First Steps

I've sent off to several universities for graduate school information. I've been tossing around the idea of going back to grad school (I was in a PhD program in English Lit but dropped out) for a few years now, and I think it's time. I can teach for one more year and then plan to start grad school in the fall of 2008. Meanwhile, I can get my financial ducks in a row, get myself ready for the GRE, and do what I need to do to make this happen. Hubster's in favor of this ... he just wants me to shut up about going back to grad school already.

My subject is, of course, English, but my interest within English is Rhetoric and Composition. Rhet/Comp includes many different areas of study, but my main interests are English language/linguistics and writing program administration. I love teaching, and I apparently have a gift for it, but I really would rather teach on the college level. It's what I always wanted to do, only I wasn't ready for it when I was in grad school before. Besides, my Rhet/Comp focus before was technical writing, and I'm so glad I didn't continue in that direction.

The ultimate goal, besides having a job with easily accessible research libraries, piano practice rooms, and coffee shops, plus time between classes to grade, think, practice, and write? To teach writing. To teach others to teach writing. To research the teaching of writing and publish all the cool stuff I come up with.

I'm not idealistic about much of anything anymore, and I know enough about the university life to know that it's no picnic (it's one reason why I dropped out of grad school in the first place). But the rest of life is no picnic, either. So I'm going to go back.