Molding young minds.
Nov. 28th, 2012 03:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
karenhealeyInternets! Wow! Okay!
Some stuff has been happening, let's get to it.
1: I'm going to be a secondary school teacher!
Internets, equal with my love of telling imaginary people what to do is my love of telling people what I think about things. I mean, presumably you know that. You read this blog.
I really love teaching - I taught drama to younger kids in high school, and Shakespeare and YA lit to undergrads at Canterbury University, and English to students in Japan and Cinema to undergrads in Melbourne, not to mention a hefty chunk of creative writing workshops. I once thought I would become a university lecturer and teach at that level forever, but my experience as a PhD student convinced me that this path was not for me. It's a fine job! But teaching is a much smaller part of it than I had anticipated, and that was the part I was really into.
So this year, while I was living with my parents and occasionally my younger sister (taking off for the States again in a week, SO GLAMOUROUS), I worked retail, wrote some books, and thought a lot about what I wanted to do. I am so grateful that my family let me live rent-free, and that they were in a position to do so.
And what I want to do is teach English and Classics to teenagers.
(Internets, are you thinking, Karen, did it seriously take you a year to realise that? Because it didn't - it took about two weeks, and then the rest of the time was spent making sure I was right. Maturity!)
I applied to the intense and excellent program at the New Zealand Graduate School of Education and was accepted. I'm moving back to Christchurch, city of my heart. I start training in late January, and start getting real experience in classrooms shortly after that. To protect the privacy of my future students (!!!) I will not be blogging about that in anything but the most generalized terms, but I am SO EXCITED. And nervous. AND EXCITED.
I also have to pay for it, about which more later.
2: There is going to be a sequel to When We Wake!
MY FIRST SEQUEL. I've been calling it Cheerbaby Goes To State for a while now, but the real title - thus far! - is While We Run. It's told from the point of view of Abdi Taalib and we're looking at a publication date of April 2014, and that is about all I'm going to tell you right now, but I am EXCITED. And nervous. AND EXCITED.
So that's what's up with me, Internets. How are you doing?
Some stuff has been happening, let's get to it.
1: I'm going to be a secondary school teacher!
Internets, equal with my love of telling imaginary people what to do is my love of telling people what I think about things. I mean, presumably you know that. You read this blog.
I really love teaching - I taught drama to younger kids in high school, and Shakespeare and YA lit to undergrads at Canterbury University, and English to students in Japan and Cinema to undergrads in Melbourne, not to mention a hefty chunk of creative writing workshops. I once thought I would become a university lecturer and teach at that level forever, but my experience as a PhD student convinced me that this path was not for me. It's a fine job! But teaching is a much smaller part of it than I had anticipated, and that was the part I was really into.
So this year, while I was living with my parents and occasionally my younger sister (taking off for the States again in a week, SO GLAMOUROUS), I worked retail, wrote some books, and thought a lot about what I wanted to do. I am so grateful that my family let me live rent-free, and that they were in a position to do so.
And what I want to do is teach English and Classics to teenagers.
(Internets, are you thinking, Karen, did it seriously take you a year to realise that? Because it didn't - it took about two weeks, and then the rest of the time was spent making sure I was right. Maturity!)
I applied to the intense and excellent program at the New Zealand Graduate School of Education and was accepted. I'm moving back to Christchurch, city of my heart. I start training in late January, and start getting real experience in classrooms shortly after that. To protect the privacy of my future students (!!!) I will not be blogging about that in anything but the most generalized terms, but I am SO EXCITED. And nervous. AND EXCITED.
I also have to pay for it, about which more later.
2: There is going to be a sequel to When We Wake!
MY FIRST SEQUEL. I've been calling it Cheerbaby Goes To State for a while now, but the real title - thus far! - is While We Run. It's told from the point of view of Abdi Taalib and we're looking at a publication date of April 2014, and that is about all I'm going to tell you right now, but I am EXCITED. And nervous. AND EXCITED.
So that's what's up with me, Internets. How are you doing?
no subject
Date: 2012-11-28 02:36 am (UTC)And my heartiest congratulations on your new career plan, too!
no subject
Date: 2012-11-28 03:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-28 05:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-28 07:52 am (UTC)Congratulations a gazillion times over!
no subject
Date: 2012-11-28 11:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-28 03:46 pm (UTC)In answer to your concluding question, grumpy, tired, and stressed.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-29 01:36 am (UTC)Also excited for a sequel.
I saw this and thought of you:
Blancanieves: An evocative and enchanting reinterpretation of the Grimm fairy tale that refashions Snow White as a female bullfighter in 1920s Seville. It's playing at our summer film festival, so may appear at a festival or arthouse cinema near you.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-29 03:30 am (UTC)Shifting into highschool teaching alongside the writing sounds like a fantastic idea. And I can see what you mean about university teaching being great in theory if you can mainly do the teaching, but it all does tend to get bound up in PhD stuff, research, deadlines, presenting your own work, the politics of academia (depending on universities and departments) securing grants etc. and the focus - sadly - becomes less about the students.
I also think you'd make a fantastic teacher. You're interested in learning about enthusiastic about sharing it in fiction and non-fiction. I think it'd be a great thing to do!
no subject
Date: 2012-11-29 06:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-29 02:28 pm (UTC)