"I've been twitterific for years now."

I graduated Hope College in the Spring of 2009. I wore the blue gown, threw my hat up in the air, and moved away from campus for the last time.  I had loved my classes, professors, the culture of Hope and my experience in field placements. It was time to move on to "the real world" and I felt like I was done with school.

Yesterday I found myself on the campus of IUPUI wandering in the freezing cold snow to locate a parking garage, parking permit, student center, wireless password, dinner, and my two classrooms. School is not over yet.

I'm starting my Masters for Language Education. I wish that my reasoning for going back to school was because I just love being in the classroom and want to spend 6 hours a week on campus and more time outside doing reading and writing papers. But that's not why I'm becoming a student again. I need to take these classes for my license. That's it. I hate that it feels like just a means to an end.

I was having a conversation after class tonight with my friend about how it seems silly to be sitting in a classroom talking about the theory of writing when I could be out really living life. I love my job. I love being a Young Life leader. I love hanging out with camp kids. I love running, crafting, listing, reading, writing, etc. I hate feeling like I have put things that I love on hold to go to school.

But after two nights at school I am excited about some things:

1. I now know where to park and have a parking permit.

2. I know where my classes are.

3. I get to read "Does My Head Look Big in This?" in a lit circle for my reading class. I strategically picked the book and group so I could be with the soccer mom teachers.

4. I love being back in educational conversation- the vocabulary, thought process, insights, experience and opinions are drastically different than I'm used to when interacting with my junior high students.

5. I want to be friends with one of the women in my Teaching Comp class. She's a teacher of some of my Tecumseh campers. She told us that she loves writing down things that her students say and is constantly writing down quotes from books and movies. We might be twins.

6. I want to be a better teacher. I want to keep improving so that my teaching can help my students become better learners and writers. I know that I'll get out of these classes what I put into them and that they can make an impact in my classroom.