Who am I?

Before I tell you about where I'm going, I feel like I should tell you where I have been. In the past 7 years I have been many things - undergraduate, sorority sister, White House intern, girlfriend, grad student, teacher, fiance, wife, senior women's sponsor; not to mention daughter and big sister. I've never lacked for things to do, and life has definitely not been boring.

I know you are asking - if you want to be a doctor, how did you end up a teacher? Well, I haven't always wanted to be a doctor. Oh sure, I was the little brainiac girl growing up who thought she wanted to be a doctor, but then I got older, and I didn't want to spend my "whole life" in school (I was only a kid you know). So, unlike 90% of the student's who major in Biology (at least their first year...) I did not want to go to Medical school during my undergraduate. However, I did not know what I wanted to do. I knew I didn't want to spend my youth in some lab as a research assistant. I had had a rather dull experience in a plant genetics research lab during my junior year, where I was required to harvest the seeds off of arabidopsis plants (which are extremely small if you didn't know) and repot plants. Very tedious.

I heard about a program at the school that gave you both a Master's degree and a teaching certificate. I decided that I would teach for the time being. It felt right. I would be sharing my love of the biological sciences with young minds and could be a positive force in some young student's life (yeah...I was an idealist). So for the past three years I have taught high school freshman biology, AP environmental science, environmental systems, and AP Biology. Teaching has been an interesting experience, and I strongly believe that it influenced me to be who I am now. In fact, if I had never taught AP Biology, I may never have discovered the path my life was intended to take.

More on that in the next post.