Don't read this, I bore myself

Please forgive the stream of conscious.  This post is too long.  

 I should have been better a better student.  I should have stayed after class just to shoot the breeze with my professors.  

I am seriously considering going back to graduate school to become a Speech Language Pathologist.  And for the first time in my life, regarding my academic career, I feel the need to be competitive.  Maybe it's the wedding-high, maybe it's my age, odds are it was a week in Disney World.  But I've got this you can do whatever you set out to do mindset.  

I know I am bright.  I know I am.  I can be sharp, shrewd.  I can be professional and charismatic; charming even, if the light hit me right.  

But I've set my goals high.  I am going to shoot for the best SLP programs in the nation.  I have to try.  They might consider me.  I could get in.  My mother did.  And I am as sharp as my mother.  Albeit, not as driven, but if I could just fake the drive long enough....

I feel like I'm made up of unfinished sentences right now.  If I had... If I could... If they just... if... if... if...

For most of the programs, 3 letters of recommendation are required, 2 from former educators.  This is my biggest hitch.  I had professors I knew well, I had professors I stayed late and chatted with.  But I didn't tap into the potential of the kind of relationship I needed.  And it's been 4 years since I've had classes with some of those.  Asking for a letter of recommendation seems so silly.  Would they even remember me?  I did nothing of note.  My presence in their class barely sticks out in my own mind.  I'm screwed.  Unless I go back to school to fulfill some more requirements and then really butter up the professors, I don't see how I can meet this requirement adequately enough to get into the best SLP program in the nation.  

What else would have helped: participating in a research program.  I did a few research projects that I poured myself into, but they were for a grade and I did them independently, not for the university or anything like that.  

I just.  I just want to try.  

The person above is either moving in or moving out.  Or bowling.  

I feel like my apartment complex is the home to the daily tiny dog parade.  It's kind of not fair.  I'd really like a tiny dog.  But then I think about all that comes with having a tiny dog.  Random sleepovers when you're at your friends' or sister's, can't happen.  You have to let them out at 5am.  They want in your bed and you don't want them there.  They're hairy and they track dirt in.  Accidents on the carpet.  Sometimes they just sit in front of you while you're reading and whine and you're like "I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT," so you feed them peanut butter.  

We got to go to our homes this weekend.  Friday evening Zach's parents.  Saturday evening my parents.  

Zach's more accustomed to being out of the house than I am.  I finished a book the other night/ morning (4am- it was one of those must-finish-tonight books) and then was the only one awake and the story is a cliff hanger and it was melancholy and I was homesick.  I've been really solid since the honeymoon.  Like returning to the apartment, not my parent's house, finalized something.  But it's stupid.  I miss my dad.  I miss my mom.  I miss Becky.  I feel like they need me there to take care of them and I'm not and they're all going to implode.  

Zach and I have decided to train for another half marathon.  Last time I weenies out and only did a 5k.  I just was at a point with my job and planning the wedding and training that my stress level was choking me and I knew I had to choose to cut out what I could.  But this time.  This time I've got nothing but time.  I've got a sense of how I run in a race.  I can do it.  I know I'm fully capable.  

The job search is still moot.  I don't know where to look.  I mean, I do, but I don't.  If I so chose to go into Speech Language Pathology, specifically to work with children, the smartest thing now would be to work with children.  But I am not a teacher.  I've been burned by the paraprofessional program.  I've applied at a few daycares to be a teaching assistant.  It's not that I don't think I could be a lead teacher in a daycare classroom, but I'm really not qualified.  But those options are limited with the immediacy with which I need work.  So I've also applied at about 1800 (exaggerating-duh) retail places.  I've got retail experience.  

It's just, if the stars align just right and I get into graduate school somewhere, I have to really be sure this is the career I choose.  And that feels like a lot of pressure.  I have a fair amount of student loans out in my name already.  I would have to take them out again, because God knows I don't have the money.  It has to be worth it.  Absolutely worth it.  

It has been one full month since I got married.  What a wonderful day, I can see now why it is such a monumental event.  We have yet to get pictures to choose from, but I think we will soon.  And marriage is so wonderful.  I thought it would feel weird, never having to leave Zach, but it felt right.  Like, leaving him what the weird thing, not what had been the norm.  We've had spats and I never realized before how much he rolls around in his sleep, but it's the beginning of the best choice I've ever made.  

Since I'm not working, I've been devouring books lately.  I finished 50 Shades of Grey, which I hate that I liked.  I finished Insurgent, which was so good.  I'm almost done with the fourth Harry Potter book again.  I started the second 50 Shades of Grey book.  It feels wonderful.  I love reading.  

I'm at a point in my life where I could make everything change.  Or let it all stay exactly the same.  

For another day, I suppose.

Kate