There are a number of topics which I need to cover in the next few posts which will hopefully make up for the complete lack of any kind of update in the past month and a half. They include: my professional future, wedding planning, artistic endeavor, life in a submarine and the upcoming holiday season.

Here goes.

As for my professional outlook it seems that not taking the GRE in college was a graver mistake than I could ever has imagined. My advice to anyone still enrolled, do it now. I wanted to avoid taking it because I do not agree with the policies of standardized testing and, as someone likely going into the educational field, I have some very decided opinions there. I also did not want to take the time to study for it and to make a trip out of town to take it. On top of that, I had every intention of attending grad school in England within a year of graduation. Well, life has a way of changing the plans you think are so very flawless. The postal system scuttled my grad school plans and then I fell in love. Now I am looking for programs here in the states where they care about the GRE. The biggest kick in the balls is that I could have taken the test for free in college but now in the real world I have to pay $150 for it.

As a result I am revising my plans for career advancement. As a means of hedging my bets and ensuring that I can be in a school program come spring which will provide me with education, career advancement and work opportunities I am now looking into the field of secondary education more seriously. I am looking into programs which will allow me to begin getting a teaching certificate and allow me to take on the five year loan forgiveness program. After five years of making a salary higher than my current one I will have the ability to erase all of my federal student debt. I consider this an opportunity not to be missed. What I need is a program to get me certified which does not wait until the summer to do so. I need to be enrolled in classes, at least half time, for the spring and I also need to be able to work. I do not want to repeat what I did last time which has become, ultimately, more expensive. And so, I search. If anyone knows of any programs or has gone through them I would greatly appreciate the input.

As for planning the wedding, that seems much more straightforward. Perhaps it is because I have a theatre background but the concept of finding a space, preparing it for a particular effect and rehearsing the people for what is, in the end, a production albeit one with incredible emotional attachment and significance is not as daunting as it might be. What worries me is our budget. We are financing the wedding ourselves which means that we need to be more creative with our planning. I definite;y see a lot of potential in our initial planning but am worried that the popular conception of a wedding is miring us in the process of creating a ceremony which is significant for us and expressive of our unique love (i.e. the end goal).

Int he field of artistic endeavor I am trying to get myself back into writing novels and possibly commercially. I might write a few proposals and send them out to publishers if I can find a good source for the proper format of such things. I also have a modern poetry project which is in its early planning stages. The most active of my current projects is a scriptwriting collective. There should be a podcast of the screenplay forthcoming.