Adventures of a Shockingly Average 30-Something

"You got your degree in childhood education, right?" "Yeah, but doing my first student teaching placement, I realized I didn't really want to be a teacher." "Oh, yeah it is hard to find a job in that field right now." "No, I just don't want to be a teacher." "So you're not.... doing anything then?" It's a conversation I've had far too many times since I walked the stage at graduation last May.  I had a great time in college.  When I graduated college, it was probably the most successful I'd felt in my entire life.  I'd worked so hard for five years of my life.  I stayed up late studying.  I did the assignments, the homework, the classwork.  I cried over extra-credit projects, and failing was one of my biggest fears.  I somehow managed to juggle classwork, friends, and several different clubs.  During student teaching, I spent all of my free time grading papers, trying to come up with fun/interactive les...

I loved my dad.  I still do.  Because he's my dad.  But the thing is, when I was growing up, we never really had a lot of father-daughter moments or had that father-daughter relationship you see depicted in the media.  I don't remember a time where I ever lived in the same state as him.  He was  is my dad, but he was also someone who I only saw maybe four or five times a year. I wasn't oblivious to the fact that I didn't have the same relationship with my dad that my friends had with theirs.  I had a great family situation - I lived just up the road from my grandparents and, for a few years, my aunt and uncle lived right in the same building at my mom, my sister, and I did... but I still found myself jealous of what my friends had that I didn't - their dad as a constant in their life.  Their dad as someone they could turn to whenever something happened.  Their dad as someone who could help them with homework or who would grill hamburge...