The first thing is that I feel like I am doing very little for anyone else. My days consist of class, work, working out, and generally some time at the BCM. With the exception of coaching basketball all of my time is spent doing things that I want to do and focusing on me. This is not who I want to be. I want to be loving people. I want to be doing bigger things with my life. I don't want to end up doing the same thing everyday of college and when graduation comes realize that I did nothing for anyone but my self while I was here. Last week I read a book called Changing the Face of Hunger. It is written by congressman Tony Hall. He writes about his journey to end poverty. Reading this book reminded me that this is something I am passionate about. My senior year of high school I did a lot of research on the issue(for a project) and was genuinely trying to do things that would contribute to ending poverty, but for some reason I have forgotten about it since. I don't know what this passion is going to looked like lived out right now, but I do know that I want to do something with it. I have a few ideas about how I can help and I am going to share those ideas with some people and try to figure out what it is going to look like for me to do something for someone other than myself this coming semester.
The second thing that I have been thinking about has been on my mind because of Changing the Face of Hunger and because of Jill Harshman. For almost as long as I can remember I have wanted to be a teacher. The reason I want to be a teacher is because I want to help students learn to love learning and learn to love history. I want history to be an enjoyable class and I want students to look forward to coming to class. Somehow I got sidetracked from this goal. I decided that I wanted to teach the "smart" kids because I didn't want to be challenged by the students who hate/are not good at school, but the more I have thought about this the less this matches up to my goal. These kids already love to learn. Why would I want to teach them when they already have what I want to give them? So a few weeks ago Jill was telling me about Teach for America. It is a program to get teachers into inner cities schools.(http:/www.teachforamerica.org) In thinking about their program and reading this book, I have decided that I need to be a teacher in an inner city school somewhere. I need to be with the kids who aren't as bright and who are not given as many resources. These are the kids who are from poor families and are often just passed on from grade to grade without any real knowledge. I want to teach these students! I want to help them overcome the socioeconomic situations they have been born into. I want to help them learn. I want to help them learn to love learning! So I think when I am finished with my undergrad I am going to apply to be a Teach for America teacher. I know that this is a going to be a challenging endeavor, but I think it will be well worth it.
The third thing I have really been thinking about lately is the lack of spontaneity in my life. I am such a planner and although I generally am okay with this, sometimes I need a little excitement in my life. I have all of these fun things that I want to do, but because they don't fit into my schedule I don't do them. So, I need all of you to help me have more fun!
