Occupation

Today, as of 10:10am, I am no longer a student!

For the past all-of-them-so-far years, whenever I have been called upon to list my occupation, I've always, paused, thought about how I don't really have one, and then written "Student". Such seems to be the industrially/commercially/socially/financially acceptable way to describe oneself when one has neither occupation, prospects, nor experience. As of this morning, I am only faced with the first part of my dilemma: the problem of what to write.
Of course, I've traded my bird in the hand for two in bush today. I'm not exactly a teacher yet. I could call myself a teacher-candidate, but that comes across even more indefinite than "student". Until I have a job or my OCT certification or - preferably - both, I'll be hard-pressed to self-identify as a teacher. Shame the census is coming so quickly.

Regardless, something monumental has happened today and I am determined to celebrate. For 5 long years in university and 13 years before that, almost every worldly concern has been tied up in my performance in "school" - an imaginary world where I can fail and it not affect anyone else except my relationship with my mother. And scholarships, although that's quite inextricably tied to the first concern as well. I have navigated a complicated meritocratic hoop-maze in order to get what amounts to three enormously important pieces of paper and a number of ancillary pages of somewhat-less significance. I have poured literal and figurative blood, sweat, and tears into "school". After 18 years of my life, it has kinda been the only thing I have known.
The obvious joke, especially for graduating BEd students, is that we've gone to school for altogether too long to then trap ourselves back in school for the rest of our careers. We are now the agents of this thing called "education" - the terraforming process we inflict on society's most valuable assets in order that they may more perfectly reflect us. But I feel put-upon to defend the teacher's calling a bit (albeit with a fair sprinkling of tongue-in-cheek) because I find the obvious joke a little oversimplistic. For many of my colleagues finishing today or yesterday, or even still trapped in that exam room (I write pretty fast), teaching is the logical next step because they don't know where else to go. All they know is school and so to school they will dedicate the remainder of their working lives. And maybe they are even chasing a dream of "fixing", "improving" or "rescuing"education - goals I find admirable (we ought often to admire dreamers even if their dreams are really really silly). For many, this is easy or logical or their fall-back position (I'm looking at you, art teachers!) But I refuse to be whitewashed by my society's low expectations. Teaching isn't just important - anyone can see that. Teaching is hard work. Back-breaking work. Day-in and day-out, 12 hours a day, 6 days a week work. Being a teacher gets no breaks, no real lunch hours, no empty weekends. Because if you're doing it well, taking care of 25+ children or youth is not just hard work to their face - it's a lot of homework. And not only supervising and entertaining, but challenging, developing, and growing their minds, bodies, hearts and capabilities is a Herculean task to demand of a publicly (under-)funded, socially derided, bureau-saturated, hyper-regulated institution run principally by people who spent their last year of university making collages and paper mache.

To make a long story short ("Too late!"), the first smug parent, smart-mouthed student or bus driver to wave a finger at me and remind me about my "summers off" will be making a big mistake.

Then again, not like I'd actually make a fuss to his face. I am kinda looking forward to summers.

Fare Thee Well, Love

'So Farewell to Nova Scotia, the sea-battered coast
Let your mountains dark and dreary be
For when I am far away on the briny ocean tossed
Will you ever heave a sigh and a wish for me?'

This is my last week in North Bay. I have two short, un-intimidating exams and then I leave. In fact, I only have until Thursday. I hadn't given myself any time at all to think about what any of it all meant until now.
I know it's okay. I know I'll be alright. In five years I've left a lot of things and moved on. And if I am entirely honest with myself, it was never really the city of North Bay that I loved about going to school here. I can get so infuriated with the late buses and the cold winds and the complete absence of Arby's and Quiznos that it genuinely robs me of some peace. I think the politics of the town are silly; only slightly sillier than the politics of the university, which mostly make me tired. And I am more than happy to be leaving Nipissing; after 5 long years of bungling, fumbling and not living up to a reasonable standard of professionalism, I can't wait to stop hemorrhaging money here.
And yet, for all of its spots, I really wish I could stay.

Certainly a big part of it is the people. The community here has been nothing short of miraculous. It defies physics that so much power and love and good can be concentrated in so small a place.
I think it is plain old nostalgia. I know it is better to just move on and be, but so often I would rather live in the happy memories: swimming to the island off Sunset Bay, feeling embarrassed in Kelsey's because my friends were pretending it was my birthday, staying up late at night by candles swapping stories of grace with the Indonesia people, pelting friends with gummy frog candies, sitting around the living room with our laptops out so we wouldn't have to actually talk to each other, walking home from class and being laughed at for being too serious, bailing out the flooded basement with 40 people singing upstairs who I didn't invite, watching my prof's 8 year old son call my most dreaded and aloof first year prof by his first name like it was nothing, running through the tunnel filled with shad flies, being caught holding hands by my roommates on the way home from our first dinner-and-movie date, washing feet in the backyard, seeing the whole city at the lakeshore bandstand for Worship in the Bay, being dunked in the frigid water in the tank at Greenwood after crying in front of all my family and friends and everyone who I ever fooled into thinking I was stronger than that, running around the beach in bright orange everything because my broski was running around in all green, and climbing out of my own bedroom window because they locked me in and wet-willied a key off me.

Here, before the faceless legions of the blogosphere, I say to you all, "Thank you."
Thank you for the laughs and tears and elbows to sternums. Thanks for the free chips and dip, perogies 'recipe' and essay-editing. Thanks for the fresh-baked bread, long nights playing board games and for tackle-hugging me back. Hands-down this has been the most rewarding 5 years of my life. And I very seriously don't know what I'm going to do without you all.