We're Running!

The title of this blog is called Inching to England, mostly because most of the time, I feel like I'm inching. It's very hard to make big strides when anxiety is holding you back. Sometimes it's hard to even walk.

I currently feel like I'm running.

Throughout my not-so-impressive college career, I've had graduate school thrown in my face. Both of my parents went to grad school. They both have Masters degrees. My dad was on track for a PhD before he decided he wanted to teach high school. My parents are always telling me how much fun grad school was; the living in an apartment, taking the specialised classes that you wanted to take, getting a nice big grace period on your student loans.

GRADUATE SCHOOL! SIGN UP HERE!

Graduate school, fortunately or unforunately, was never really an option for me during the first three years of my college career. That would be because I was in the secondary education programme. Meaning that I was going to college to be a high school English teacher.

I've wanted to be a teacher, quite literally, my whole entire life. Both of my parents are teachers. Everyone in my family is a teacher and sometimes it's exhausting. I mean, I have great aunts in Ohio that are teachers. When I say that everyone is a teacher, I really mean it, and it does get exhausting when Thanksgiving dinner is nothing but discussing governmental educational mandates and how they're ruining my parents' lives. 

I took every single education class in the programme except two during my first three years at school. I did 72 hours of field placement at the local high school in 9th grade Spanish, 11th grade English, and 12th grade English. I taught lessons. I even taught a lesson on Macbeth without actually reading Macbeth, and I thought that was a pretty decent victory.

I made the decision this year that I was going to drop out of the programme, not student teach, and just graduate with my Bachelor's in English and Writing. It was a very big decision filled with lots of tears, calling home and crying, and meeting with professors and crying. Just generally... lots of tears.

So that left this gigantic void in my life that went, WELL NOW WHAT?

My whole college career professors would come up to me and say, "Beckett, I really think that you should pursue grad school." And my comeback would always be, "That's nice, but I'm getting a teaching license. Going to grad school would hinder my ability to get hired."

Now all of my friends are furiously taking the GRE and applying to grad schools and suddenly this feels like an option.

Even typing the word GRE is making me almost too anxious to continue writing this post. It is very obvious that I am not going to take that exam and that I never will. I have also discovered it is very difficult to find a Master of Fine Arts programme with an emphasis on creative fiction writing that does not need a GRE score.

And then I sat down and I seriously thought about my life. And I realised something really important. I do not have to go to grad school, but it is sounding appealing even though I'm miles behind in the application process. I have the ability to take a gap year and do something neat with it. I also do not have to go to grad school in the United States.

And that was when I discovered Study Across the Pond.

Study Across the Pond is a programme designed specifically for people like me, people that want to study in the UK. I instantly signed up and now I have a personal advisor. This means a few things.

1. My personal advisor sends me lists of schools that have my programme for me to look at.

2. I can apply to 3-5 grad schools in the UK for free.

3. If I get accepted to one, my advisor will help with my travel plans.

4. She will help me with getting a visa.

5. She will answer any and all questions I have.

I currently have an email from my advisor, Jackie, and in that email is a list of about ten schools that have an MFA in creative fiction writing. Two of them are in Scotland, one is in Wales, and the rest are in England. I can start applying whenever I want and it's free. 

This means that I'm not sitting alone in my apartment wondering how on earth I'm going to get to England, because that's what everyone asks me. "Hey, uh, Beckett? How exactly are you going to get to England?" And the answer is always a sad smile and a little shrug. Or just a generic, "Hell if I know."

But now I have a definitive answer.

"Well, if you must know, you incredibly nosy adult, I am going to graduate school there and I will leave with a Masters of Fine Arts in creative fiction writing." 

I mean, obviously I'm not going to grad school yet. I did my running, and I'm kind of back to inching until I actually apply. And before I do that, I need to actually research the grad schools. And of course, in all that time and tinkering I have to do, anxiety is going to weasel its way in and it's going to do everything it can to keep me from going.

I'm not going to let it keep me from going. I have a clear path to doing what I want in my life and what's more, to doing it when I want to do it, and I'm going to run as fast as I can to get there.

Hopefully it won't be like this.