That Darn Dream Job is Not Helping Me.

Oh the joys of being unemployed. It's like this: I am starting to get a picture in mind of what sort of thing I would like to do but I am pretty clueless as to where to get started. I don't know who to talk to at all or where to begin (and, might I add, Craigslist job ads are sketchy and I really don't wanna post an ad on there that would seem to be associated with the creepy "Mancave Tourguide" one I saw the other day. Yes, that was what it was called). Alright, so here's kind of what I am thinking my "dream job" would be. Granted, I'm sure there are issues with my "vision" and all but that could all be worked out later on.

I know I have spent the last 5 years preparing to graduate to become a teacher. I knew that the classroom was what I wanted to work in, and I am not saying that my education is going to be wasted or that I will never teach a classroom of students, but I want something a little different right now. This may mean more schooling, or just getting my name out there somehow. I noticed throughout my field experiences and student teaching that I loved teaching Language Arts and Reading. I think part of the reason is that I feel it is so important to be able to read for fun and to identify parts of speech, etc. I also have noticed a HUGE lacking in the grammar area of school with many students, and I honestly find that shocking. I mean I can't say that I love to look at work sheets and sentences and pick out each part of speech, but I think it is good to have knowledge of some of these things (when I was student teaching in 4th grade the students could not tell me what a noun was, even though when I was teaching nouns it was their 2nd or 3rd time through it that school year, and that could definitely be the students). I feel like some of these things are getting overlooked because we are getting to be all about science and math and trying to excel in those areas. Not that I feel we should not do well in those areas, but I feel like we have a difficult time concentrating on all of the areas. So I think I would mostly like to work in the Language Arts area of it all, and I almost want to tutor groups of students or individual students on their own on various things such as grammar, spelling, writing, etc. I want to work with small groups, because I feel it is most valuable to students, and I want to work in that one content area. I want to be able to offer these things to homeschooled students. Now, I do not want to say that the mothers that are homeschooling have no idea what they are doing, because I think they do a pretty good job. I was homeschooled from 3rd-5th grade. I think my mom did a really good job, even though she and I definitely butted heads constantly. I do feel that there are some things that are tested in standardized tests and eventually ACTs that I was not excelling in though, and I feel like that it would have been beneficial to learn from someone else. Grammar was fine for me, but I never really worked hard on the writing piece and I never worked on finding various things within in a story. When I worked with the 4th graders we worked on identifying different traits of characters and we worked on finding themes within the writing. I never worked on that until I went to school in 6th grade. I want to offer some sort of tutoring/instructional service to those that homeschool as to help students with those things. I think that sometimes it's really beneficial to work with someone not your family, and I know that when I was in various homeschool groups that was one of the best parts. I got to learn all kinds of things from other moms and it was really interesting. I want to be that.

Now, I know there are probably a million flaws in that vision of mine. I am sure there are so many things to tweak and change, but that is what I'm thinking. I really find these skills to be incredibly useful, and I want to help people out and help them make these skills stronger. But now I have no clue how to get started. Who do I talk to? Is there someone to even talk to about something like this? How do I get started?

As of now I am not really working. I do not know where to apply because I have no clue how long I can commit to anything. So I am sure me being a tutor of some sort sounds terrible because I may not be able to see it all the way through. But, the good thing about being a tutor is that it is something you CAN do online via skype. It's actually kind of cool. I was looking into some things with online tutoring and there are programs for you as an instructor to create notes that the student can use and add to and such. Really cool. I am patiently (haha, right... patiently) awaiting that darn teaching license. There are like no para subbing jobs, at all. I did recently accept one, but that one is not until October 12th. Lovely, right? So I guess any job suggestions would be fabulous. I would love to not have to work retail because I honestly do not know who would hire me due to lack of retail experience. The downside to being a lifeguard since high school is that no one will give me any experience anywhere else. I am getting really frustrated with all of this. I feel like I am not helping out in any sort of way financially and that I am really becoming kind of worthless. I have also noticed that everything I have thought about doing or dreamt of doing lately involves promoting reading and good reading habits. I want to show students that you can have fun reading, but it's a little hard to do that from my basement. I should probably just suck it up and look for something else. I have no clue how to even begin to accomplish what I want.

Any suggestions, help, or leads of any sort about anything job related that applies to me is much appreciated.  For now I will continue to read books and ponder life from my mother's basement.

On an unrelated note....ADAM LEVINE!