everything in life is a battle. The world gives nothing away for free. Nothing worth having anyway.