It could be said that I have had a severe case of writer's block for the last... year or so. This has been tremendously disheartening for me (as I'm sure it is for most writers when they find themselves in such ruts). I can only assume that this rut has largely been due to the fact that I have been preoccupied trying to find a viable way to live my life. I am a junior in college and the pressure of choosing a major that will get me a job and out of my boyfriend's parent's basement is intense.
Through this last year I have been pushing my dreams of becoming a writer to the wayside, and seriously contemplating becoming a high school English teacher. After sitting through an interview that would determine whether or not I would be accepted into the Teaching Program at my University, I was told that nearly all of the students who had applied for the Teaching Program were aiming to be either History or English teachers. I was told that if I wanted a job and if I wanted to stand out and get hired, I would need a minor that would appeal to my employers (such as teaching English as a Second Language). I left the interview feeling hopeless- after months of convincing myself that this was a job that I would love, I had finally faced the fact that it was not. My passion was not for teaching, it was for English. It has always been for English. For reading and writing.
About a week after this fateful interview, my drunk best friend told me she thought my plans to become a teacher were a "cop-out." And she was right. I was defensive at first, thinking that teaching was the only way, the only sure thing that could be acquired with an English/Creative Writing Degree, but so what? My heart wasn't in teaching. My heart wasn't even in money. So why did I care if my degree got me a steady job with a decent paycheck? Of course, I've been forking out thousands of dollars a year hoping to escape the fast food business, but was it really the right choice for me to settle for something I didn't have a passion for, just to get by?
And so, I have decided that I will dual major in English and Creative Writing. No Teaching Degree. No Technical Writing Degree. No Teaching English as a Second Language Degree. Just English. I will finally give myself the chance to do what I've wanted to do since I wrote my first story in the 2nd grade. I'm going to take a serious chance, and maybe I won't make it, maybe I'll be the poor English Major I was always told I'd be, but at least I'll be able to say that I tried. I tried really hard. I did everything I could. And I didn't settle.
