Tag: degree

We Have an Announcement

On By sarafroiIn Challenge, Life StoriesLeave a comment

Back home currently has the most snow in the United States. A lot of feet of snow have fallen. Flagstaff, Arizona has a ton of snow right now also. In fact, a friend of mine that lives in Tucson posted a snowy video today too! Needless to say, I miss the snow. Alabama has no snow, but that’s no surprise.
And snow isn’t even the most important thing to me, especially in a place that I want to live.

I moved to Alabama sort of on a whim. I thought I was being called here. I thought my life was going to change and I would be put on a path that would launch me into a career I could only dream about. It’s funny how I’m usually wrong about these things. Because what I thought I was stepping into was not at all what I actually stepped into.

I had not lived here six months when my mother passed. I was reeling from her loss and found comfort in alcohol and watching stupid Netflix shows with someone who was starting to become a very good friend. It wasn’t much later that he was more than a friend and I fell in love with Bobby.
Moving to Alabama changed my life. Losing my mother changed my life. But loving Bobby has changed my life for the better.

Last year, Bobby and I took a road trip across the country because I was homesick. Along the way we stopped in Flagstaff, Arizona to buy some film and get coffee at Dutch Bros. because I discovered they have one there. We had been in the city half an hour when we both decided we wanted to live there. We planned to make the move after I finished my graduate program, and I would just go through the licensing process in Arizona. I had some anxiety about the difficulty of finding someone to supervise me so I could get my license, when I would have no contacts in Arizona, but I figured it would work itself out.
But I’ve been homesick for a long time. Alabama has made me more and more miserable. I thought if I quit my job and made a change that I would be happier, but in December I only felt more depressed. I felt like I couldn’t make it. I just wanted to go home.
So I called my dad. And I called my brother. And they said that Bobby and I could move back to my childhood home for the summer to save money. So we’re leaving Alabama in May and will be in California for three months. I’m ready to go home.
Bobby and I decided that we didn’t want to wait until I finished school, especially when the licensing process in a different state might be challenging. So I’m going to finish my degree in Arizona. We’ll be moving there in August, and I am so excited.

Since I’ve been missing the snow and sick of all the rain here, I figured now would be a good time to announce that we’re leaving. Finally.

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Unintelligence

On By sarafroiIn Life Stories, Stupid Depression Rants1 Comment

I have a good job.  I really like my job.  I just got promoted at my job.  And it’s okay that I’m not doing the type of job that I thought I’d grow up to do.  Welcome to our economy.

The job market is fairly small.  And sometimes it seems that people have forgotten that.  A lot of people go to college, but most people don’t get jobs in their field after they graduate, and that’s not for lack of trying.

A month or so ago, I was having a conversation with someone I work with who also has a degree.  People come through all the time and act like we’re dumb because we work at Starbucks, even though Starbucks will actually give tuition reimbursement to their partners who are trying to get their bachelors if they go to ASU.  Starbucks cares about education, so why would someone assume that only stupid or uneducated people would work a job like that?  No, you don’t need a degree, but I never wanted to get a job in my field anyway.
But I digress.  I was talking with my coworker about working at Starbucks and about how college isn’t for everyone and having your degree doesn’t really make you any better than anyone else, because in this economy, it’s usually pretty hard to get a job in your field unless you’re either top tier or you have a lot of connections where there are openings.  It’s luck and who you know, not necessarily intelligence or capability.
An hour after our conversation a very loud man walked and announced that he had a question.  But he then went on to say that his question required intelligence, and that was pretty hard to find in Starbucks.  Both my coworker and I looked at him with obvious offense on our faces.  He began to laugh and told us to take a joke, then my supervisor came up front and he got to ask her his question.
During their conversation though, he told her she should go back to school, because she dropped out when she realized it wasn’t for her.  He was trying to force his worldview on her.  And she was annoyed.  We were all annoyed.

It’s fine to value education.  I’m currently planning on possibly going back and getting my masters degree next fall.  And that’s not because I think my current job is beneath me.  It’s not because I’m dying to do something else.  Even if I do get my masters and find a job in that field, I might still work a few days at Starbucks, because I enjoy it, and I like the benefits.

A degree does not necessarily mean a career.  And a lack of a degree does not equate stupidity.

It’s okay that I have a degree and am a barista.  Welcome to the real world.

Lacking Creativity

On By sarafroiIn Challenge, College, Life StoriesLeave a comment

Lacking creativity, I sit here at my keyboard, searching for the right words to put down.  It seems that there should be so much to say, and that I should have so much to reflect on, but I’d rather spin fiction than share the trivial thoughts that are on my mind.  Yet, I don’t write at all.  I have characters that need developing, but it’s almost as if I’ve fallen out of love with them.  However, I realize that maybe characters are like any other person, and that if we don’t spend time enough time with them, we forget what once was so powerfully drawing us toward them.  And I realize further that this is what God is like.  Until this week, it had been months since I had sat down and spent significant amounts of intentional time with Him.  And it’s still not enough.  I want to fall in love with Him again.  I want to fall in love.  That’s it.

See, most would expect me to mention that I graduated from college more than a week ago.  And as that was such a big moment in my life, I find it pales in comparison to what it would be if I had gotten my degree in something that I actually plan on using.  I want to be a writer, although I have been writing so much less than I should if I wish to actually call myself a writer.  Yet I digress.  If I had gotten my degree in journalism or literature or creative writing I would probably be freaking out and loudly announcing that I had surely walked across a stage and received a diploma for a degree that I was passionate about.

God’s funny like that, isn’t He?  As a fifteen year old girl I was certain that I had a heart for youth, assuming that meant being a youth pastor.  God audibly called me to attend Life Pacific College.  Soon after beginning my college career I realized that I don’t want to be in vocational ministry in any form at all, and soon after that I found my passion as a writer.  God told me to write, and I still haven’t finished anything to be proud of.  I tried to leave school, but I knew that LIFE was where I was meant to stay.  After four years of perseverance, I have finished and I have my Bachelors, and now I have even less certainty about my future than I did a year ago.  I know what I’m doing with my summer.  I know I plan to move to Portland in August.  But how easily can everything change?  So I still wonder why God called me to LPC at all?

I went to a wedding yesterday.  It was by far the best wedding I had ever attended.  I even regained the courage I had in high school, if only temporarily, and talked to a cute guy.  Yet I still don’t feel compelled to write so many words about it.  I often say that I don’t believe in soulmates, but I know that Erica and Robbie are truly meant for each other.  It makes me wonder if maybe some people do have soulmates.  It makes me wonder if I have a soulmate, if people will one day say, “they’re meant for each other,” about me and some man.

Does anyone have any creativity they’d like to send my way?  Do you have any extra motivation?