Friday, June 11, 2010

Transitions (warning: long)

I have tried my hand at blogging in the past, but was never able to keep up the motivation to post regularly. Hopefully that will be different this time around!

As many of you know, Austin and I recently relocated to Shreveport so that I could begin a master's program in Speech-Language Pathology here at LSU Health Science Center-Shreveport. Many of you also know that I was not excited about this move. One would think that the chance to pursue a degree in a field you are passionate about would be a happy thing! And that chance excited me, no doubt. But the thought of having to leave my beloved home in New Orleans, leaving my friends, my church.... not so exciting. Actually, quite the opposite. But we went through with the decision, confident that God knows much more than we do.

Just days after I wrapped up my job at Early Steps, and Austin finished up his year at O. Perry Walker, our wonderful, amazing, loving friends came over for a night of truck loading, pizza and beer. The next morning we hit the road towards our new home, where other wonderful friends were waiting to help us unload and unpack. A few weeks later our apartment is now unpacked and decorated and feeling more like home. I'll post pictures in the next post.

Life in Shreveport has been odd so far, but good in many ways. Austin is working for a wonderful organization this summer called Louisiana Teaching Fellows. LTF is a program much like Teach for America (which is what brought us to New Orleans). LTF provides alternative certification program for people who want to become teachers, in exchange for their commitment to teach for 2 years in a high need school. Austin is teaching at their summer institute, training new teachers! It is a really busy job, he's gone almost 11 hrs a day. But I am so proud of him for doing it, since it increases his impact on students exponentially!

Grad School. I've been so worried and scared about grad school for over a year now: taking the GRE, working on applications, waiting on acceptances, and then bellyaching about what grad school would be like and if i'd survive! We'll I'm happy to say that I've now finished my third week and I'm not dead yet! We started with orientation, which was basically a day of hearing nothing but warnings about how stressed out we will be, which was pretty overwhelming. But classes have been wonderful!! Our professors are great and so helpful. My first test is next friday, but I feel really confident! My classmates are great and we've been studying together after class almost every day. One thing that is very different from undergrad is having all your classes with the same people, and all of you being passionate about the same thing! It creates much more of a supportive atmosphere! Next post I'll talk about our first cadaver lab! (it was awesome)

This post is long enough now. If you've read this far, thanks! To sum it up:
Our friends and family: awesome
Our new apartment: amazing
Austin's job: rewarding
Grad school: super cool
Shreveport:.... over all not so bad... but still not Nola.

3 comments:

  1. squuueeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! blogging is fun! i think about you guys all the time. we miss you!!!! i think nola should be referenced at least 3 times in each post. :)

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  2. sommer! i think about you all the time toooooo! how about yall move up here and we can just have cocktails all the time and pretend its new orleans? no? i understand.
    I will probably mention nola so much that people will quit reading my blog :)

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  3. I'm glad you're here! You can't move away again until I'm ready to move with you.

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